Designing BP Exhibition Stands for a Brand in Transition

Most exhibition briefs ask us to show off a product. The BP brief asked for something harder: make a brand in transition visible. BP was moving from traditional power towards a greener, renewable future, and the stands had to carry that journey rather than simply sit alongside it.

Our answer was to treat the stands as a series. A set of exhibition stands charted the shift, with each one drawing on BP's evolving brand world: energy, movement, and a sense of what comes next, built into the space itself rather than printed on a wall panel.

That distinction matters. A graphic that says "we are changing" is easy to ignore. A space that shows the change through its design makes the point without a single caption, and people remember an experience far better than they remember a slogan.

It also shapes how we work in 3D. We build the stand as a full scene before anything is fabricated, which lets us test sightlines, lighting and the order in which a visitor meets each message. If the story only works from one angle, we find out in the render and not on the show floor.

Colour is the other half of the job. When a brand is mid-change, its palette is under pressure from two directions: the heritage identity people already know, and the new direction the client wants to establish. We lean on the existing brand world for continuity and let movement and light do the work of signalling change.

We have carried the same thinking across other hospitality, technology and automotive stands, from Marriott and IHG to Ferrari and Maserati. The details differ every time, but the question is constant: what does this visitor need to feel in the first five seconds, and what does the space have to do to make that happen?

If you are planning a stand for a brand that is changing direction, or one that simply needs to feel more considered, see the full set of events and exhibitions work on our site, then get in touch from our Marlow studio.