Challenge: Design a booth for a local commerce event to display products, attract customers, and boost sales.
Supporting small businesses and local makers is a great way to strengthen communities and reinforce the Shop Local movement. Explore and create innovative ways to showcase a local vendor’s unique products, while attracting customers, and increasing sales. If you are completing the Business Development Series or the Entrepreneurship Series you can use this challenge to create a pop-up booth or display for your products.
Facilitation Guide
Background
Having a well-designed booth can work wonders! With an eye-catching and professional display, vendors can attract more customers, generate more sales, and create memorable interactions with potential buyers. This is especially important at events like pop-ups, craft fairs, and artisan markets, where customers are often on the lookout for unique and high-quality products that they can't find anywhere else. With a well-designed booth, vendors can easily stand out from the competition!
Attractive displays, custom signage, and other personal touches can help make a vendor look more professional and trustworthy, leading to positive word-of-mouth marketing and repeat customers.Plus, having a customized booth that’s easy to set up, take down, pack, and reuse can leave more time for making personal connections with customers.
Glowforge can help you tackle any challenge when it comes to showcasing your vendor’s brand! You can easily create custom signs, displays, and even interactive elements to capture the attention of potential customers. Glowforge can even help you customize the booth so that it stands out from the competition, and makes your vendor’s products even more enticing. Plus, Glowforge makes it easy to design reusable & storable booth components, saving businesses money on overhead costs. With Glowforge, the possibilities are endless!
Explore
Research and explore solutions to design a standout booth for your vendor. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- What is the purpose of the event and who is the target audience? Why is your vendor exhibiting at the event?
- What types of products will your vendor be displaying and selling for sale?
- What are the current trends in booth design and display techniques?
- What are the requirements or restrictions for booth design at the event venue? If you are creating a design for a hypothetical event, you may want to consider looking at a recent local pop-up event or market to see what their guidelines were for having a booth to help inform your decisions.
- What are the budget constraints for designing and building a booth for your vendor?
Explore Tip
To find upcoming local events near you, try an Internet search using phrases like ‘craft show,’ ‘bazaar,’ ‘holiday boutique,’ ‘holiday show,’ ‘craft festival,’ or ‘farmer’s market.’ Once you find one that works for your vendor, look into the details about securing a booth and any cost, requirements, or restrictions for the booth design.
Reflect and Review
Take a moment to reflect on the research you did for your Pop-up Shop booth design.
- What makes your vendor's products unique and interesting? What specific things do you want to showcase in the booth?
- What strategies and best practices did you notice vendors using to attract customers to their booths?
Consider if there are any other resources or techniques that would be helpful to explore before moving on to the Ideate stage, where you will brainstorm the individual components of your booth design.
Ideate
Brainstorm different techniques and ideas for the different components of your booth design. This could include custom signage, displays, interactive elements, or other personalizations. Don’t worry about whether they’re good or bad ideas — just get creative! Think about:
- What are some creative ways to display products? How can the booth design be both functional and aesthetically pleasing?
- What components can you add to your booth design to make it interactive for customers?
- What is the most effective way to incorporate signage into the booth design? Is there a logo you can use? What size signs will work best with your overall design?
- How can the booth design showcase the personality and brand identity of your vendor through its displays, signage, or interactive elements?
Collaborate! A peer might have an idea that works well with yours — work together to make both of your ideas even better.
Ideate Tip
You could incorporate a game or a giveaway to make your booth design more interactive. It’s a fun way to invite customers to connect with your vendor! Glowforge has some great designs that are ready to customize and print, like the Multi-Purpose Spinning Wheel or the Hook and Ring Game.
Reflect and Review
Reflect on your ideas for the Pop-up Shop booth design. You can work with a peer to discuss these questions:
- Which ideas are most innovative and unique?
- Which ideas are most likely to attract customers and boost sales for your vendor?
- Which ideas are the most feasible within the budget constraints?
In the next stage, you’ll narrow your ideas to one or two booth components and fully design them. Before you go on to this step, are there any gaps in your brainstorming or ideas you want to consider more?
Design
Select one or two components to sketch or digitally mock up. Consider the following:
- What tools and materials do you need to develop your booth design using Glowforge?
- How can you use Glowforge to add unique features to the booth design? What design software (like the Glowforge App, Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator, or Photoshop) will you use to create your design?
- What colors will your design use? Does your vendor’s brand use a specific color palette? How might you use it to stand out and attract customers?
- How can you minimize the environmental impact from your booth elements? Consider how to reduce waste like reusing off-cuts as part of your design!
Design Tip
Glowforge has a range of ready-made designs that you can download and customize for your booth. The Tools & Organization section of the Catalog might inspire you to think differently about one of your own designs. Try searching terms like ‘display,’ ‘signs,’ ‘dispenser,’ or ‘stands’ to find inspiration!
Reflect and Review
Take a moment to reflect on the progress of your design.
- Will your design successfully display products, attract and retain customers, and boost sales for your vendor?
- Is your design functional for your vendor? Is it easy to set up, take apart, and store?
- Is your design functional for customers? Does it draw their attention and highlight the products?
- Have you considered budget constraints in your design? Think about areas where you can save costs without compromising the quality of the booth components.
You’re almost ready to create your final product! Consider if there is anything you’d like to change in your design before you start creating.
Prototype
Select one of your fully developed ideas. Using Glowforge, print a prototype of your design using appropriate materials. Consider the following:
- How long will your booth component take to create?
- What material(s) will you use?
- Can you create a mockup that accurately represents the final product while minimizing waste? You could try scaling down the design or using less expensive materials before finalizing your print.
- Make sure the products on display will be compatible with your design. Are they easy to display? Can the customer see the details? Do they fit in the space without looking crowded?
Prototype Tip
If your prototype is too complex or takes too long to print, try simplifying it. Break your prototype down into smaller, more manageable components and test each component individually.
Use the Ignore option in the Glowforge App for the decorative parts of your design when printing your prototype. This will reduce the amount of time the print takes! Remember to add the elements back in when you are ready for the final print.
Reflect and Review
Reflect on the prototype you created and the techniques tested during this stage.
- Are all of the components and features of your booth prototype functioning as intended?
- Are they safe, durable, and sturdy?
- Did you encounter any challenges or unexpected issues while building your prototype?
- Do you need to make changes to the design?
Are there any previous stages you want to go back before moving on to the Evaluate stage?
Evaluate
After creating and testing your prototype, it’s time for feedback. Here are some sample questions to ask your peers in order to get useful and actionable feedback:
- Test the booth components. Are there any issues with the functionality or usability of the booth design?
- What was your overall impression? Do you think the booth design effectively showcases the products? Why or why not?
- Do you have suggestions for additional components or features that could be added to improve its effectiveness?
- Are there any components of the booth design that you think could be simplified or made more efficient?
Evaluate Tip
Consider creating a 3D physical or digital mock-up of your Pop-up Shop booth highlighting where your components would be displayed. This allows evaluators to fully visualize how your components will interact with the overall booth and look at the event. A physical mockup can be made on Glowforge using cardboard or other low cost materials. Use software like SketchUp or AutoCAD to create a digital mockup.
Reflect and Review
Take a moment to reflect on the feedback you received from others.
- What were the strengths and weaknesses of your booth design, and how can you improve it for future iterations?
- Are there stages in the design process that you would like to return to in order to make these adjustments?
Once you have completed and finalized your design it’s time to share it with a larger audience!
