ASHLEY KIECKER

As a designer at CEP, we were in a bid scenario with AJ Antunes. They were a long standing client of ours; however, due to new personal on their team, they decided to get some fresh ideas. Fortunately, we won the bid and were able to maintain them as a client and continue to design, fabricate and ship their entire trade show program. The new booth design will make it's grand debut in February 2019.

Myself and another designer were assigned the project, each providing separate concepts for them to choose, or combine, from. To my delight, they loved the direction of my concept and proceeded forward with my concept and our company's business. So how did I get to my final "pretty picture"?

I actually gathered a lot of my inspiration from the Antunes brand itself-- the brand guidelines, the shape of the logo, the imagery they used online. Precisely, the angle of the "J" in the logo caught my eye and inspired the architecture and design of the floor plan layout. The client loved that it was using the traditional logo that everyone knew, but giving it a fresh, new appearance through the angular and edgy architecture. 

I also carried this inspiration through to the additional functional items of the space. For example, the chef's cooking/hospitality area and their demo kiosks... These needed to be modular from show to show, withstand bumps and bruises from their heavy equipment, and visually catch an attendees eye to tell a story. They were also seeking some ideas and direction for their highlighted display of filtration products. I developed the concept of a moving water wall (either through LED tiles, or a motion LED lightbox dependent on budget constraints).

Throughout the entire design process with the client, the concept changed very little and in fact sparked some internal debate on their own brand guidelines... This opened them up to new discussions on brand colors and website appearance among other topics. It was a very exciting and collaborative project to be involved with from start to finish. I'm looking forward to many more shows!