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Trade Show Display Booth • Convention Display • Exhibit Display System • Tradeshow Booth • Conference Display
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Exhibiting Glossary |
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4-Color
Four Color is a term printing companies have used for decades to refer to full-color printing, because color photos, illustrations and layouts that need a wide range of colors have traditionally been printed with just four colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK -- K for Black). A sheet of paper passes through four presses in succession. Each lays down a pattern of tiny dots in one color and in perfect registration (alignment) with the other presses. Seen together by the naked eye, the mix of cyan, magenta, yellow and black dots create the illusion of a full range of color. You could skip the black, but the black adds the strong contrast and “snap.” In the past ten years some printing companies have started using six colors instead of four to achieve richer color in a broader gamut. If you are not in the business you may never have noticed how limited CMYK printing is, how dull it is compared to the color you would like to see. |
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Acrobat Reader This software, which is available free to everyone, enables your computer to open and print, but not edit, any PDF document. |
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Adobe Adobe is the name the company that, as much as any other, has led the way in developing the software used in graphic arts. Adobe developed Postcript, which is a standard digital language used for digital printing. Adobe’s popular layout, design, and photo editing programs are industry standards. |
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Alcove In a display, an alcove is an inset shelf. Many, but not all, pop-up display systems accommodate a shelf that fits within the frame. Typically, it would have black sidewalls and back wall. The top can have tiny halogen lights that iluminate whatever is on the shelf. It’s a neat way to display small products in an exhibit. |
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Anodized Anodizing is a process that coats aluminum with a color, usually black, that is more reliable than painting on a color. |
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Aspect Ratio This is another way of saying proportion. For example, a rectangle that is 2 ft. x 3 ft has an aspect ratio of 2 to 3, which the same ratio as 1 to 1.5. This means a rectangle that is 1 x 1.5 ft is the same shape as a rectangle that is 2 x 3 or 4 x 6. This is important to understand when you change the size of a poster or layout. |
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Backlit Lighted from behind. A backlit graphic is the color print that goes into a light box or into a frame that will have lights behind it. It must be printed on clear or transluscent material. Traditionally (up until the early 1990’s) most backlit graphics were a photographic process, usually under the trade name of Duratrans. With the advent of large-format digital color printing with ink, it became possible to make backlit graphics on a large digital printer from a computer file. This meant that any design created on a computer, whether photographic or an illustration, could be printed as a backlit. It is not easy to get right, though, because acheiving color that is still anywhere near vivid when light is coming through requires heavy ink coverage. The best process for digital backlit with ink is called “reverse print.” This is printing a layout backwards onto the back of a specially coated polycarbonate or polyester film. The ink soaks into the coating. Where there is no ink, the coating stays white. The coating effectively takes on the color of the ink. Many of the most widely used printing technologies cannot produce vivid backlit graphics. The alternative is a relatively new process that exposes photographic material to a laser beam generated from a computer file. The two brand name technologies that do this are Lambda® and Lightjet®. |
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Banner In the exhibit and display world, the word banner refers generally to a shape that is long and narrow. A banner can be printed on fabric or plastic or paper. It can be letters and shapes cut from very thin vinyl and applied to a flexible material. So are there are dozens of ways to produce banners. |
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Banner Stand There are many ways to support a vertical banner or rollable graphic panel. The general term, “banner stand,” refers to any of a number of designs. They are all made to set up easily and break down for easy transport. The banner rolls up and packs into a cylindrical case or canvas bag along with the components ot the stand. |
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Booth The space alloted for an exhibitor at a trade show or convention. Typically, aisles are divided by 8 ft. high “pipe and drape” curtains, and the booths are divided along the aisl by pipe and drape curtains 30 in. high. So a typical booth is a ten foot by ten foot square of floor space with an 8 ft. high curtain a the back and 30 in. high curtains on either side, while being open to the aisle in the front. Sometimes booths are ten feet wide and only 8 ft. deep. It is up to the exhibitor to set up some kind of wall structure to support graphics and present an image. The display is also often refered to as a a “booth.” |
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Bridge An overhead frame between one part of a display and another. The frame is typically 6 to 8 ft. long and 12 to 14 in. high with a backlighted graphic panels. Most often it connects the backwall of a display to a tower portion near the aisle. It usually provides a very visible way to show a company name or product line. |
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Broadway® A trade name for Velcro-receptive display fabric. Unlike Frontrunner, Showtime, or Premier, Broadway does not have a deeply sculpture carpet=like texture. |
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CD Compact Disk or Disc . This 5 inch diameter thin plastic disk is the new standard for saving digital files and sending them physically to someone else. Most people now have CD writers that can save up to 700 mb (megabytes) of information on a CD. Since the process is optical rather than magnetic, the CD can be written once and not changed. 700 mb is enough to save hundreds of low resolution images or several medium resolution images or one image large enough to print a mural. |
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Channel Bar Also referred to as a “mag bar” (magnetic bar) this is the vertical bar that attaches to a popup frame. The channel bar is either made of metal (therefor magnetic) or has a pair of 1/2 inch wide magnetic strips to support the vertical seams between fabric panels. The back of a fabric panel or mural panel for a popup display has magnetic strips at its seam edges. The strip has a polarity that is either A or B. If the channel bar has Pole A magnetic strip, the panel must have pole B. A and B magnetic strip align evenly, forcing the edge of the panel to connect in proper alignment. Pole A magnetic strip has the smooth side exposed. Pole B has a thin (barely visible) groove on the exposed side for identification. Some manufacturers use Pole A on the channel bars and Pole B on the panels, while other use the opposite scheme. It is essential to get it right when making mural panels for a particular display. It is also essential when making mural panels to have exactly the right distance between the strip and the edge of the panel. This varies from 1/16 inch space to no space, depending upon the manufacturer of the display. |
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CMYK An acronym for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. K is used for black to distinguish the designation from blue. These four colors have been used for a century to print apparently full-color images in the letterpress and offset printing process. In traditional CMYK printing, paper is printed 4 times by 4 different presses laying down tiny dots of solid color of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. There are only 4 colors printed in CMYK printing, but the dots blend together as viewed by the naked eye and give the appearance of a continuous rainbow of different colors. Full-color printing of brochures, and magazines has traditionally been referred to as 4-color offset printing. Digital printers like the one on millions of desk tops and like the ones used to print individual posters and murals, also use CMYK printing. Unlike offset printing that is essentially 4 different presses in a row*, digital printers have 4 ink heads in a row that travel together back and forth across the paper on a track. In CMYK printing, blue is made with cyan and magenta. Red is made with magenta and yellow. While the effect when used with photography is very effective, the color gamut (range of possible color) is limited. Many colors cannot be created by mixing dots of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. One example is deep blue. Cyan is made deeper and richer with the addition of magenta, but as it gets deeper, it goes toward purple, not deep, deep blue. Deep vermillion red is also generally not possible in CMYK. Red made from 100% magenta and 100% yellow is a pure red, but not a deep red. To make red deeper, we have nothing to add but cyan and black, which have the effect of making the color darker but not redder. Using all four colors makes a color less pure, more dull, or “desaturated.” A saturated color is one that is very rich. A desaturated color is more grayish. Starting in the early 1990’s, offset printing in a 6-color mix started to gain popularity. Orange and green were added to the cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The process is known as hexachrome, and delivers noticeably richer color. We never knew how dull 4-color printing was until we compared it side by side with hexachrome. Whether the richer color is worthy of the extra expense is a subject about which graphic designers and business owners are likely to disagree. Digital printers, especially the wide format printers, have been expanded to print with 6 and even 8 colors for additional richness. There are several different technologies. The most popular is 6 color printing with CMYK plus light magenta and light cyan. This doesn’t produce richer color, but it does produce much smoother color, especially in the bright areas of a photo where there are subtle transitions of pastel colors. This technology also does a great job of soft shadows that fade to white with no perceptable line. See the description of “Pantone” color, and “RGB” for more on the subject of color. |
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Color Space This is an esoteric computer graphics term that refers to the way color is defined digitally. Keep in mind that computers ultimately translate everything into complex mathematical formulas in binary math. In binary math there are only two numbers: 0 and 1. 0 is the result of an open circuit, and 1 is the resu lt of a closed circuit. The clever people who developed the t technology we also use came up with several ways to define color with binary math. The two most popular are RGB and CMPYK. Cmyk is used because is reflects the way colors are actually printed with dots of ink. CMYK in digital information requires 32 bits of information to define a color, 8 bits actually for each value of each of the four actual colors in CMYK. (see CMYK in this glossary) Another way, not the only other way, to define color is RGB, which stands for red, green, blue. Red is actually a linear scale from red to its opposite color: cyan. Green is a scale from green to its opposite color: magenta. And blue is a scale from blue to yellow, its opposite color. All colors can be seen as a mix of these three values. RGB is a color space that exists in light, not ink. Computer monitors work with an RGB scale. And there are many, many colors in the RGB rainbow of colored light that do not translate to ink. RGB is also more efficient in digital equation. Since each value (the red to cyan scale, etc) can be defined with 8 bytes of information, RGB requires only 24. Another way to say this is that RGB has three channels, and CMYK has four channels, each channel requiring 8 bytes to define. A photo in digital information (‘digital photo file”) that is 75 mb (megabytes) in RGB would be 100 mb in CMYK. Another way of defining color are HSB. H is hue. And hue is the entire rainbow, from cool to hot. S is saturation, which defines how rich or pure the color is. B is for black; it defines the darkness of the color. |
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Color Gamut This terms refers to the total range of color available to a particular color space or printing technology. CMYK has a limited color gamut (see CMYK), which means there are many color, it cannot reproduce. How many distinct colors are there in CMYK? In printing technology, if deal with whole percentage values, each process color can be used at any of 100 percentages or plus zero (not used at all). The possible combinations ( for example: 100 % cyan, 50 % magenta, 0% y ellow, and 15 % black) are over 100 million different colors. However, even those 100 million different possible colors, do no include many other colors. |
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Compressed File Digital files are often too big to be easily transported electronically (email or ftp). There are several technologies for compressing them or in other words transforming them into smaller digital files. The most common is jpeg for photos and other image files. Another very popular method is “stuffing” the file using a program from Aladin called “drop stuff”. This program has the ability to compress an entire folder of files, not just a single file. And the degree of compression is impressive. Files compressed this way have a .sit extension. The program that “unstuffs” this kind of file is avalable free. Aladin offers the stuffing program on a trial basis. |
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Composite |
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Compass This term is used in the exhibit business to describe a display for a 20 by 20 ft. exhibit space that has a central tower and four outlying towers. |
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Concave Curve Most pop-up displays are a concave curve. The display could be made to expand into a straight wall, but would be much less stable. The whole idea of a portable display is to be very light weight for transport, set up easily without tools, and form a wall that appears substantial but is not anchored anywhere. The curve therefore provides a broad footprint that makes the wall much more stable. |
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Convex Curve Pop-up curve displays normally have the concave side facing forward, but they can be turned around so that they curve outward. This requires much wider fabric or mural panels and, with some types of pop-up, additional hardware for the frame. A convex curve next to a concave curve forms an serpentine or S-shaped curved. One disadvantage of the convex curve, when used by itself for a ten-foot booth, is that it takes up too much space in the middle of the booth area and is recessed at the edges next to neighboring booths, which typically project outward at the edges. |
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Crystal Crystal in trade show graphics refers to the texture of the laminate. There are many different kinds of laminate made by many different companies. Intelligent people in these companies have come up with words to describe the surface texture of their products. The texture of the actual products varies quite a bit, and not every product that uses the word, “crystal” has the same texture. However, it generally refers to a sandblast type texture, no pattern. Polycarbonate laminates or typically somewhat textured, but this texture is also referred to as “velvet,” Vinyl laminates with a “crystal” surface, generally have more texture and less glare. The whole idea is to provide a surface that is not glossy, but is also not matte, so that color vividness can be retained, while reflection and glare are mostly eliminated. |
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Digital File Anything, written, drawn, painted, rendered, scanned, or edited in a computer as saved as digital information. |
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Digital Size How much memory a digital file requires. A word document doesn’t usually require much. A photo can require a lot. Digital size is expressed in “K” or thousands of bytes or Megabytes, which is thousands of K’s. |
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Display Fabric Light weight, textured, attractive, and available in hundreds of colors. But most of all ... Velcro®-receptive. The whole idea in the display business is to generate the appearance of substance, while in fact being as portable as possible, therefore, lacking in substance as much as possible. Velcro® and Velcro® imitations are the cement, nails, screws and rivets of display structures. Rollable graphics, brochure holders, and other elements of display structure stick to display fabric like instant super glue with Velcro® “hook” and can be peeled of and re-stuck over and over.. all without tools or solvents. A trade show is like Macy’s or Saks Fifth Avenue -- built, decorated, lighted and stocked in 24 hours, open for business for 3 days, and then dismantled and shipped off. Velcro® compatible display fabric plays a key role in creating the illusion. |
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Double-Face Sometimes it means tape that is sticky on both sides, but in the display business it is more likely to refer to a banner stand with a banner front and back. |
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Download To pull a digital file into your computer through an email or internet connection . |
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DPI Dots per Inch. A good digital printer used to lay down dots of ink or toner so small that 300 in a line would be only and inch long. Now, a good digital printer prints at 600 or 1200 dpi, and those dots are way too small to see without a pretty good magnifying glass, which means of course that the prints have the appearance of sharp edges and smooth blocks and gradatiions of color. DPI is also used to refer to pixels per inch ... PPI. Technically, the "resolution” or apparent sharpness of a scanned photo is expressed as pixels per inch ... PPI, though most people say DPI. |
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Dye Ink In ink jet printing there are two basic type of water-based ink. Ink with colors created from dyes and ink with colors created from pigments. Dye ink has the advantage of a broader color gamut... more vivid colors, and pigmented ink has the advantage of fade resistance in sunlight. The trade-off is color quality vs. color stability. Any prints used outdoors or anywhere exposed to sunlight, such as a store window, should be printed with pigmented ink. The colors are not quite as good, but they last. Pigmented ink is most often referred to as UV ink since about 2001, which can be confusing. UV stands for ultra-violet... the spectrum of light in sunlight that fades ink. So UV ink really means pigment ink that is resistant to the detrimental effects of UV light. Prints made with dye ink should be protected with a UV laminate, even though they will be used indoors. The UV laminate helps, but is not enough to ward off the effects of sunlight for long. |
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Endcap A way of making a thin non-subantial wall look smooth and substantial at its left and right edges. Most often, the word endcap is used in reference to a pop-up display. An endcap is the narrow (14 to 23 inch wide) fabric panel that forms a semicircle to cap off the edge of the pop-up frame. Endcaps are also used with framed panel displays and with frameless panel displays. For the popup displays they are most often display fabric that is bonded to rollable plastic sheet for added stiffness. But they can also be made with rigid spines for panels displays. |
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EPS An acronym for Encapsulated Postscript. EPS is a digital format for vector and raster images and illustrations. |
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Fabric Panel |
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Floppy (Disk) A computer 3 1/2 inch diskette for storing up to 1.4 mb of digital information. The old 5 inch diskette from the early 1980’s has disappeared entirely from use. The 1.4 mb disk has almost disppeared as of 2003, having be largely replaced by Zip disks that store 94 mb or more, and CD’s that make it possible to store (and mail to someone across the country) up to 700 mb for less than 50 cents. |
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Foam Core or Foam Board A popular substrate for mounting photos and posters. Most commonly 3/16 thick, it is styrene foam similar to the material of disposable coffee cups with a layer of paper, usually white, on both sides. It is rigid and extremely light weight. It is not very stable, since it warps, dents, and dings easily. It is, however, one of the most economical substrates for mounting posters. |
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F.O.B. An acronym for Freight On Board, from the days when most freight travelled by boat. What it means is that the customer pays the shipping. F.O.B. is used as a qualifer for a price that essentially translates to: does not include the cost of shipping to the customer from the factory or from the warehouse. |
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Font A style of printed lettering. For example, Century is a font family. Century Schoolbook is a font. It must be understood, however, that not all Century Schoolbook letters are the same. Different companies have rendered the fonts digitally (for use in computer graphics), and the results are always different in subtle ways. A letter can be a little thicker in places, or occupy a little more space horizontally than the same letter rendered by a different company. |
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Footprint The amount ( and shape) of floor space or desk space occupied by a physical object. |
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Frame |
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Frameless Display System A type of display made of a number of flat panels covered with display fabric. A core material, which can be plastic or cardboard or a laminated material, is wrapped entirely with fabric. Panels are connected left to right, not by metal hinges, but by spaces between cores where the fabric, glued back to back, forms a fabric hinge. With some frameless displays the fabric covered panels are not hinged, but connected by another method, which could be a sort of interlocking tongue and groove or pins that slide into corresponding holes. This type of display can be appealing, even elegant, because of the color and texture of the fabric, and because there are no frames. |
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Freehand® Illustration Software originally developed by Aldus in the 1980’s and later purchased by Macromedia. It is competition for the most popular graphic illustration software: Adobe Illustrator. Freehand is an effective program that does pretty much the same thing as Illustrator, but Illustrator is more popular. |
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Freestanding A term used to describe a display that stands on the floor and is 7 to 8 ft. tall, as opposed to a display that sits on a table top. |
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Frontrunner® The most popular Velcro-receptive display fabric. Frontrunner, like a couple of its competitors, has a texture that is a like a cross between corduroy and commerical carpet. Many people refer to it as carpet. Frontrunner is a non-woven, melded fabric made with a nylon -polyester blend. It is available in 30 colors. |
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FTP Acronym for File Transfer Protocol. It is used as an adjective to describe a processs that transfers digitial files over an internet connection or as a verb to refer to the same process. |
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FTP Site A web site that serves as an online location that people can send digital files to and download files from. |
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Halogen A type of light bulb. Halogens burn brighter (and hotter) than incandescent bulbs and are often used in trade show displays. As a work lamp or photogaphy lamp, a halogen can be 500 or 1000 watts, but in trade show application the brightest is 200 watts. A couple of 200 watt halogen lamps produce plenty of light for a ten-foot booth. Halogens can also be tiny. A 50 watt halogent reflector bulb is the standard ilumination for a banner stand. Even smaller halogens are used for alcove lighting. |
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Hanger The stiff but flexible black plastic strip that is glued to the top of a fabric panel for a pop-up display. It has a notch on the left and right that hangs on a pin in the frame. Though the fabric panel will ultimately be held to the display by strips of magnet on the back edges, you place a fabric panel on the display by first hanging it on two pins. |
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Header In the display world, a header is any horizontal graphic panel the announces the name of a company, its product line or key ad line. There is the printed graphic plus the system of framework that holds or frames it. This is a very loose term that can refer to many different things. It could be a company name applied in vinyl lettering to a piece of stiff plastic that attaches to a display with velcro. |
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Header Panel |
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Hexachrome 6-color offset printing of magazines and brochures, which results in richer color. For the better part of a century, full color reproduced with a printing press was done... still is done with tiny dots of just four colors, cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink (see CMYK). Hexachrome printing, which started to gain popularity among designers in the 1990’s reproduces the appearance of full color with six colors of ink: cyan, magenta, yellow, black plus two more: orange and green. The result is noticebly richer color and higher cost for printing. |
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Hollywood® Velcro® receptive fabric made by Crosspoint Fabrics |
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Hook and Loop These are the two surfaces of Velcro that stick to one another. If your display has “Velcro-receptive” display fabric..... which most have..... you need only the hook Velcro on the back of your posters. However, Velcro® is a trade name. The Velcro company does not own the words hook and loop, so these terms also apply to products similar to Velcro® but made by other manufacturers. |
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Hub A pop-up display is constructed of narrow bars or “struts” that form a criss-cross structure when expened. The bars are connected by hubs in the front and back of the structure. |
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Illustrator® Adobe’s graphic illustraton program that has become the industry standard, especially in the world of graphic design. Adobe is the company that developed and continues to develop key software for graphics, including Post Script, Photoshop, and Acrobat. |
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Infill A term used by some display manufacturers to refer to a flat panel that is inserted into a frame. Typicaly, it is rigid plastic sheet with display fabric bonded to it. |
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Inkjet A process that squirts tiny drops of ink onto paper or film in a printing process that is powered by a computer. Inkjet technology became popular in the 1980’s as an effective way to print documents from a personal computer. It started with one cartridge forblack ink. In the 1990’s several companies developed the software to drive 4 or more cartridges with different colors of ink to print apparent full color images. SEE: CMYK, DYE ink, PIGMENTED ink and UV ink for more on this topic. |
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In-Line A way of describing a display made up of modular components to construct a booth that is 20 feet long or longer. |
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Island In the exhibit world, an island is a display that is 20 x 20 feet or larger that can be approaced by passersby on all sides. When you sign up to exhibit at a trade show, you can rent a single booth space, which is 10 x 10 feet or two spaces to have 10 x 20 feet (inline) or 4 or more spaces to have an Island exhibit. |
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JAZ After Iomega developed its popular 100 mb ZIP® computer disk, the company introduced a 1 gigabyte disk (10 times the capacity) named “Jaz®.” Jaz was unfortunately unreliable. The possiblitity of losing valuable data caused the Jaz disk to never catch on as a widely used format. |
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Jpeg (pronounced Jay-Peg) Widely used digital format for photos and digital graphic files. A jpeg is compressed, which means that a digital file sucha as a tiff or eps file that is normally 12 mb. (megabytes) in size can be as little as a half a megabyte (500K) in jpeg format. Only raster files are saved in jpeg format, not vector files. A raster file without compression can be either a tiff or eps file. There are many other formats that are rarely used. Tiff is the most common. How much smaller the jpeg is than the uncompressed file depends upon two big variables. First, the nature of the image: an image with a large area of one color compresses a lot. An image filled with detail all through it, compresses much, much less. Second, the quality setting selected by the person saving the file in jpeg format. You can choose a low quality jpeg when compression is more important and a high quality setting when quality is key. Images on web sites are often jpeg format. The value of the jpeg format is being able store large numbers of images in less space or being able to send it by email or place it on a web site. |
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K Kilobyte of digital informaiton. A 198K photo, for example, is a digital file with 198 thousand bytes of information to define 72 pixels of information ... a good size for a website, but nowhere near big enough to print. |
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Lambda® One of two name-brand technologies that make color prints on photographic paper from a digital file. The most common way to print digital files is “ink jet” that sprays tiny drops of ink. Lambda® is a process that uses a laser beam to expose traditional photographic paper to light. Before computers were invented, large color prints and backlit transparencies were made by projecting light through a color negative onto light-sensitive photographic paper or film in a darkroom. Photographic paper or film has an “emulsion” in three layers that reacts to light and produces full color from the three color layers. The paper or film is then developed (processed in a series of chemicals) to bring out the color and “fix” the image or make it permanent. Lambda® technology provides the way to expose the photographic paper or film from a digital file, rather than using an enlarger to shine light through a negative. The paper or film is then processed chemically, producing a color print that is a photragraphic emulsion, rather than ink. There are some advantages to this process, especially for backlit graphics. However, the result is not archival, and the color gamut, while very smooth, is not unlimited. The competing technology for Lambda® is Lightjet®, which is the same type of printing machinery, produced by a different company. Re: Lightjet |
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Large Format A term used to refer to printing onto roll paper or film using an ink jet process. Large means for display, and therefore big enough to be seen by a passerby. The roll material is from 24 inches wide to 60 inches wide. Wider than that is called Grand Format. Larger format is posters, banners, and so on. Small format is information sheets, flyers, and brochures. |
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Laminate (verb) Large format printing usually needs and get lamination. Laminating is done with a laminator, which passes the prints to be laminated between two rollers under pressure. The rollers can be cold hot depending upon the type of adhesvie on the laminating film. Laminators for large format prints have to be large machines with rollers londger than the print is wide. |
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Laminate (noun) The laminate material is a plastic film with adhesive on one side. Pressure- sensitive laminates are very sticky on one side, like very sticky packing tape. Hot laminates have an adhesive that get sticky when hot. The cure time on hot laminates is neglible; the cure time on cold laminates is several hours and longer, which means a cold laminate print should sit overnight before being used (according to experts). The laminate film is polyester, or vinyl, also called pvc or polycarbonate. |
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Lexan® Trade name for polycabonate laminate and large-format inkjet print media. |
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Lightjet® One of two name-brand technologies that make color prints on photographic paper from a digital file. A relatively new process that exposes photographic material to a laser beam generated from a computer file. A proprietary equipment and process for making color prints from a digital file without ink. Like its competitor, Lambda®, Lightjet® exposes color photographic paper i.e. the paper used for making prints from color negatives) with a laser beam directed by digital information. It is widely believed to produce better color and sharper resolution than ink jet printing, but there is debate on this subject. Re: Lambda® |
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Magnetic Strip (Pole A, Pole B) Mural panels and fabric panels on pop-up curves are held in place with magnetic strip. Usually 1/2 inch wide by 1/16 inch thick this material which comes in rolls with pressure sensitive adhesive backing, is placed along the back vertical edges of a rollable panel. Channel bars on the pop-up form the vertical surface with matching magnetic strip. The polarity of the magnets is important. When one is “pole A” (smooth on the surface) and the other is “pole B” (indicated by a groove on the surface), the strips lock together in perfect alignment. If the channel bars have Pole A magnetic strip, the backs of the fabric panels will have Pole B strips and vice versa. Banner graphics sometimes attach to frames in the same manner. The idea is to hold down the edges of a graphic panel against a flat surface on the display. The magnetic strips attract flat side to flat side. There is another kind of magnetic strip, that looks similar and has an adhesive side to attach to the back of a rollable graphic panel but with one key difference: the attraction is edge to edge. Known as “edge” magnet the purpose of this type of magnetic strip is to get the vertical edge of one banner (vertical rollable graphic panel) to connect to the edge of an adjacent banner. This makes it possible to make a mural consisting of separate vertical banners that connect left to right forming a continuous layout, photo, or design. |
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Mb or Megabyte 1000 bytes of digital information. A 3 –1/2 inch floppy disk holds 1.4 mb. A 100 mb Zip disk holds 94 mb. A digital image with enough information to print at a size of about 2x 4 inches is about 4 mb.in size. There are 1,000 mb in a gb (gigabyte). By the year 2003, hard drives typically come with 60 gb capacity or more. |
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Mil A measurement of thickness... in the display business ... the thickness of printing substrate, mounting substrate, or laminate. Print media is typically from 4 mil thick to 12 mil thick with 7 mil being most common. |
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Modular A description applied to displays meaning: made up of individual components which could be used separately and in different combinations. |
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Mount, Mounted |
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Mural Panel |
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Offset printing
The printing technology used universally for printing quantities of brochures, post cards, busines cards, flyers and so forth. New digital technology has streamlined the process of producing the printing plates, but it is still all offset printing. A printing press uses offset printing. Before offsett was letterpress printing, which used lead type and etched plates with a raised surface where the ink hit the paper. |
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Pagemaker® The layout program developed by Aldus and later purchased by Adobe. It is used on both Mac and IBM compatible computers. |
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Portable Document File -- The digital format developed by Adobe that is universally readable by all modern computers (Mac or IBM compatible). A photo, illustration, or entire layout with all the images and fonts, can be wrapped up in one digitial file using Adobe’s Acrobat® program and opened by anyone using Adobe’s Acrobat Reader. The reader program is available free to anyone. |
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Photoshop® The industry standard photo editing software by Adobe. |
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Piezo An ink jet technology using elecrical charges to trigger the ink jet. The alternative and more common technologyh is thermal. |
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Pigmented Ink The alternative to dye ink. Pigmented ink is resistant to fading from sunlight or UV light and is consequently also refered to as “UV ink.” It has the disadvantage of a lesser color gamut or spectrum of color. |
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Pionite® A laminate similar to Formica® that is used for counter tops and as a wall covring in displays. |
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Pipe and Drape A term used to describe the somewhat inelegant curtain system that divides a trade show floor into separate booths. Heavy pipe stanchions with round bases support a two-inch diameter horizontal pipe at a height of 8 feet, from which the drape hangs. This forms the back wall behind your display. A lower pipe at waist height separates one booth from the next. |
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Pixel A square of solid color that is the basic and smallest building block of a digital image. A very small digital image is made up of thousands of pixels. An image large enough to print has millions. |
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Pixelated When making an image larger that does not have enough pixels in its original form, the pixels are enlarged to a point that makes them visible. |
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PMS Stands for Pantone Matching System - a proprietary standard of colors made from formulas for mixing printer’s inks. Unlike CMYK printing, PMS colors are made by mixing actual ink. Then the color is printed as a solid color, not dots. The purpose of PMS is to enable companies and designers to specify a color and get that color in printed material in a reliable way. Since each color has a number, the Pantone system gives people a reliable way to talk about color. A designer in Chicago can talk to a marketing company in New York and mention the color PMS 185. Both can refer to a Pantone swatch book and be looking at exactly the same color. Since the Pantone formulas work with more colors than CMYK printing, there is a wider color gamut, and many PMS colors simply cannot be duplicated by mixing dots of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. PMS colors tend to be richer and much more reliable, but they are single solid colors; they don’t reproduce a spectrum or a color photo. |
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Pipe and Drape |
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Podium In the language of exhibiting, a podium is not a lecturn, but a freestanding counter around wich people can stand to discuss something. It is ideally suited to showing a catalog or picture book to another person who has just walked to your booth and stops for a minute to stand and ask questions. Podiums can be designed and constructed as podiums to serve a specific purpose or have a certain look. These podiums assemble and dissassemble without tools for packing into a shipping case. Other podiums are made by covering a shipping case with fabric panels and a counter top. thereby providing the additional advantage of eliminating the need to store the case during the event. |
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Podium Conversion The components that will convert either one or two pop-up display cases into a podium. Originally, pop-up displays traveled in two top-loading cases. To convert these two cases to a podium one would first wrap a strap around the two cases to hold them together, then place a counter top that would cover the two cases. The counter top had to either fold or ship in two interlocking pieces so that it would fit into one of the cases. Then one would unroll four plastic-backed fabric panels and hang them from the edges of the counter top. They connected with Velcro® at the top to the counter and on the sides to one another, forming straight sides. |
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Polycarbonate A type of laminate or printing material that is tougher than alternative materials. The laminate ususlly has a textured surface that is sometimes called “velvet.” It also popular as a material for printing onto with a large format printer which prints a reverse image onto the back, coated side. One advantage of this process is that , since the printing is on the back, and the front side is textured, it doesn’t need a front laminate, just a laminate on the back to protect the ink. Polycarbonate is often referred to as “Lexan®” which is a proprietary name. |
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Polyester One of the family of plastics used for laminate and print material. It has good toughness, rigidity and can accept heat. Most heat-activated gloss laminates have a polyester film base. |
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Polypropelene A plastic sheet material that makes an effective print material for ink jet printing. It cannot be subjected to heat above about 180 degrees F and therefore must be laminated with pressure sensitive laminates (a opposed to heat-activated laminates.) |
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Pop-up The generic term for a type of display that consists of a frame upon which stiffened fabric panels are attached to form the visible wall surface. |
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Posterized An adjective that describes an image that consists of a limited number of solid colors with no gradation between them. Posterizing is a process that was used for years to convert a photo to an image with just two or three sometimes four colors. The effect can be striking. Computer technology (most folks use Adobe Photoshop) can now posterize a continuous tone image into one with any number of solid colors. |
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Postscript A computer language developed by Adobe that has become a standard for describing text and other digital files. |
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PPI Pixels Per Inch. This is the best universal way to describe the resolution (sharpness and capacity for detail) in a digital image. An 300 ppi image has 300 distinct pixels every linear inch or 90,000 in a square inch. This is enough digital information to make a sharp image printed in a brochure by offset printing. If the image is to be printed by inkjet printing, 150 ppi is enough to render a print that is sharp to the naked eye. With Lambda or Lightjet printing, 100 ppi is sufficient resolution. Since each pixel is defined with 8 or 12 bytes of digital information, the higher the resolution, the bigger the digital file. Mural sized images will be over 500 mb in size at 150 ppi. The same size image at 300 ppi would result in a digital file of astronomical size.... unworkable and unnecessry. So the best option is to have enough ppi for the type of printing, but not more than you need. |
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Prelude® The brand name for a popular display fabric manufactured in Australia. Prelude® and Frontrunner® are both Velcro® receptive fabric made by the same company. Frontrunner® has a deep texture -- like corduroy with cris-cross rows. Prelude® has a smoother texture. |
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Press Kit When exhibiting at a trade show, it is advisable to prepare a press kit and leave several copies in the press area for the trade publications that cover your industry. A press kit contains sheets of information about your company, your product line(s) and current press releases along with reproduceable photos (a CD is best) and contact information. It is something you should prepare even if you won’t have the opportunity to leave copies of it for the trade press. It is a tremendously useful collection of information, photos and illustrations that should be available for ongoing marketing. |
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Pressure Sensitive (often designated as PS) A type of adhesive that works by pressure as opposed to heat. A synonym would be “sticky.” Duct tape, for example, has a pressure sensitive adhesive coating. |
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PS Acronym for pressure-sensitive, which means sticky. |
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PSD PhotoShop Document. A file format that is created by Adobe Photoshop before it is saved in a more universal format such as EPS or TIFF. A PSD document can have the advantage of being more editable, because it can preserve the many different layers the designer has used. Graphics companies that print your files sometimes ask for the document in PSD format so they can adjust or color correct the layers separately. PSD files can be saved as in TIFF format but most be “flattened” first, which means all text, vectors, and layers all become one rasterized (made up of pixels) image. |
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Puzzle Carpet Squares of carpet that are shaped like and fit together like pieces of a puzzle. The advantage is carpet that can be shipped in a case and laid down on a trade show floor to the size and shape of the booth space. |
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PVC Poly Vinyl Chloride - A plastic used in various configurations from laminates to mounting substrates. A popular mount board commonly referred to by the trade name of one manufacturer -- Sintra® -- is an expanded PVC, which means it is less dense and hard than solid pvc. |
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Quad (provide illustration) A term used by exhibit companies to refer to the square section of a pop-up display frame. A pop-up is so named because expands in seconds to form a standing frame over 7 ft tall and 8 ft.wide. In its collapsed state, the pop-up frame is a bundle of straight rods or bars of plastic, fiberglass or aluminum. As the frame is expanded, it becomes a network of X’s forming a series of squares. Each square is called a “quad.” A 10 ft. wide pop-up curve is 4 quads wide and 3 quads high. An 8 ft. wide curve is 3 quads wide and 3 quads high. The quads are the same size. A table-top display is 2 quads high. A quad is about 30 inches square. The dimensions vary slightly from one manufaturere to another, but the basic geometry is always the same. |
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Quark Express® The premier software used by graphic designers for for layout. Brochures, magazines, ads, and , to a lesser extent, posters are most often produced in Quark Express®. The program is available for both Mac and IBM compatible computers. In this program, a designer sets the page size, types or imports headlines and text, selects font, type size, style, color. Photos, illustrations are created and edited in different programs and imported into the layout. Adobe Pagemaker is a competitve program that does the same thing, but Quark Express is the leader and industry standard. |
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Radius In displays, this refers to segment of circle, the size of which is defined by the distance of the radius. A radius endcap for example, is a semi-circle at the edge of a display wall. A counter top with a radius end has straight sides and a round end. Radius is also used to describe a round corner as opposed to a square corner. |
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Radius® A manufacturer of modular displays. |
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Raster Image Any image generated in computer software that is made up of pixels. The alternative to a raster image is a shape or illustrtion defined as “Vector.” Vector is the mathematical description of a shape. Another alternative to a raster image is text, which uses a computer language such a Postrcript or TrueType to define the shape of a letter in a particular font, style and size. Anything visual in a computer document, including text can be turned into a raster image file. When it is, it is comprised of a finite number of pixels. Unlike a vector image or text, a raster image is not “scalable” because it cannot be made larger without loss of quality. |
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Resoluton A computer photo and graphics term that is a key way to define sharpness. Resoultion is directly related to raster images. The sharpness of a photo, for example, has a lot to do the factors in photography that have been around for generations, such as lens quality, focus, shutter speed and so on. Once a photo is scanned or if it is a digital image to start with, a major factor in it sharpness is digital resolution, which is another way of saying how many pixels it has to define the image. The more the better... up to the point where higher resolution cannot be seen. Resolution is stated as pixels per inch or PPI. Most people say DPI for dots per inch. An image that is 4 inches wide and 5 inches tall with resolution of 300 ppi is 1200 pixels wide by 1500 pixels high. The same image can be made larger, but it will still have the same number of pixels. It it is 8 inches wide, it will still be 1200 pixels wide and now will have a resoluiton of 150 ppi. Different resolutions are needed for different uses. All web site images have a resolution of 72 ppi, which is very low, but all that is need to show on a computer monitor. Images for printing by offseet in a magazine or brochure, need 300 ppi. Images printed on a personal desktop inkjet printer do fine with 150 ppi. Large Forrmat inkjet printers do well with images that are 100 to 150 ppi. |
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Reverse Print An inkjet printing process that applies ink to a white coating on the back of a polyester or polycarbonate print media. This process has several advantages. The ink actually soaks into the coating, so that the coating takes on the color. Where no ink is applied, the color remains white. With dye ink and an ink jet printer that lays down heavy amounts of ink, reverse printing is a very effective way to create prints that will have rich color in a backlit application. Another advantage is that a reverse print needs on lamination on the front. The front of the print media is already film, not ink. It does need a lamination on the back to protect the ink. This is a 2-layer sandwich. Front print often requires lamination on both sides resulting in a 3-layer sandwich. However, reverse printing doesn’t work for everyone. Some printing technologies don’t lay down enough ink, and some don’t have a reliable way to calibrate for the process to get accurate color. |
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RGB Red - Green - Blue. A way of defining colors in the color spectrum of light. Red is really a linear scale from red to its opposite: cyan. Green is a linear scale from green to its opposite: magenta. And blue is the scale from blue to its opposite: yellow. Computer programs for color imaging provide a way to adjust the color of an image on these 3 scales, moving an image more toward blue than yellow, or making it more green or red or magenta or cyan. In digital images, an RGB c |
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Roto-Molded Produced by a process of molding something in plastic. The process actually rotates a large mold so the liquid plastic flows equally inside the mold to all surfaces. This is the process used for making many cases for displays and graphics. |
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Scan A verb th at describes of the process of creating a digital file from an image in physical form. It is possible to scan an actual item, such as a pair of scissors by placing the scissors on the glass surface of a scanner, but generally the process of scanning starts with a pirnt or a transparency. An example of a transparency is a color slide. When you make a scan, you choose the scanning resolution, or pixels per inch (ppi, often referred to as dpi). If you scan an 8 x 10 inch photo at 300 ppi, you can translate that scan to an image that is 24 inches by 30 inches with a resolution of 100 ppi. In other words, when you scan a photo, you consider the resolution you will need. The photo you are scanning typically is not the same size as the print you will ultimately make from the scan. A color slide is about 1 inch by 1 1/2 inches in size. You would therefore scan it at a much higher resolution. If for example, you scan it at 2400 ppi, the one inch dimension will translate to an 8 inch dimension at 300 ppi. (2400 divided by 8 is 300). Also scans are usually done in an RGB mode. The rgb can be translated at any time in the future to cmyk (a different way of describing color that requires 4 channels. as compared to 3 with rgb. |
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Serpentine S-Shaped. Two 10-ft. pop-up curves, one curving in and one curving out form an S-shaped wall 20 feet across. |
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Showtime®
Trade name for a Velcro®-receptive display fabric. Very similar to Frontrunner® |
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Single-Face Single-sided. The description for a banner stand with a one-sided banner, rather than two. Graphics printed only on one side. |
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Sintra® Trade name for an expanded pvc plastic sheet. A popular mount substrate for posters and graphic panels used in displays. Typically 1/8 in. thick (actually 3mm.), it is stiff, but flexible. It is also used in a thickness of 1/4 inch for counter tops, shelving and other accessories in displays. |
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Skirt Table skirt. |
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Slat Wall A type of display system popular in retail displays. It looks like horizontal boards spaced about 1/2 apart. It designed to attach a variety of shelves, brackets and pocket holders that easily slip and hook into the spaces. In retail application, slat wall is typically made from heavy particle board with a laminate surface. In trade show displays, it is more likely to be made from lighter-weight materials, including extruded plastic. |
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Spot Color Full-color printing is accomplished by printing tiny dots of just four colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. The dots apparently blend into continuous color as seen by the naked eye. Full-color printing is therefore often referred to as 4-color printing. However, it is often done with a 6-color press, which means that two additional colors can be used. Since creating color with cyan, magenta, yellow and black dots has limitations in terms of being able to match exact colors. a designer has the option of using a “spot color.” The spot color will be mixed according to a standard formula known as Pantone® Matching System or PMS. Every design shop has a Pantone® swatch book. Each color has a number. |
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Stuffed Condensed in reference to a digital file. Specifically, a program developed by Aladin called Dropstuff`® condenses digital files so that they can be more easily transported as for example by email. |
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Strut A term often used to refer to the bars that make up the frame of a pop-up display. |
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Swatch Color sample of fabric or ink. |
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T-Bar Also called channel bar or mag (for magnetic) bar. In some pop-up displays, the vetical bar with magnetic strip is made from a T-shaped extrusion. |
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Tempo®
Trade name for a Velcro® receptive display fabric very similar to Veltex®. Veltex® is the Velcro® receptive fabric made by the Velcro company. |
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Thermo-Formed Used to designate a shipping case made of plastic in a process in which heated plastic is formed in a mold. |
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Thermal (laminate) Thermal laminates have a heat-activated adhesive. They are applied in a laminating machine with hot rollers. |
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Tiff Acronym for Tagged Information File Format. One of the earliest, best and still most universal format for digital images. that are comprised of pixels. |
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Tower A part of an exhibit, typically with about a 1 x 3 ft. foot print that is connected to a larger part of the exhibit by an overhead bridge. The bridge typically has backlit graphics. |
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Trade Press Generic term for all the publications that are trade-specific. An example would be Photonics ... a monthly magazine for anyone interested or involved with photonics. These are not publications you will see on sale at the grocery store, but they are extremely important within their respective industries and markets. When you exhibit at a trade show, you want to be aware of publications that will be represented there by editorial staff and advertising sales people. They are important contacts for help in publicizing your products and services within a very targeted market. You should come prepared with a press kit consisting of photos, press releases, and product information sheets. |
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True Type A computer language for specifying type fonts and styles. It is an alternative to Post Script, and is more efficient. Post Script fonts are the standard for most graphic designers. |
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Upcharge Also called “upgrade” ... A legitimate additional charge for additional service or product feature. |
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Upsell A sales technique that increases the total for what the customer is considering. When for example, a customer is interested in a |
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Unstuffed Describes a digita file that has been compressed and subsequently uncompressed using propriety software from Aladin®. |
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UV - Acronym for for Ultra Violet, which is the spectrum of light that most fades and discolors ink. |
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Vector File A digital file that describes shape and color with mathematical algorithms rather than pixels. There are just two basic ways to form an image in a computer. One is pixels. The other is vectors. An image made of pixels is called a raster image file. You can rasterize a vector file. But the converting a raster image to vectors is a very imperfect process that works well only with a lot of painstaking work by a skilled person. |
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Vegas® A trade name for a Velcro® receptive display fabric |
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Velcro® The original trade name for the famous hook and loop fastening system. Velcro® is both the name of the product and the name of the company that owns the patent. Similar products are made by other companies.. |
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Veltex® Trade name for Velcro® receptive fabric made by the Velcro® company. |
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Vinyl Vinyl plays various roles in the display industry. It is the basic material of many effective laminates. It is also used in very ... very .. thin sheet material with an adhesive backing to cut out letters and shapes. Sign makers have machines that cut vinyl (which comes on rolls) with a digitally controlled knife blade that does an amazing dance as it actually cuts out the intricate shapes of letters and symbols. The vinyl comes with a heavy paper backing. After the letters are cut, the sign maker applies the vinyl to a flexible or rigid banner or sign material. Vinyl letters have also replaced hand painted lette |
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Wrap-Around A banner or mural on a pop-up curve display that follows the full shape of the curve from the back of one radius end to the back of the other is called wrap-around. A wrap-around mural on a 10-foot curve has 6 panels. The alternative is a 4- panel mural that covers the concave curve, but not the radius ends. |
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X-banner
A type of banner stand that supports the banner with an X-shaped stand. The banner is stretched like the surface of a kite between the 4 points of the X. |
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Zip A popular compression technology for digital files is WinZip for IBM compatible computer files. Zipping a file is compressing it with this software. |
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Zip Iomega was the first company to develop a magnetic disk that could store almost 100 mb in a reliable and relatively inexpensive way. By 1996, the Iomega Zip disk had become a new standard to replace the older 3.5 in. “floppy” disk that stores only 1.4 mb. Another companay, Syquest, had earlier developed a 40 mb. disk and then an 88 mb. disk technology, which was a standard for several years before the Iomega Zip. Since each disk had a price tag of over $75, Syquest was used by graphic designers and other professionals, but did not achieve the wide popularity that the Iomega Zip disk achieved with its disk that was priced below $20. Syquest went to 200 mb about the time the Iomega Zip came out , but the 200 mb. Syquest was expensive and worse, unreliable. Iomega then developed the Jaz disk to store 1 gb, but that technology was unreliable, and therefore didn’t become a standard. Iomega has since developed a 250 mb zip disk, but the original 100 mb. disk is, according to many people, the new “floppy.” When Apple Computers introduced its “G4” generation of computers, the floppy drive had disappeared, and many G4’s shipped with a builtin zip drive. |
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Have we left a word out? |
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Is there a word that we should have included in glossary and overlooked? Let us know by email. Have we made mistakes in any of our definitions? If you catch one, please tell us. Have we done a poor job of explaining a term you know could be explained with greater clarity? We are interested in your thoughts.
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Trade Show Display Booth • Convention Display • Exhibit Display System • Tradeshow Booth • Conference Display
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