ASHLEY KIECKER

This project and design holds a special place in my portfolio as it's the first exhibit I ever designed. While I was going through Bemidji's TAD program, I took a chance on a class called, "Tradeshow Design" and wow am I happy I did! This design was my final project for the fall semester class. 

So, as a school project, we were asked to design a 20 x 30 island booth design for the company, Optima Graphics. The project didn't have a budget as we were all very young and new designers to the trade show world. Functional requirements were to include an overhead hanging sign, some kind of meeting space and two of their custom owned  InTouch kiosks. Ascetically, we were asked to come up with a theme design/approach for their booth, showcase their printing capabilities in the architecture and get their new messaging, "All Things Print. All Things Optima." across to the audience.
 

To start my project, I focused on coming up with a theme to my design... Something that could show the punch of their printing; however, it also needed to convey who they were as a company. The Optima representative that "pitched" the project to our class made a comment in his presentation that followed the lines of... "Optima has a edge over everyone in the printing industry." I found it circled in my notes as I was reviewing and researching their brand-- For some reason, always coming back to the quote. So I ran with it. Using the quote, I inspired my graphic design, architectural design and pre-show/at-show campaign with a certain "edge". 

To this day, it still stands as one of my favorite designs (probably me just holding on to the reminiscence of my first exhibit design). I still haven't had the heart to re-render the originals or touch it up; however, I'm dreaming that one day there will be a real client this design could work for.