Typography plays an important but often underestimated role in exhibit design. The font used in the design of a trade show display will often make a bigger impression upon attendees than the words themselves. Attendees and the general public are largely unaware of the influence that font choices can have on purchasing decisions, and you can use this to your advantage as an exhibitor.

Typical exhibiting goals include increasing brand recognition, generating positive brand association, marketing products and/or services, and distributing promotional literature, and typography can play a key role in helping you to meet those goals. It is important to be aware of what message you’re sending when you use particular fonts so that you can have tighter control of your company’s brand. Here’s a few brief points to ponder that may help you make better design choices when laying out the graphics for your trade show booth.

Over 90% of corporations use Helvetica-based or Helvetica-like font faces in their corporate logos. MODdisplays company logo uses a Helvetica-based font. Stripped of their ornamentation, Helvetica based fonts are very readable. Letters that are sized and spaced proportionally give viewers a strong sense of relatedness and order. Sans-serif Helvetica-based fonts give potential clients the sense that your company is made up of people like them, which instills confidence and promotes spending. We highly recommend using proportionally spaced type faces in company logos and slogans, as well as “skimming material”.

If unadorned fonts are more readable, why aren’t they used in books and magazines? Over the past thirty years, it has been consistently proven that serifed fonts are easier on the eye when reading large blocks of text. The serifed edges allow the eye to pass smoothly from one word to the next, which allows for increased reading speed and comfort. Visit any typography-focused website (one of my favorites is http://ilovetypography.com), and you’ll notice that (in general) headings and titles are displayed in sans-serif fonts and large blocks of text are displayed in serifed fonts.

Typography is a seemingly limitless field where the possibilities for learning are endless. Devoting some time to understanding why certain fonts are chosen will increase the quality and visibility of your trade show graphic design, and will hopefully generate some more leads for your company.

If you’ve ever been to a trade show, you know that standing out in the crowd is important. In the fast-paced trade show environment, thousands of exhibitors compete for the attention of a limited number of attendees, and the battle can be fierce. Companies with huge marketing budgets spend big bucks for custom exhibit design because they understand the importance of using a trade show display that sets them apart from the competition. Would you really want to be stranded with a boring display when the exhibitor next to you is using a custom-looking exhibit?

At MODdisplays, we make custom exhibit design an affordable reality for small businesses (in fact, it’s completely free). Because we design all of our trade show exhibits from an extensive library of stocked exhibit hardware, we can produce high quality designs complete with your company graphics in a very short amount of time (usually under an hour). Our exhibit design images are virtually photo-realistic, and our images always include your company’s logo and marketing images. Because our booth display designers are working from a library of stocked exhibit hardware, any proposal we send you can be produced within a week (custom exhibit houses require long turnaround times because of the need to fabricate parts for your display).

If you’re not sure what type of exhibit you’re looking for, our website offers a huge variety of display images that vary greatly in appearance and style. If you’re looking to blend in with the crowd and let your graphics do the talking, buy a pop up display. If you’re looking for a highly configurable option with a unique canopy, try our XRline display. Whatever your tastes may be, we have an exhibit system that is right for your needs.

Designing professional graphics that place the emphasis on your company’s image is by far the most effective way to make a big impact at your next conference. If your display does not grab the attention of passing visitors and attendees, you will lose sales… period.

Simplicity is key in graphic design. Our trade show booths are designed to fade into the background and allow your exhibit graphics to take center stage. Your company’s brand is far more important than our trade show display system. We hope that you use our trade show display only to the extent that it aids your design in setting a mood for visitors and attendees.