How to Stand Out At Your Next Trade Show

For many businesses, the trade show is where a lot of their business gets done. How can your business use design to stand out from the crowd and compete? How do you attract the best clients, leads, and business partners through collateral? Here are a few tricks that Project6 has learned from our experiences designing high performing trade show collateral.

Use Consistent + Well Designed Branding

Project6 client Silevo is a great example of how to stand out at a trade show. We overhauled their website, marketing collateral, and branding. This included the design of their trade-show booth. By using consistent branding guidelines and focusing on the sales objectives, Silevo’s booth immediately catches the eye and looks like a Fortune 500 company.

Go Big

Size matters at trade shows. Silevo’s booth was not only beautifully designed, it was also massive and all-inclusive. Project6 designed Silevo’s booth to be an interactive learning experience where attendees could see real life examples of items referenced in the marketing collateral. Experience booths (or large booths with multiple areas of interest) are always crowd pleasers at trade shows and conferences and will definitely help you to stand out.

Think Top to Bottom

Does your trade show booth design include floor and ceiling design? If not, then you’re missing out on a great opportunity to be noticed. Large hanging signage and lighting above your trade show booth makes it easier for interested parties to find your booth and peaks the interest of everyone on the exhibit hall floor. Having a brightly colored floor, like the one we designed for Silevo, also helps your business to stand out.  

Founded in 2001, Project6 Design is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems.  By collaborating with clients, we help them portray their brand's story and communicate it in a clear and compelling way.  For high-quality brand, print or web design services, contact the top San Francisco design agency.

Design Strategies for Mission Driven Organizations

Web and collateral design is often a low-priority for most non-profit organizations. With tight budgets and ever expanding missions, it can be hard to wrangle up enough support (and cash) to get the ball rolling on a major branding redesign project. For many mission driven organizations, however, a fresh new design could translate into a lot more than just vanity points. Project6 prides itself on creating beautiful and highly engaging/converting web and print designs for non-profits. Here’s a glimpse into our philosophy:

Print + Marketing Collateral Design for Non-Profits

It is vitally important that non-profits and mission driven organizations clearly communicate their purpose, goals, and vision to all of their stakeholders (especially donors and volunteers). When The Global Philanthropy Forum came to us, their marketing messages and collateral were inconsistent and out dated. By dramatically changing their collateral, defining their brand personality, and creating consistency throughout their communications, the organization was able to sell out an annual conference.

Website Design for Non-Profits

Young and growing non-profits are often cash strapped and focused on their core mission. As a result, not a lot of time and money gets put into the web property. As the company grows and becomes sustainable, however, it is important to recognize the benefits of having a modern website. When The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation came to Project6 for a website redesign, their original website that still built for an outdated 800px resolution monitor. Although the organization had done fantastic work in the past, few visitors wanted to engage with their content simply because it lacked visual appeal. Updating their website also breathed life back into their community of partners, job seekers, and board members. Visitors raved about the content, spent vastly more time on the site, and developed a deeper understanding of the Moore Foundation’s mission.

Project6 Design, founded in 2001, is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems. We collaborate with clients to help them portray their brand's story and to communicate it in a clear and compelling way.  For the best brand, print or web design services, contact Project6, the leading San Francisco design agency.

The Role of Informative Architecture in Web Design

In web design, information architecture is the process of logically organizing content so that it can be easily explored by users.  A lot of success on the web comes down to how easily your users (and search engines) can effectively navigate and use your site’s content. Additionally, successful information architecture isn’t a “one size fits all” solution. You can’t simply apply the so called “best practices” of information architecture to every web business and expect similar results. Each business has a unique value proposition, unique customer needs, and a unique way of delivering that value to their customer. This is a huge part of user interface design and often overlooked by many companies when they seek design services.

Here are two Project6 case studies that highlight the importance of information architecture in web design:

The California Perinatal Quality Care Collaborative (CPQCC)

Project6 had the pleasure of redesigning the CPQCC website. From an information architecture perspective, the CPQCC program is massive (they represent over 90% of all neonatal intensive care provided in California). Project6 planned and developed the CPQCC’s new site from the ground up. Our mission was to organize the CPQCC’s wealth of content into an easily usable and up to date resource of online tools, announcements, publications, news, events, and awards. The new information architecture not only beautifully showcased the sheer scope of CPQCC’s work in their sector, but it also enabled the organization to better fulfill their mission.

Sindeo

Sindeo also required expert information architecture, but in a very different way than CPQCC. Instead of organizing a library of content into a usable web resource (like CPQCC), Project6 was tasked with designing a website that clearly told the story of Sindeo’s unique approach to mortgage lending. This required creating and organizing engaging content that allows the viewer to experience the positive feelings of home ownership and how Sindeo could help them achieve it.

Is your design firm an expert information architecture?

Founded in 2001, Project6 Design is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems.  By collaborating with clients, we help them portray their brand's story and communicate it in a clear and compelling way.  For high-quality brand, print or web design services, contact the top San Francisco design agency.

The Importance of Print Design in 2017

                  

Project6 believes that high quality print collateral and design is more important today than ever before.  Today, people are constantly bombarded with marketing messages on the web and in print. Competition is fierce and the landscape is filled with companies fighting noisily for their share of the eyeballs. To stand out in 2017, there just is no substitute for impressive print design. As more business moves online, customers will value well-designed print collateral even more.

The Value of Print Design for Web Businesses

Effective print design extends your brands reach and broadens your user base. However, many web businesses are underestimating the value that having a clean, consistent, unique print design can bring to their business.  Whether you like it or not, your print collateral speaks volumes about your business. When your print collateral and brand identity are synced, it allows you to consistently speak to your audience in a clear and compelling way. Examples of areas where web business may benefit from high quality print collateral are:

•  Direct Mail
• Reports + Presentations
•  Brochures
• Stationary
• Booth Designs
• Conference Materials
•  Etc...

If you’ve spent a small fortune building an impeccable digital brand, why not reinforce that digital message through real-world print collateral? Why create an amazing web experience for a customer, but fail to continue that experience through when they receive your products or collateral in the mail? At Project6, we use print design, as well as many other tools, as another way to influence the way people think about your brand.

Project6 Design, founded in 2001, is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems. We collaborate with clients to help them portray their brand's story and to communicate it in a clear and compelling way.  For the best brand, print or web design services, contact Project6, the leading San Francisco design agency.

Do Design Awards Matter?

Does it matter if your design firm has won any prestigious design awards?

The short answer: It depends.

The long answer: It depends and here’s why…

A legitimate design award is one of many proof signals that businesses can use to determine if a designer’s skills are up for the task. However, not all design awards are created equal. In today’s internet age, just about anyone can create and market their own brand of “design award.” As the winner of many prestigious design awards, here’s Project6’s take on what makes a legitimate design award: 

How competitive is the award?

Check to see how many designers were actually in the running for the award. Did 5 designers apply or 500 designers? Is the competition accepting public entries or were the nominees selected by a panel of experts? The Davey Awards, for example, is a prestigious award from the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts that received nearly 4,000 entries of the finest creative work from the best small agencies, firms, and companies worldwide.

Who are the judges and sponsors?

Also, make sure that the judges and sponsors of the awards are legitimate industry professionals (not just bloggers and “best of” lists). The Horizon Interactive Award’s judging process, for example, involves a combination of an in-house awards advisory panel, an end user panel, and an international panel of industry professionals. The Davey Awards, on the other hand, is judged and overseen by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA), a 700+ member organization of leading professionals from various disciplines of the visual arts dedicated to embracing progress and the evolving nature of traditional and interactive media.

Founded in 2001, Project6 Design is an award-winning graphic design firm committed to using intuitive design to shape brands and solve complex usability problems.  By collaborating with clients, we help them portray their brand's story and communicate it in a clear and compelling way.  For high-quality brand, print or web design services, contact the top San Francisco design agency.