Exhibitor images with strict brand-display requirements

Some exhibitors have a brand manual thicker than the stand brief. The logo has an exact colour, the product must face a certain way, and certain words must never be cut off in a photograph. That is reasonable, and photography can help, if the requirements are shared early and in a usable form.

This page sits within our guide to exhibitor and brand-activation photography. For limited photography windows on a single stand, see a single exhibition stand with a limited photography window.

Which details must be right?

Not every brand rule matters in a photograph. Choose the ones that do and list them clearly.

• Logo: full, upright, not cropped by another object, and legible at the delivered size.
• Product: the right model, facing the right way, clean and complete.
• Colour: the brand colours that dominate the stand, with a sense of how strict you are.
• Words: taglines, claims or regulated wording that must be readable.
• Neighbours: competitors or unrelated brands that should not dominate the frame.

A short list with a few reference images is easier for a photographer to use than a long guideline document.

What photography can and cannot do

A photographer can choose the angle, height and timing to show the logo straight on, avoid reflections on glass, and photograph the stand before visitors cover it. A photographer cannot make a faded sign look new or change what the stand physically displayed unless that is agreed as retouching.

Our guide to agreeing what retouching can and cannot change explains the options, and cropping, retouching and modifying photographs after delivery covers changes made later by other people. The key point is honesty: a photograph that makes a stand look different from what visitors saw should be a decision the brand makes openly.

A worked example

Imagine a consumer electronics brand with a 9 by 6 metre stand and a rule that its logo must never appear below the product on screen. The brand lists four views: the front elevation, the product wall, the demonstration table, and the team at the front desk. We note two possible problems: a column that hides part of the signage from the main aisle, and a competitor's banner visible from the demonstration angle. The brand decides to accept the column and choose a different angle for the demonstration table. Both decisions are written down before the show.

Timing matters

The cleanest images of brand details are taken before visitors arrive, when the stand is complete and uncrowded. Our guide to an empty stand record before visitors arrive describes this window. During the show, brand details may be hidden by people or moved products, so plan a short check of displays at points you choose.

How to describe the requirement

A good brief for a photographer has four parts:

1. The list of required views.
2. The brand rules attached to each view.
3. What the brand will accept if a view proves impossible.
4. The person who approves.

Our corporate photography deliverables planner and photography style preference brief help turn this into a short document.

Approval and delivery

Brand teams often review in more than one stage: marketing, then the principal brand, then legal. Agree who gives the final yes and how quickly. We confirm the delivery of images and how corrections are handled in the quotation, so that a request to reshoot or re-crop is not a surprise.

Questions a photographer will ask you

• Which single view matters most if time runs short?
• Is a logo partly hidden by an architectural feature of the hall, and have you accepted that?
• Do you want products arranged exactly as in the plan, or as the team leaves them during the day?
• Are there words or claims that appear only on screens, which can change as the screen refreshes?
• Who confirms that an image shows the stand correctly before it is used?