PAX Prime 2015 AiS Trade Show Booth

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PAX Prime 2015

From Conception to Fruition


At the Art Institute of Seattle in the Industrial Design Program, we have a required course that has to be taken.  It is called Exhibition and Trade Show.  The background of the course is to become familiar with designing installations, exhibition sets and trade show booths.  Since the Art Institute also has a Game Art Design Program, they man a booth every year at PAX Prime.  Last quarter in our EnTS class, we were tasked to design the booth for PAX.  Whether or not, it was going to become a reality was not the initial concern, we were just told this is conceptualization.  For the first design review, I came up with three concepts.





The powers that be at the Art Institute really loved my enthusiasm for the project and loved several of the ideas that were in each of my designs.  We had a second design review that would follow, so I decided to make a combined concept that would incorporate all the liked elements.



There was still some skepticism, but our instructor, Joe Stephanile said there might be a possibility that the school would give us a budget and create a course that would allow us to work on the construction of the booth and we would actually be allowed to create and set up the booth for PAX Prime.  The second design review went well and the big-wigs choose certain elements from all the students' designs.  They wanted something modular to be created for the booth design itself.  The elaborate TV display unit was the element I would have to continue to work on.






It was starting to become a reality.  Do not get me wrong, I have a background in engineering and I can piece together things like a good tinkerer, but the bottom line was, this was now going to have to be built in a six-week period with minimal shop time.  Time to bring in a heavy hitter.  My boy, Matt Koch, was a sea-bee in the Navy and had a trade show booth construction company prior to enrolling at the Art Institute.  I had to let him in on the possibility of this happening.  I let him know about the Trade Show Construction class that would be held this quarter and he was in... He missed the adrenaline rush of "Gettin' Er Done!"

It was a blast.  I learned about the concept of framing and modular construction in order to make use of mobility and quick builds.  Here's a slew of process photos.  There were obviously things that had to be changed from the original design, but as I said before, I was new to this rodeo.







































So this last Thursday, August 27, 2015, we got the opportunity to bring all the elements of the Art Institute PAX Prime booth to the venue for setup.  It was definitely interested to see not only my design go for the cradle to completion, but I really saw the extent of what trade show design is truly all about.  Here is the element in its place and the finished Art Institute booth.






I'll be using my exhibitor badge to fully experience the joy of PAX Prime.  See you there!




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