Four Stands, One Sense of Place: Designing for Ecuador and National Geographic

Most stands tell you about a place. The Ecuador Government stands we designed aim to put you in one. Working in collaboration with National Geographic, and at the National Geographic event alongside Paradise Island in Nassau, we created a series of four stands that carry you somewhere.

The tools were florals, warmth and craft. Instead of relying on screens and slogans, the booths use those three things to turn a trade-show footprint into a piece of Ecuador and Nassau that visitors can step inside.

That approach starts with a question: what is the first thing a person should feel? For a country, the answer is rarely a statistic. It is a sense of colour and atmosphere, and the booth has to deliver it from the aisle before anyone reads a word.

We build these spaces in 3D before anything is made. For an organic design, that matters even more than for a corporate one. Flowers, textures and craft elements have to be placed with care, and it is much easier to adjust the balance of colour and density in a render than with real materials in a venue.

Four stands also means one system. Each stand needs its own character, yet they have to read as a family so a visitor who sees two of them understands they belong together. We settled shared materials and a shared colour logic first, then let each stand vary within it.

Lighting is the quiet partner. Warm light makes natural materials glow and makes a stand feel inviting, and it also helps photographs taken at the event look good, which is half the life of an exhibition stand now.

This project sits alongside our work for hospitality and automotive names, but it shows a different side of the studio: using craft and atmosphere rather than technology to tell a story.

You can see the full range on our events and exhibitions page. If you need a space that carries a place, a product or a mood, our Marlow studio would be glad to talk it through.