Portland Boothster.com Blog

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Boothster Blog Live from Portland

Google Happy April 20, 2008 OK, ok... you've used Google before, and probably have a sense for their brand... fun, smart, bright colors, simple interface... It was interesting because I've used Google for years but I had never interacted with people that actually work for Google until our recent project for them at EarthDay in Washington DC. I met several of them who work around the country and they all seem to be exactly that, fun, smart and easy going. Definitely cool opportunity for Boothster.com. If you look closely in this picture you can see our sign next to Google's.

Google'ing Cats and Dogs April 20, 2008 Wow what an event. First off we were totally stoked to get an opportunity with Google to build their eco friendly booth for Earth Day. How great is that? Google found Boothster.com on Google when looking for an green/sustainable booth. Gotta love the internet! Then, we arrive and thanks to an airline that shall remain un-named (@#$!@#!) we were missing 1 very important part of the shipment. And, to top it all off, Mother Nature herself saw fit to blast a crazy downpour, complete with potential electrical storms (they actually asked people to take cover and not stay out in the open for fear of lighting strikes)! So needless to say we were feeling a little "anxious" about our opportunity with Google! I felt like Magyver or the Mr. T from the A Team coming up with an impromptu install for the booth. I gotta give Ace Hardware (Frager's, Washington DC) some props for hooking me up with all the right tools. In the end we completed the install 30 minutes early so it all worked out great. But got soaked to the bone. Check out the pic to the right!

Portland Recycles! April 19, 2008 Yes we do! One of our newest clients is the City of Portland, Office of Sustainable Development. We have been doing a variety of graphic projects for them such as rolla greens, and banners... all on our unique biodegradable banner material. We actually customized these rollas with extra feet for use outdoors... light outdoors that is. Like under a tent. Portland is such a great city to run a business in because it offers great recycling resources, especially for what Boothster is doing with our EcoLoco, Sustain-A-Booth product lines. In Portland we can recycle wood, plastic, paper products, and even paint! In fact we have used recycled white paint for recent projects for Crown Recycling and Google. Boothster.com deals directly with recycling centers in the Portland area.

Sustainable Crazy - EcoLoco is Born April 5, 2008 EcoLoco is our new Sustain-A-Booth, Boothster system... Here you see a prototype which one of our clients really liked... We were working on the prototype and by chance they had a need for a similar display that was unique, eco friendly, cost effective and modular. We literally saved the cardboard tubes from a dumpster, and hauled them off in our veggie oil powered delivery van. The crate is built from reclaimed ply, and the wood is also reclaimed, recycled and chemical free. The total graphic size is 8' tall x 10 feet wide

Boothster Partially Powered by Used Oil from Restaurants March 12, 2008 Boothster.com now offers West Coast deliveries in our very own veggie powered van. Its a reclaimed van we converted. It runs on used oil from fine restaurants. The finer oil is more pure and burns cleaner. Call ahead of time for delivery, it's popular so it's time slots fill up quick!

Natural, Organic Fiber with Biodegradable Graphic Table Cloths February 21, 2008 Aroma Housewares is a kitchen product company. We did custom natural organic fiber table cloths for their Nutriware brand with our biodegradable graphics. Hand steamer is included.

Alternative Apparel - Eco Cotton Print January 31, 2008 Alternative Apparel is a natural fiber eco friendly, sustainable fashion company. We did a huge 20 foot wall in biodegradable cotton. It was actually in five four foot sections. It's kind of cool to get back into the fashion world. It reminds be of the days at Mobius, where I started out in design/branding.

Boothster.com Lands 20x20 Booth for Anchor Computer January 17, 2008 Anchor Computer recently selected Boothster.com to design and build a portable, modular booth for their trade show program. The winning concept plays off of the Anchor theme, with wave-like walls and graphics. The kiosks serve as "anchors", offering detailed information funneled down from catchy header messages. The graphic design is in the works now.

Several Oregon Wine Projects Happening January 17, 2008 One of the things I/we love about Portland and Oregon really is that there are so many great wineries. Luckily wine related projects have been flowing our way such as the Oregon Wine Center, Chehalem Winery and Low Input Viticulture and Enology. We've got to figure out a way to get paid in wine. Hmmnnnn.....

Brighter Planet Goes Sustain A Booth January 7, 2008 We did a portable banner stand for Brighter Planet today. Great cause. Here's info from their website: Brighter Planet is dedicated to helping you take charge in the fight against global warming and build a clean-energy future. With a majority of Americans wanting to do something for the environment, our products are an effective way for individuals and businesses to reduce their impact on the climate.

Old School Booth - Microsoft Back in the Day November 27, 2007 We found this crazy picture from back in the old school days of booth design. If you can believe it this picture is actually a Microsoft booth from the early 1980's. If you look closely you can see that the header sign is printed from an old dot matrix printer. Even more astonishing is that on the desk below the Microsoft header sign is an Apple computer. I don't know what's that about. What could have been. I guess the moral of this story is that even if you start out small your company can grow biggger than you could even imagine. (Boothster did not design or build this booth. Boothster was not even born when this booth was built.)

Boothster.com Featured in The Oregonian November 20, 2007 Portland's largest newspaper, The Oregonian, ran a short feature on Boothster.com. Here's a link to the .pdf version of the article focusing about our trip to the Greenbuild expo and focus on eco friendly, green, sustainable trade show booths. It's nice to know that people are taking notice about our efforts towards building green booths.

Payments Made Easy with Paypal November 19, 2007 Paypal is a great way to pay Boothster.com for your project. It is a great way to get your project started immediately also. Why make your project wait while you wait to run your check through the accounting department and then wait for snail mail to mail the check. For more information contact your Boothster.com project manager.

Portland IS the Hip-Cat Eco Friendly City November 6-8, 2007 I am just stoked about Portland's role in eco friendly, sustainable building. It's part of our culture here. Also part of our culture is a laid back, have fun, and do great creative work lifestyle. That seems to be what PDX Lounge is all about. Nau clothing hosted a party for PDX lounge at an independant site during Green Expo Chicago and I went to it. Cool music, good food, good fashion, and sculptures from eco oriented artists. This is how we roll in Portland. Even when we are in Chicago. I handed out business cards, met people, and everyone was really supportive of our efforts to make Sustain-A-Booth a success.

A Great Start to the Green Build Expo November 5, 2007 On my way to the Green Build Expo, I couldn't have been luckier, as I ran into Oregonian green writer, Dylan Rivera. He was kind enough to write about Boothster.com and our efforts to provide eco friendly, sustainable trade show booths, in his blog. I was heading there to learn more about eco friendly and sustainable materials, share information and network. One Boothster client was there, Structure Tone, showing off their 3 new recyclable banner stands provided by Boothster.com. Check out Dylan's blog here.

Small Victories November 1, 2007 One thing we're really happy about is our ability to please clients whether they have a small project or a big project. For example, we received this positive feedback from Delta Wave, having just completed a small graphic job for them: "The (graphic) panels look better than expected. Thank you for your assistance. We look forward to doing business with you in the future." - Tom Clarke, President, Delta Wave.

Halloween Special: Scariest Booths We Could Find October 31, 2007 While you might find the semi-truck weight (over 2800 lbs.) scary (and expensive), or even the pale orange, blue and cream color combo freaky, nothing is as bad as light blue polyester pants. It's kind of fun to see how booth design (and fashion) has changed over the years. We've disguised the scary folks who created this booth back in the early 1980's to avoid embarassment.

Going Full Circle with Recycled Booth Materials October 30, 2007 Eco Envelopes is a small company with similar values to Boothster.com, and they have called on us to assist in finding ways to make their booth eco friendly. In the design to the right, we have specified recyclable/recycled aluminum for the wall and kiosk that is wrapped in low energy transport stretch graphic. The counter is made of sustainable bamboo ply, and get this... the bench is made out of recycled plastic, some of which is actually poly's that are from graphic materials. All in all we estimate this booth to be 60% from post consumer materials, and 90% recyclable, and 100% re-usable.

Boothster.com Moves into Historic Building October 15, 2007 Rapid growth has led Boothster.com to aquiring more square footage. We wanted to stay close to the vibrant creative "scene" in Portland, while keeping our overhead low. We found the ideal building, a beautfully restored brick warehouse on 11th and Flanders, NE, here in Rip City. The architects did a great job on maintaining the character of the building, while updating it with modern stuff. Our favorite part is the HUGE freight elevator, making it easy to move client properties where we need to. It's an ideal site in many ways.

Portfolio Update: Yes, we do big booths too! October 6, 2007 Lately we've been highlighting a lot of our smaller projects: banner stands, graphics, displays, etc. But we'd like to note that we also do medium and large size booths also. 20x20's on up... We have recenly updated our portfolio to showcase some larger booth designs. Check it out!

Eco Friendly Product Launch September 26, 2007 Last night we launched Boothster's newest sustainable display idea, Rolla Greens. As part of the Sustain-A-Booth line of eco friendly products, Rolla Greens are made of recycled aluminum/recycled plastic bases, and printed with low VOC emissions. They come in widths of 19", 33", 39" and 94". The 94" models are believed to be the only 8 foot wide retractable banner stand on the market. We spent a lot of time developing the Boothster Rollas and are very pleased to bring them to market in a way that minimizes the impact to the environment. In our product launches we never do direct mail. We only market our new products electronically, thereby avoiding wast of paper and the use of nasty solvent inks used for direct mail. The Rolla Greens come in black bases also. For more info call: 503-703-9148.

It's all in the (CAD) Details September 20, 2007 A picture might be worth 1000 words, but a good AutoCad drawing for a trade show booth is worth 1000 dollars any day. Good drawings mean structural integrity, ease of set up and efficiency in building. The collaboration between 3D renderer - CAD detailer - fabricator is key to the success of any project. Here's an example of Boothster.com's stellar AutoCad group led by David Beaudry and SYDSUM Design. Props also go out to our stellar fabrication team Chris Rice and Woody Woodward from CR2W. Take a look at the Oregon Dairy barn kiosk here for a recent example of their work.

An Elegant Designer September 20, 2007 Check out this elegant design from Greg Garrett, a talented designer (and jazz musician). I really like the dual curved shapes - these are a great alternative to typical trade show booth. Definitely unusual shapes that stand out out on the show floor without being clumsy. We are toying with the use of projected images on the white structures... Or possibly soft lighting effects. The shapes are made out of light weight and reycled/recyclable alluminum and stretch textile. This layout was for Rentrak, a Portland based company. The design is smooth, liquid, nice movement, don't you think?

The Party Continues September 19, 2007 Whether it's a 20x40 booth or a 33" wide banner stand, Boothster.com continues to make it happen. Chalk up PartyWirks as another happy client. They wanted a good price, and most importantly good customer service, which we provided even though it was a small project. As far as I know Boothster.com is the only company on the West Coast, definitely Portland, maybe even the US, to offer an (almost) 8 foot wide retractable banner stand. Better yet, it's made out of recycled aluminum and plastic. Great price, high impact graphic. I gotta give props to TJ Morin, Boothster graphics manager for knocking this one out fast and vibrant.

Eco Friendly West Coast, Baby! September 18, 2007 Check out the sustainable material rolla we just produced for http://usgbc-la.org/ the Los Angeles Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. Our rolla bases are made from durable, recyclable and recycled aluminum. We're hoping to help make Portland a hub of environmental, eco friendly, sustainable material booths, and this is a good step in that direction. We're researching and using things like recycled plastics and aluminum; recycled PET bottle carpets; sustainable forrest and non-formaldahyde plywood and more. We want to share our knowledge but also learn. Please contact us if you have any tips on creating eco friendly, sustainable material graphics, booths and displays.

Booths in Outerspace September 18, 2007 I really like the fact that our latest client booth provides "Mobile Satellite Solutions" and has a picture of a satellite on their website. Cool. This might be our first outerspace client. We've had clients from Japan, England, Portland (duh!) and now Houston. Houston we have a booth! To be honest I had no idea what the technology was but found out it's pretty cool. They basically sell communications equipment for areas where "normal" cell phones and land lines don't work... places like Iraq or in the middle of the Ocean ... I guess they helped out during Katrina when there was no cell or land line access. Kinda cool they found us in Portland on Boothster.com and now we're doing their graphics. Cool.

Venda Booth Goes Up a Day Early September 17, 2007 I guess we could call our collaboration with Excalibur Exhibitions and Momentum a smashing success. Hats off to the Momentum Las Vegas crew for showing up bright and early Saturday morning and getting a great head start. The client was relieved to find the booth set up already well underway. We anticipated having to work Monday on the set up but as it turns out we cranked it out on Saturday. Good job guys.

Just Landed Another Sustainable Project September 13, 2007 You just never know how a day is going to go. First we had a last minute cancellation of a client meeting, so we continued our meeting and right in the middle I get a call for a 39" rolla order. Not bad! The best thing about this order is that it is from CleanAgency. I took a quick look at their website and evidently they are into sustainable/eco friendly type stuff like we are. And I like the pig on their site. http://cleanagency.com/

Boothster Goes International September 10, 2007 From England to Portland and later to Las Vegas! Boothster.com will partner this week with Excalibur Exhibitions, an England based trade show exhibit company for the installation and dismantle of the 20x20 Venda trade show booth in Las Vegas this week. Momentum will handle the install. We've learned that in the world outside America, they call trade show booths "stands". Interesting stuff. We're looking forward to a quick and easy set up.

Don't Have a Cow - Exhibit Marketing Works! September 5, 2007 Today I got an email from Pete Kent the Marketing Director for the Oregon Dairy Commission. It seems that the exhibit was a success. He noted that 16,000 people came by, 2,000 more than last year. 30,000 pieces of literature were handed out. I highly recommend tracking trade shows (booths, exhibits) as much as possible to ascertain your ROI. It's not always an exact science, but I can tell you from experience marketing is a numbers game.

Boothster Lands Graphic Job September 3, 2007 Envision, a Seattle based Telephony company selected Boothster.com to provide graphic design development and fabrication of a new pop up booth and rolla retractable banner stand.

We Know How to Party August 28, 2007 We just got another project, woo hoo! Party Wirks is a company that knows how to spell about as good as I do. Thats a joke. Actually they hired Boothster.com to do a big 8' rolla and graphic plus rent a kiosk. We're stoked to get another Portland client and hope to help them party on to success at their show in Vegas.

Boothster gets another Sustainable Booth Project August 25, 2007 Structure Tone is a construction company from New York and they are really excited about finding sustainable material products to emphasize their committment as a construction company. So naturally they went with Boothster.com to provide our sustain-a-booth products. To start we are doing 3 banner stands.

We're in Therapy - Project for MyTherapyJournal.com August 23, 2007 Never would have thought that Boothster.com would do a booth for an online therapy service. It seems like an interesting concept for a company and I think they will do very well. We did a very quick easy and inexpensive graphic for them. It's an 8 foot wide banner with recycled aluminum hanging system. Simple graphic design, simple layout, and durable fabric/vinyl material for the banner.

Graphics Sting Like a Bee July 17, 2007 My Color Theory instructor would be proud of this design. With the big simple shapes and black/yellow color contrast it really stands out on the trade show floor. Credit Harald at Meaty Design for the graphic design and TJ Morin at Boothster Portland for fabrication. Actually credit goes to myself and Jeff Friedman from Raytex for the set up which we painstakingly did on Saturday. It wasn't an easy set up but it worked brilliantly. If your goal is to get attention on the trade show floor a design like this is the ticket.

About the Boothster.com Brand July 15, 2007 A Nod to the 1970's Portland Trail Blazers As part of Portland, Oregon’s thriving community of small creative services companies, we sought to establish a brand that embodied the soul of Portland. So we chose a font very similar to the one used in the 1970's Portland Trail Blazers uniforms. "Blazermania" represents some of the most fun and united times in the history of Portland. To the right you see Bill Walton in his heyday, when Portland was crowned the champion of the NBA. Below you will see a picture of Clyde Drexler, another famous Blazer. Portland Blazers website.

Boothster.com Lands HR Block Booth July 4, 2007 We recently found out we're going to be designing a rental booth for HR Block through HL2, a top ad creative agency in Seattle. This is a great project and we're really stoked to get it. Check out the design. Greg Garret did a sweet job on this one. Boothster will be designing, producing new graphics and providing the rental booth properties. It's made out of lightweight and 100% recycled aluminum. The graphics will be stretch fabric and panels. Should turn out great. A big challenge was/is to get around the columns/arches in Moscone Center in San Fran for Mac World. Designers beware of those arches they could kill a project if your aren't careful.

Boothster.com Gets New Exhibit Project July 1, 2007 The Oregon Dairy Commission selected boothster.com to provide design development, rendering, CAD detailing, project management and fabrication services for their 200 square foot (10x20) exhibit. The exhibit's first installation will be in the Oregon State Fair. It's another local project utilizing Portland's creative community. Greg Garrett and David Beaudry will join John-Paull Davidson on the project. Both are designers with experience in trade show exhibits and museums and are from Portland.

Meat Matters: Best Name and Logo Ever! June 18, 2007 You gotta hand it to Harald Graham, graphic designer extraordinary and leader/owner of Meaty Design. The name says it all, and the logo only adds to the coolness and effectiveness of the brand he has created. It's all about the Meat. Oh, I almost forgot to mention Boothster will rely on Meaty Design's beefy graphic design for the Raytex Semicon West Show.

A Bow to Bauhaus - More about the Boothster brand June 15, 2007 Bauhaus, the Boothster.com font, comes from the German school of architecture, and one of the foremost and long lasting modernist traditions in design. The Bauhaus style has a way of showing the functionality and fit as the featured part of the design. The font fits together like a puzzle, while any example of Bauhaus design shows how it is built. We chose to use lowercase for Boothster.com in order to minimize the seriousness of typical all caps versions, and also to match the approach of the 1970's Portland Trail Blazers. Bauhaus info. A Wink to Whitespace The visual landscape today is a crowded mess of web pages, trade show floors, retail spaces, billboards and more. We chose white space as the navigation background to have an easy place for your eyes to rest. It also is a good background that allows our photos to stand out with maximum contrast. Orange: A Little Trendy? Sure. After all, we're a design firm. And lately, pumpkin, Halloween, OSU Beavers orange is "in". It's also our Creative Director's alma mater's colors.

Boothster Lands SemiCon West Project Well things have all worked out well with Raytex. We finally worked out a plan for Boothster to provide trade show consulting for their Semicon West booth. We'll also do new graphics, rollas and set up supervision. We're really excited to continue working with Raytex, a Japan based company with offices in Portland, well Tigard actually.

Boothster Brand May 30, 2007 In a few days I'll post some information about how we developed the Boothster.com brand logo and colors. The picture at the right will give you a hint. If any of you can guess how we developed the Boothster.com brand, what the concept is behind it, etc., let me know. Hey Kevin Pritchard, if you are out there, are you interested in some large scale graphics, rollas, banner stands or a trade show booth for the Blazers? We definitely need more Portland projects to add to our portfolio. We do have a large format printer that can print a life size Greg Oden at 7 feet tall!

May 15, 2007 Sustain-A-Booth Boothster.com's latest initiative is the development of a sustainable, eco-friendly and environmentally sound modular booth system. Like all boothster projects, sustain-a-booth is designed to be lightweight, durable and visually dynamic. Make your trade show exhibit stand out, while being kind to the environment by using sustainable materials. For more information go to http://sustain-a-booth.com/ Here in Portland, Oregon, doing things sustainable is part of our culture and sustain-a-booth is a natural extension of that.

May 10, 2007 Boothster.com Our new shopping cart is up and running! The success of TradeShowBoothster.com has led to the development of a more user friendly site that includes an easy to navigate shopping cart. The Boothster team is scouring the globe (literally) looking for dynamically creative 3D design products for trade show booth exhibits and retail. We've found some great ideas that we can utilize in custom designs for your company. The new Boothster.com site launched May 10. More information, go to http://boothster.com