Visitors walk a trade fair slowly, but they give each stand a few seconds at most. In that time they need to work out what you do and whether it matters to them. Most stands we see waste those seconds on busy graphics: a small logo, a vague slogan, a row of product photos and a paragraph that nobody can read from two metres away.
This piece is about designing stand graphics that read from the aisle. It comes from building stands for industrial and medical fairs, so treat it as working practice rather than design theory.
Start with where you are seen from
Before anyone opens a design file, look at the hall plan. An inline stand is seen only from the front. Corner and peninsula stands are seen from two or three sides, an island from all four. Whichever wall faces the main aisle is your most important wall, and everything else plays a supporting role.
Distance matters as much as direction. In a typical aisle people see your stand from three to six metres away. If you face a hall entrance, that can stretch to ten metres or more. Graphics that only work at arm’s length simply do not exist for someone walking past.
Three layers of message
We plan wall graphics in three layers, each sized for a different distance:
- From afar: your name or logo and one short line saying what you make or sell, such as “PE pipes and fittings for water and gas”. This should read from ten metres.
- From the aisle: two or three large images of product or projects and a handful of keywords, for the visitor who has slowed down.
- Up close: specifications, certificates and detail. These belong on panels by the meeting table or in the brochure, not on the main wall.
The usual mistake is putting layer three on the main wall. You end up with a wall of text that no one reads from the aisle.
Letter size and placement
The rule of thumb we work with is about 2.5 cm of letter height for every three metres of viewing distance. A line that needs to read at nine metres wants letters of roughly 7 to 8 cm. Very thin or decorative typefaces fall apart at distance, and so does tightly tracked text.
Height matters too. On a busy day, anything below about one metre disappears behind counters, furniture and people. Put the logo and main line above head height, usually higher than 2.2 metres. A header or hanging sign helps a lot if the rules allow it, but check permitted heights in the organiser’s technical manual first, because every hall sets its own limits.
Photos, colour and contrast
One large, sharp photo does more than ten small ones. Images need enough resolution for large-format print. A picture that looks fine on a phone often looks soft on a three-metre wall, so if you lack good photography, book an industrial shoot before the fair. You will use the results on your website and brochures for years.
Take contrast seriously. Grey text on a pale background, or white text over a busy photo, disappears under hall lighting. If text sits on an image, give it a solid band behind it. Check brand colours against a printed proof, as fabric and foam board often print darker or flatter than your screen suggests. Lighting changes colour too, which we cover in our article on exhibition stand lighting.
Languages and materials
At an international fair, put your main line in English as well as the local language, but not at equal size side by side. We set the audience’s main language larger and the second one smaller underneath. For Istanbul or İzmir, that main language is Turkish. Have a native speaker read every line, because a typo on a three-metre wall stays there for four days.
Material affects legibility. Tension fabric gives a smooth, non-reflective surface that suits large walls. Foam board and PVC work for smaller panels. Gloss vinyl reflects direct light and can wipe out text from some angles, so for the main wall we usually recommend a matt finish.
Final artwork should reach your builder about ten days before build-up, leaving time for printing, colour proofs and fitting. Supply vector files and the original logo, and proofread once more before anything goes to print. We check every print file against the measured panels in our workshop before it goes out, because a drawing change of a few centimetres leaves an ugly gap. You can see how graphics sit on the structure in our projects.
A simple test before printing
Shrink each wall design on screen to about ten centimetres wide and look at it from two metres away. If you cannot tell what the company does within three seconds, neither will a visitor. It takes a minute and catches more mistakes than any review meeting.
Through our stand design and build service we design graphics alongside the structure, so the sizes are right from the start. If you have artwork for your next fair and are not sure it reads from the aisle, send it to us on WhatsApp and we will tell you what we think.