Eleven Point - Booth Design

It has been forever. UGH. My apologies.
Lately I have had so many emails and messages and even a few phone calls from you awesome people who tell me that you are waiting for me to post more booth stuff.
Good news. I have new booth stuff for you.
It's actually from August 2014 NY NOW. Pretty new.

This is the Eleven Point Home Fragrance booth. It was on Pier 94 and the newest brand introduction of my awesome client Scentations Home Fragrance. I love love love working with this company, and am so proud of what we created for Eleven Point. I will post more about the line separately, but let's get to what you are asking for, the booth stuff.

This was a 10"x10" corner booth. As with most of us, they didn't want to spend a gazillion dollars on a booth but, they still wanted a presence. The goal was to create a little wholesale shop where buyers could see the line, quickly understand the line, experience the fragrances and place orders.
The NY NOW show is offering some new options for walls these days, so there was no need for foam board this time. We decided to order the MDF panel option and have them paint it for us, you just need to supply them with the Behr paint color (I chose a charcoal grey). We needed 2 ten foot walls done (since we had a corner). On the Piers we did this through FB International (via the show). The pricing was somewhere around $150 per panel (painted) and we needed 6 panels (they cut them and price them to just a little over 3' each since most of the booths are sold in 10' increments, if you go to Lowe's or Home Depot, they will be 4'x8' and you will pay around $25/panel unpainted), the unpainted was $120/panel. Not cheap. I know.
If you are local, the process they used to make the walls was super simple (explained below) and it could be easily done for WAY cheaper, but, if you are not local, it could be a pain to get this done on your own as the panels are not easy to transport and move around, they aren't heavy, this particular MDF was only 3/8" thick, these panels are floppy and cumbersome and 8 ft long.

If you decide to build a booth like this yourself, I would definitely go for the heavier MDF so that screwing into it wouldn't be an issue if you wanted to hang shelves or anything heavy-ish and remember to get the panels cut to your booth size so they fit your walls, or, you can always take 3 panels per wall and place your middle panel over the 2 others and the empty space, so that there wouldn't be cutting involved (and it looks pretty cool too).
I talked about this method with foam board here

Let's get to it...introducing the August 2014 Eleven Point booth

Here's what I did.
As mentioned the walls were ready to go - well, almost, when I got to the booth they were still being painted, but, it was done quickly. In a nutshell, this is what FB International did for the walls - they screwed in 2 little silver squared inverted U brackets at the top of each of the panels and simply hung them over the squared bars of the booth structure. (This is new too, remember how the booths were all loose drape over round poles? square now.)

No, they were not super strong and yes, a few of the brackets fell off and I had to have FB come and put them back in. MDF is not the greatest stuff to screw into, often screws don't catch and slip right out, this is what was happening, but it was fixable.

I had ordered a strip of wallpaper that was the same pattern I had designed in the line's packaging to personalize the space - I worked with Murals Your Way for this and used this same idea in all of our summer showrooms. It was easy and quick to install and is actually removable, so it can be used for a few shows if you need. Since my wall paint was pretty fresh, the vinyl didn't stick as securely as I would have liked, so I just added a few staples to make sure it was not going to unpeel.

For the booth sign, I had our graphics printed at Fedex Kinkos and I spray painted an old textured frame gold.
The wall sconces were a fun addition, they are battery operated, and don't shed much light, but they added a nice touch to the booth and didn't require wiring to install, only a plastic pushpin.
I bought several sets (again for all of our showrooms) on ebay. This particular set I sprayed gold quickly, to match the frame and the other booth details (they were originally a bronze color).

The frames on the wall were super lightweight black plastic Ikea frames (with plexi fronts rather than glass) and each one had a fragrance description from the Eleven Point line that I laid out and, again, printed at Kinkos. I had originally wanted to place 6 frames on one wall and 3 on the other, but that didn't happen, so I did a quick adjustment and put all 9 on the same wall.
Since the frames were so light, I used heavy duty velcro tape to stick them to the walls, MUCH faster and more forgiving than nails and hooks.
The cute linen grey bench was a score at TJ Max.

The table is from World Market, a gorgeous extendable table that we will be using for a while and was surprisingly easy to assemble (sign up for their emails and you will get great coupons and free shipping vouchers).

The carpet is from the wonderful Flokati Phil. I have had one of his Flokati rugs in our loft for many years and love it, so I called him to help me find the right one for the Eleven Point Booth. Once I was in the booth, I realized that an oval shape was the way to go, so all I did was tuck the corners under and it became this awesome puffy oval soft addition to the booth.


For the shelf under the Eleven Point sign, I used light metal brackets from Ikea and sprayed them gold, and a piece of wood that I had cut to the length I wanted at Home Depot. I added a coat of wood stain to it to bring it to the color of the other woods in the booth. I stained the extra piece they had cut off for me, and used it as a riser in the middle of the table to add a second layer to the main display.
Since the MDF walls were not very sturdy, I used my foam board trick and placed 2 pieces of scrap wood behind the shelf brackets to screw into - this added a lot of strength to the shelf.
(I would NOT have done a wall of shelves on these walls without doing some serious securing first, and even then, these thin MDF walls are not built for lots of shelving, I wouldn't risk it).

Here are some photos of the process, and the finished booth.

still more great booths!

My booth piece continues with  more of my favorites in the simple, clean, lower budget-but-fabulous category from the August 2010 New York Gift Fair,  here they are:

http://www.9spotmonk.com/ did a GREAT booth! foamcore white walls, covered in a fabulous high gloss orange vinyl adhesive. They also built a wall right in the middle of their booth which not only added 2 extra walls for displaying but also added architecture to the square booth. They used a craft paper brown to offset the high gloss orange to make their wall, for their bench at the back of the booth and for their floor.

LOVE this booth!

(and hope to have a link to share with you soon on where they got their orange high gloss vinyl!

http://www.flipandtumble.com/ took white and clean to new heights!

They did a floor that looks like wood, simple white furnishings (Ikea) and white walls.

They lined their white walls with their fantastic bags, making the colors simply POP!

I think the simplicity of this booth and the almost laboratory look of it was a really smart way to showcase their products, let me tell you, walking down their aisle, you HAD to look in their booth, and that, as the fabulous martha would say, is a good thing!

Lastly in this series, one of my favorite little booths at the show, http://www.baileydoesntbark.com/ .

Everytime I walked past this booth, I would admire and swoon a little...

Using simple dark stained wooden shelves and tables with non color, natural textured extras and vintagy details they acheived a beautiful soft look yet with a very sophisticated feel, right down to their beautiful sign! (the font is amazing!).

Through their display, they did a great job showing their clients how easy and impactful it could be to show their products once clients order them and have them in store.

They are showing retailers that their products look great grouped  (hey retailers, buy a bunch of our stuff and you too can have this look!) Hello? who wouldn't want this look!?

So smart! So effective...YAYE Bailey Doesn't Bark!

(for some crazy reason I didn't ask...but I hope Bailey is a cat or a fish...or a pet rock...)

New York International Gift Fair - August 2010

Yes, I survived another NY Gift Fair...I would have posted sooner, however, I came home with a terrible cold and guess who got it?...Tess! The little one has been sick for a full week, fever, rash, no appetite, trouble sleeping, crying and so unhappy...it has been a LONG week, let me tell you! (happy to report that she is starting to turn a corner and it seems she is feeling a bit better...phew!)
I actually went into this show not really knowing what to expect. I think that generally, we are all hoping that something magical will happen, that suddenly trade show aisles will fill up with buyers aching to spend huge amounts of money, but so far, unfortunately, this is still not the case. Buyers are still careful, understandably so. There seemed to almost be high fiving going on, lots of "so happy to see you here" comments, lots of buyers stating simply, "well, you are still here and we are still here and that's something!".
We are all trying to weather this storm, come out the other end and still be standing somehow.
I suppose hearing everyone say the same thing in some way is reassuring. It's nice to somehow know that BlueDogz Design is not the only little company struggling. And it was great to see some of our long standing clients. Not necessarily buying HUGE, but buying nonetheless, and every little bit counts!

Arriving at the booth was a bit messy...my pallet, which I reported would be sitting quietly in my booth, waiting for my arrival and eager to be set up, was NOT waiting for me in my booth, but rather halfway up the aisle and partially in another nice exhibitor's booth...this was so NOT the plan.Getting that reassuring email from Freeman (the company in charge of drayage at the show) saying that my pallet had been delivered to my booth the day before leaving to drive to the show was apparently a bit of a stretch.
It would not have been so bad if the aisle had been clear enough to get one of the Freeman gentlemen to move my pallet to my booth for me, but our aisle was piled high with crates and bins and booths and junk, there was barely enough room to walk the aisle. This made life a little more complicated. I had to tear down the pallet up the aisle and lug everything piece by piece to my booth, via 3 aisles east and through other people's booths, where we could actually get stuff through.
Honestly? I don't have much compared to other companies in terms of booth decor and storage but this alone took about 3 hours, (always be ready for the worst!).
Ah, the booth...without the stretched canvas walls (as requested) and with the booth carpeting (which we had requested NOT be installed). Well, one out of two ain't bad!
We usually get the canvas and no carpet, eventhough we don't use either, but this time it was reversed.
I italisized the word carpeting because I have to say, WOW, that was a sad excuse for a Carpet!
Not only did it not cover the whole booth space that we rent, missing almost 2 feet along the entire frontage of the booth (if my math is right, in a booth that is 25 feet long that is about 50 square feet, right?). It was even more skinny and non carpetish than ever. Kind of like a piece of black felt taped to the floor. I'm very happy that we don't count on the show carpet to complete our booth look.
Here is the booth:

We ended up ordering electricity this time even if our booth comes equipped with lights. The extra lighting supplied by the clamp lights really brightened things up.

more to come ... stay tuned!

sidetracked...

there I was on a roll...and you all decided to email me offline and ask me a gazillion questions about booth design and ideas...first off, thanks for all the email and feedback, it's nice to know that you are reading these postings, remember, you can leave your comments right here, yes, here! right on the blog...don't be shy!
secondly, we are leaving for the show this weekend, in other words, time is running out on this stuff...
thirdly, it really isn't, so relax.
as I found out, many of you have great ideas and are using this information to tweak your booth more than anything, I like that!...given this knowledge, I will make sure that I spend some time taking photos of great booths or great booth elements for you to peruse. I will stick with the chiconomy style booths, where my experience is based, fun, clean, impactful stylish looks for those who can't or are not willing to break the bank or ship a house across the country. I look forward to taking some time to walk the show and check out the booths and to share them with you within the following few weeks.
I will also have used the new Foamwerks tools, so I will  also have all the news on that. Plus, of course the show news!

I have also been sidetracked by a few other things recently...
it's pretty new news, so hold tight and stay tuned...I am feeling ready to announce...(NO! I am not pregnant!)
In the meantime, happy boothing and you'd  better stop by our New York International Gift Fair booth! #4149

more layout options

I had shown you an easy foam board layout for a 10'x10' booth here , by using 3, 4'x8' foam board panels per wall. You would place a panel at each side, right to the corner and overlap a 3rd panel in the center of the wall, like this (this shows one wall).
For a 10'x 10' booth, this design layout would use 9 panels of foam board.

Here is another way to plan your layout.

Find the center of your wall. Line up 2 panels of foam board so that they meet in the center of your wall. Now you will have 1 foot left of space on either side to cover up.

At this point, you can play around with your design a little bit...

1- You can start putting up your side walls now, but start at the front poles on each side, like this.

You will have 2 panels per wall, on your back wall, the panels will be centered, on the side walls your panels will be lined up with the front poles. Result will be 2 feet of unfoamed wall on each of your side walls (the area near the back of your booth), plus, 1 foot on each side of your back wall that is unfoamed. In other words, your 2 back corners will be open.

2- Here comes the fun part...well, some of us weirdos think this is fun!...

You can now decide how you would like to cover your empty space in the back corners.

You might want to use a panel that is scored down the center to fit into the corners. You can slip the excess behind your already set panels, or trim them with a sharp box cutting tool/blade.

You might decide to make a diagonal wall, by attaching a panel from your back wall to your side wall. There are no rules here...you can do both corners differently, one as a fit corner and one as a diagonal, get creative! This can actually make your very square booth look a little bit more interesting and architectural.

* A note here on storing excess samples or supplies. If you decide to do a diagonal wall, you can actually use the space behind it for some storage! Sometimes we simply tape one side closed on the bottom near the floor and this way we can open the diagonal wall when we need to get back there. (very convenient!)

see our diagonal wall (below) on the right, we displayed our press features on it.

we also kept the trunk in front of it to keep the wall in place!

we did the same thing here (below) with a diagonal wall.

If you make a mistake, cut down your foam board in the wrong place or find that your booth is not exactly the dimensions you had planned for, or the perfect square you had hoped for, don't sweat it, once it's all up and your samples are displayed, if a seam is not perfect, or if one wall is not exactly the mirror image of the other, it won't show...relax, no one will notice! If you need to cleanly run white tape down all your seams to keep things straight and secure, do it! it will look fine (try to use matte rather than glossy tape for that!), if you need to use some heavy duty clamps or extra velcro tape or hot glue- do it!...this is all illusion, it doesn't have to withstand weeks or months of use, it's temporary and really just theater, keep that in mind!

shelves?

By now, you have probably noticed that some of the photos of my booth  feature shelves on the foam board walls...These amazing shelves were the perfect size and weight for trade shows and were available at Ikea for years, to make matters even better (at the time), they ran about $3 per shelf, can you believe it? They called it the STRIPPA shelf (trust me, it is taking every ounce of restraint I can muster to not comment on the name).
Back to the perfect $3 shelf. Kind of too good to be true!...Yes, yes it was! Ikea does not make them anymore. (Waaaaa WAAAA, can you hear that disappointment music?...) I will post a bunch of close up photos of them however, when I am reunited with them in August at the show, if you know a carpenter or woodworker, you might be able to have some made, the construction is crazy easy.
If you want to use another type of small shelf, you can, and hanging them might sound like a process, but in actual fact, it is not that horrible to do, it just takes a little patience, some measuring and some organizing.
Here it goes.

Basically, what you are going to do, is sandwich your foam board between a strip of wood and a shelf,
that is how the shelf will stay up.
In the case of the STRIPPA shelves, there were simply 2 holes supplied, right in the shelves to hang them up.
A screw in each and presto, the shelf was up.

here's a closer shot of a single shelf, you can see where the screws go in on either side of the clipboards.

My process went something like this.
1- I would decide how many shelves I wanted to use and where I wanted to place them on the walls.
2- I would organize my 4-5 ft wood strips and drill holes about a half inch from the top of each one (hole should be wide enough to get a tie wrap through).
3- I would tie wrap the strips of wood to the top pipe (through the drilled holes). The strips of wood would now be hanging down from the top pipe/bar.

you can repeat this step as many times as you need, ie: if you want to put 3 shelves up on this back wall, you will need to tie up 6 wood strips, 2 per shelf. You can do the same for your side walls.

4- Once my wood strips were in place, I would place a sheet of foam board in front of the wood strips, essentially hiding them. For example, if I was starting to put up my foam board in this example on the left side of the back wall it would look like this.

 5- Before you do anything else, it's time to attach a shelf!  I would simply hold my shelf where I wanted to hang it, have a helper hold it, or have the helper reach around and hold the wood strips in place, and drill! (I liked to put my handy little level on the shelf before drilling, just to make sure that it was straight)...As I drill the screw through the shelf holes, they go right through the foam board and into the wood strips behind it. The wood strips ensure that everything is solid and tight and able to bare weight without the foam board tearing. In essence, the wood is carrying the burden of the weight and the foam board is simply sandwiched between the wood and the shelf. It's that easy!

later that day...

but, here's what it will look like (without xray vision)

So, there you have it...the process I used to put up sturdy little shelves in an unstable little world!

I will be testing out lots of new ideas at the show this August however, as I am working with http://www.foamwerks.com/ testing out all their really cool products! I can't wait to share ideas, tips and tricks!

round poles, flat poles...

This is a quick post to let you know that whether your booth comes equipped with round pipes
(photo A)

or flat pipes (photo B) (sounds strange, but some do!)

you can attach your foam board to either.

If you are not getting too fancy (ie: putting up shelving or hanging anything that is heavy to the foam board) the quickest way to attach your foamboard to the pipes is using heavy duty sticky velcro tape.

I love this stuff! But remember, it is STICKY! You won't be able to re-stick it on your foam board once  you have stuck it, you get one chance for this only!

You can buy this at hardware stores or even some office supply stores, I go to http://www.homedepot.com/ or http://www.lowes.com/ usually. It has 2 parts to it that "Velcro" together, one strip will stick to the other, and both strips have sticky outsides. Simply take a good sized piece of it, stick it to the back of your foam board up close to the top edge (but not over the edge, still on the back), peel off the other side and stick it right to the pole/drape/curtain...whatever it is. Presto, your wall is up! I know right? so simple!...

Another popular way to hang foam board to booth structures is using tie wraps, or cable wraps,

these thingies:

Basically the easiest way to use them is to puncture a hole through your foam board a couple of inches below the top edge and stick your tie wrap through the hole from the front, then around the pole/pipe and then secure it closed, you can clip off any excess tie wrap bits that are ugly, too visible or sticking up. DO NOT tie the tie wrap SO tight that it rips your foam board, because then, you are in trouble. Tie them just tight enough to hold them in place and then use some tape or velcro to straighten them out and position them.

Now, this whole sticking the walls up part  is quite simple, but take my advice on a couple of things

1- Make sure that the bottom edge of your foam board is ON the floor, don't try to hang it up an inch or so above the floor- your board will be straight and much stronger if it is ON the floor.

 

2- Plan your foam board layout BEFORE you start sticking stuff up willy nilly.

For example, if your booth is 10' x10' and you know your foam board is 4' wide, how are you going to plan your walls?...decide if you want to start with 2 sheets of board up against each corner (or side wall) and then one overtop, in the center. In other words, the center sheet would overlap on each of the side sheets, like this:

You would then repeat this same process on each of the side walls, thus using a total of 9 sheets of foam board.

*Remember, if you are going to use any sort of a clamp type lighting solution, the clamps will also help to secure your foamboard to your booth's structural pipes.

I will give you several more layout possibilities in the next post, stay tuned! 

your booth and you! a love/hate relationship.

After the previous posts, you might be asking yourself how I could possibly have more to say about foam board...I do...lots more! After using it for years, I have had coups, and, I have had terrible mishaps, I have found great ways to use it, stick stuff to it, hang it, hang stuff to it (even heavy...yes, I CAN!, and will show you how) and embellish it and make it look interesting and architectural...

But do you know what one of the best things about foam board is? When the show is over, I walk out of the convention center and I leave it there...that's right, I never look back...I walk right out! Why? Because at about $20 per sheet and given the fact that foam board would not travel very well on my single pallet, I say, forget it, move on, let it go, buh bye!

As you learned in a previous post, and from links, foam board is made of foam on the inside, HA, go figure! Therefore, if you step on it, puncture it, rip it or scratch it, you really can't repair it, unless you use tape, and a sheet of foam board with tons of tape keeping it together is not sleek or elegant (remember that!).
So, in my humble opinion, move on, for the few hundred dollars that you will spend on booth stuff that you will leave behind, trust me, it's worth it. You will save time, energy, headaches and your pack up will be so much speedier, and as you know, or will know soon enough, when the show is over, the show is OVER, you just want to go home. Leave the old foam board, move on and go home! (I give you permission).

Although that is definitely a PRO for foam board, because you get out and get home quickly, the obvious CON is that you have spent some money on something you can't really reuse. Unless you have the HUGE box that the foamboard came in (and you might not get the box unless you ordered a box full) and a big enough pallet/crate to ship it properly so as not to have it damaged during shipping, you are NOT going to want to reuse it.

Recyclers, reusers, people greener-than-thou, please accept my apologies now and don't moan about it, this is my advice, take it or leave it. I look at it like this, extra hours, extra wasted energy, extra shipping, thus extra fuel consumption, all that to then show up at the next show and see your do-gooding fall to pieces because your recycled foam board has shown up all crapped up and broken...SO NOT WORTH IT! If you can make it work, and keep it for a couple of shows, you are my hero and you should definitely start a blog about how to preserve and ship foam board and link it to me, or at least, a blog post about it.

Cool, now that's out of the way.

Factoid: At this point you should really know that for some crazy fabulous reason, the booths at Americasmart in Atlanta can be foam boarded for you for a VERY reasonable price, and there are even quite a few color choices. Wondering if you should spend the money?, I say YES, let them do it for you, they do a great job. I don't have too too much that is positive to say about the Atlanta show (Gifts and home furnishings market specifically) but this foam board option is amazing. I can't for the life of me understand why it is so affordable in Atlanta and so outrageously expensive in NY, and the Atlanta job is 100% better too (with a wooden structure behind the foam board even!), one of the many mysteries of the trade show universe, I might need to further investigate one day.

Here is an example of your booth that you just spent tons of money on, this one is your basic 10' x 10', you might even get a wastebasket and chair if you are lucky, rest assured, they will be ugly and old.

You will likely get a cardboard sign with your company name on it and possibly the booth number. You will most definitely toss it in the supplied wastebasket, smart move! It's really ugly.

Your show will likely have a show color that is chosen for the carpet, depending on which section you are in, or you can pay more money and choose a custom color that can be installed for you, also relatively ugly, if the carpet is black, heads up, it will absord TONS of light, expect to either really EXTRA light your booth or have a darker looking booth.

This kind of booth is called a pipe and drape booth. Pipes fit together to make up the structure of the booth and ugly, usually beige satiny drapes are hung on 3 sides for your taking down/ covering up/ hiding pleasure.

Some shows have not so ugly drapes, in our present juried in section Studio, at the NY show, we have an off white stretched canvas/muslin type fabric that is on the walls. It's actually not that bad, looks much better than than the usual drape used and yes, we pay lots more to be in this section.
Do we cover it up? We certainly do! (there goes that!).
We also opt to not have carpet in our booth. We will get to our flooring soon, (in a rush? I mentioned it here) but last we checked, apparently the shows are cutting down hundreds of ugly synthetic forests and plants to make the horrendously expensive ugly carpets exhibitors can order, word has it that they do not recycle them or reuse them, they are simply thrown out at the end of the show...hopefully someone will comment otherwise, but last we checked, that was the story and I don't like it!

Save a synthetic ugly carpet tree, opt out!

Are you getting impatient now? Wondering how we went from this:

to this:

this

or this, relatively painlessly and quickly?

Stay tuned, next post, how to actually get the foam board to hang on the walls!