Call me Swilly.
A Most Public Affair
(Designing experiences meant to be encountered)
The Challenge:
For years, the tradeshow booth could only be managed reactively—shaped by many voices and constrained by a physical structure that made real evolution financially impossible. Each year brought more of the same. Budget was routinely swallowed by maintenance, while the big sell leaned heavily on name-dropping. Sales conversations varied wildly depending on who you spoke to, and the brand showed up without a clear, unified story.
Then the guardrails came off.
For the first time, there was space to take full narrative control + design the booth intentionally—not to appease every request, but to create a system + story worthy of the brand.
The game
plan
As a leading member of our tradeshow team, I identified the opportunity to fundamentally redefine our experiential approach and booth design—one grounded in research, budget reality + brand strategy. This solution was to build the booth as a modular system, and inject choose-your-own-adventure sales narrative.
The intent was simple: design something flexible enough to scale across shows, structured enough to guide consistent sales conversations, And with enough creative flexibility to strike a chord for all involved.
my approach
Rather than center big names or product as our visual anchors, I pivoted the focus toward an emotionally driven story rooted in expressive, human-centered visuals to remind our audience of the heart of our purpose: joy.
In partnership with our tradeshow production team at Storylink, we brought that vision to life through an immersive environment featuring multi-screen mini moments, a sweeping history of the business’ evolution + an interactive project-mapping experience that placed attendees at the center of diverse celebration journeys.
Reframed the tradeshow strategy from product-centric messaging to an emotionally driven brand narrative thru design
translated + Expanded the newly formed corporate identity for an immersive physical environment
Produced multi-screen storytelling content to create movement + depth within the space
Designed an interactive, state-of-the-art project-mapping experience that placed attendees at the center of celebration journeys
Designed the visual system and wall graphics, delivering final assets for the production agency to fabricate + install.
Putting it all in motion
The Payoff: