Watt IDG’s Hotworx furniture showroom

San Antonio, Texas

Hotworx, a revolutionary workspace outfitter, is a unique concept in office furniture retailing, featuring lines from Steelcase and other popular manufacturers.

Different from typical contract furniture dealers, the Hotworx model allows for small orders, and provides one-, five-, or 10-day delivery. The company Web site is an online virtual showroom, where customers can explore the many furniture options. The Hotworx objective was to make shopping easier and more enjoyable for consumers, offering in-store and virtual representation of the merchandise with a highly tuned sensibility.

The finished showroom, completed by Toronto’s Watt IDG last July, greeted customers via a concierge area with three feature walls designed to set the tone for the Hotworx experience. The Credo Wall explains what Hotworx is, the Embrace Wall introduces the Hotworx brand attitude, and the 1/5/10 Wall explains the delivery model. Innovative and unusual pieces such as a three-person PingPongPang Table reinforce the idea that Hotworx is a very different place to buy office furniture.

The showroom layout is designed to give the space an open, modern feel. The Diner Booth, White Room and Sandbox are unique elements that are centralized in the showroom, with merchandising areas around the perimeter. Semi-translucent scrims hung from the ceiling divide the space into various zones and provide communication opportunities. The Chair Wall at the rear draws your attention and invites you to experience the entire showroom, intrinsically pulling you through the space.

A unique feature of the Web site, known as ‘The White Room,’ is a measured space where customers can ‘drag and drop’ items to determine if they will fit in their own environment. Once the customer has a combination that works for them, an appointment is made to visit the bricks-and-mortar showroom. Here, the White Room is duplicated, and the furniture viewed online is actually set into position.

- Ron Harris, office of the president, Watt IDG, Toronto

Exhibits International’s Gen-X Sports booth

Toronto, Ontario

In 10 short years, Toronto-based Gen-X Sports has become one of the leading sporting goods manufacturers and distributors in the world. The company attends several shows a year that require various booth sizes, configurations and product lines, so the company asked Toronto’s Exhibits International to design a booth that was custom yet modular. The goal was to portray the company as an ‘entrepreneurial power force that can capitalize on emerging trends before its competitors see them developing.’

A booth was delivered in January that could be transformed from a 40′x 40′ setup to a 10′x 10′ configuration as needed. The booth is based on a frame system that fastens together easily and uses materials bolted onto the frame itself, which can be easily changed from show to show to create an entirely different layout each time.

We aimed for a young look, relevant to the target audience, by using galvanized metal sheets, reverse frosted acrylic, red vinyl and bright orange acrylic, which screams the Lamar / LTD brand name on the show floor. To portray the street look our client desired, we produced an exhibit with exposed bolts, raw aspenite and fluorescent lighting. The idea was to attract buyers relevant to the industry by reflecting the boarder attitude.

Our design enabled us to show the client’s entire product line on the inside of the outer walls of the booth, keeping the middle of the booth open for traffic flow, meeting rooms and storage. A two-story unit became the focal point at the entrance of the booth, enabling the client to have a lounge area on the second story, with the lower level functioning as a reception/bar counter.

Our client was so happy with the result that the company currently has the system booked for eight more shows within the next two years, with the possibility of use for two more shows each year.

- Elliot Kohn, VP, Exhibits International, Toronto

MacLaren Momentum’s SecuGen exhibit

Las Vegas, Nevada

Just last week, biometric security leader SecuGen launched a brand new exhibit showcasing fingerprint recognition as a core design element at the International Security Conference in Las Vegas.

Challenged by the misconception that biometrics remains a product of the future, the team at Toronto’s MacLaren Momentum strategically divided the exhibit into three distinct areas – Theme, Partner and Theatre – not only to bring SecuGen’s product use to life through everyday applications, but also to grant show attendees access by using the fingerprint recognition technology itself.

With seven more shows scheduled for this year, attendees visiting the SecuGen exhibit can opt to register for fingerprint recognition and take guided tours with product specialists for a ‘hands on’ introduction to biometrics.

Once inside the exhibit, the Theme area takes you through six environments including residential, business, healthcare, financial, retail and aviation to demonstrate, at a myriad of touch points, how fingerprint recognition impacts our lives. The residential environment, for example, shows how consumers can log on to their home computers with a single fingerprint scan, eliminating multitude password-protected sites. Show attendees also see how healthcare workers can quickly access patient records with a single fingerprint scan system, and how aviation crews employ fingerprint recognition to control security from check-in to boarding.

In the Partner area of the exhibit you will find detailed supplier and purchasing information for all aspects of the product application. The Theatre section presents ‘Biometrics 101,’ a basic tutorial and demonstration of the ease, speed and security of biometrics. Of course, the theatrical audio, visual, and lighting components are all biometrically controlled.

Finally, what exhibit doesn’t hand out literature? At SecuGen’s booth, the literature kiosk opens at the touch of one’s fingerprint.

- John McCauley, creative director, MacLaren Momentum, Toronto