I contributed to the positioning, naming, logo design and provided various illustration skills to a digital media company launching their own exhibit technology product

Naming, design, and more aimed at trade show exhibitors

Pixel Light Digital Media (PLDM) president Carmine DeFalco asked me to help with the messaging and the launch of their proprietary tracking and engagement technology products. An upcoming trade show was the key venue to impress the target audience of exhibit professionals from around the country. I contributed to the overall story and actual message text, followed by visual branding and individual project designs. The ultimate deliverables were logo art, trade show signage, printed literature, printed postcards and sheets, and look-and-feel layouts for website and email.

The product logo, designed for various conditions. The TrackMany™ name emerged from many hours of brainstorming and quiet contemplation.

The primary need was to position this new product among the company's current offerings – each a variation on combining augmented reality (AR) with visitor metrics for trade show exhibitors.

This meant getting to the core of our primary customer's situation, and presenting our product as highly relevant and downright transformational. The product brings confidence (and maybe job security?) to exhibit planners concerned with ROI and tightening budgets. With online research and Carmine's guidance, I quickly learned about the nature and value of visitor metrics at events. Combined with his backend data handling, sorting, and presenting knowledge, I was armed and positioned to better contribute ideas.

At left, a detail of final illustration – a collage of recolored and edited stock art components with other art (colored rings) and text callouts incorporated. At right, an evolution of the primary exhibit banner.

A creative conspiracy

I worked closely with Carmine to hash out who would use his new product and why. With the launch date looming, his regular client work (custom digital development), threatened to siphon attention from this new product debut. To maintain progress, our secret sauce was his regular morning calls from his car. We'd have about 40 focused minutes to advance ideas and review what I'd sent him the evening before.

HIRE BRUCE

I characterize our working together as a conspiracy, meaning that we overturned a status quo that he saw in the exhibiting industry – tracking and show metrics were impractical for many exhibitors. To create that change, he needed a fellow conceptual and visual thinker with a brand and marketing brain, with trade show design experience. Because I helped with his previous year's product event, he trusted me to brainstorm with him, to think (and sketch and write) through his business and marketing ideas for this year’s event and product launch.

A one-page website, with color blocks inspired by the TrackMany logo colors, reflected the simplicity of the product itself. The primary illustration, developed for their own exhibit's banner, also appeared on the site as did other spot illustrations and icons. A postcard, at far right, was a concise takeaway at their booth.

The naming game

As we exchanged and debated drafts of text and visuals, we also chipped away at the new product's name. Over a two or three week period, ideas by the dozen were evaluated for possible miscomprehension ("what does that mean to our customers?") or unavailability of preferred dot-com domains. It had to thread a needle, satisfy multiple criteria and in the end, simply feel right.

Strategy

Even before naming, we went back and forth about how best to structure PLDM's product offerings, now totaling three. Should a product line be created and branded separately from the PLDM brand, or just promote the products individually? Would this product quickly eclipse the others? Decisions, decisions...

The choice was made to feature and "brand" the newest product, the one with the most potential. It needed its own identity but still had to sit alongside sibling products' logos and visuals from the previous year.

Pre-show email promoted two related products in action at the event. ✎ My complex vector illustration was easy to break up and repurpose as needed.

The payoff

For the second year in a row, PLDM featured their newest offering in a modest booth at Exhibitor Live, prepared to present and converse. I also prepared a layout for their email campaign that whet the appetites of key contacts. Printed banners at the simple exhibit succinctly displayed at-a-glance benefits for passersby. More serious or curious visitors enjoyed live demonstrations, energetic discussions, and a postcard with key takeaways summarized.

The project wasn't mere decoration – or even "just" design. It was strategic thinking that aptly communicated value. The message crafting quickly showed the heart of the matter: why should anyone care about this product as much as we, at our tiny company, do? (Notice my reference to "our company?" Although I was an outsider, I was fully invested, listening, processing, understanding, sparring, and contributing as an enthusiastic team member.)