There are over 10,000 trade shows held annually in the US, and standing out in the dense jungle of exhibitor booths is not an easy task. Here are some tips to maximize your visual impact and budget wisely for your next event:
Refresh your booth setup.
Check the condition of your backdrop, signage and furniture. Is it time for a cleaning, refresh or replacement? Avoid the unexpected by practicing your setup prior to the event. Remember any tools you’ll need to unpack, assemble and disassemble your exhibit booth. Getting setup in a timely manner will give you valuable extra time for networking and marketing.
Update your marketing materials.
Refine your positioning, features/benefits and pitch. Does your marketing communicate a clear and targeted message? Correct formatting issues, grammatical errors and outdated information. If you need help adding visual appeal to your marketing materials, The Print Refinery is here to make your brand shine!
Prepare promotional products.
Current design trends in branded promotional gifts are: popular retail brands, bright and bold colors and unique materials (like cork, wood grain and matte finishes). Cellphone accessories, insulated drinkware and wellness products are always top choices. A branded tchotchke or trinket that ends up in the trash is a waste of marketing dollars, so think “useful, creative and unique” when selecting promotional items.
From backdrops and signage to business cards and promotional branded items, The Print Refinery can fulfill all your commercial printing needs for your next trade show. So let’s create, collaborate and turn your vision into bold marketing statements!
https://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/08/Tradeshow-Season.jpg321845Natalie Gunnhttps://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/06/PR-F11Photo-logo.jpgNatalie Gunn2019-08-28 11:00:572019-08-19 12:58:54Are You Ready For Your Next Trade Show?
Did you know that 85% of your potential customers pass by your business each month? If you want to increase sales, you have to drive foot-traffic, and one the most effective ways to do so is with signage. Here is a list of our top 5 commercial sign requests and general guidelines for each:
Outdoor Signage
Like judging a book by its cover, customers gather first impressions of a business based on its exterior signage and appearance. So make sure your outdoor signs accurately convey the tone and experience you want a guest to expect upon entering your business.
Informational Signage
Informational signs help guests navigate your business and find what they came in for more easily. They should be self-explanatory and easy to read, so large, bold fonts and highly-visible colors work best.
Persuasive Signage
Persuasive signs influence purchase behavior through convincing language and visual appeal. They can encourage traffic flow to certain areas of the business, create interest in specific products or draw attention to promotions and add-on services.
ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Compliant Signage
You want every guest, regardless of disability, to feel welcome and comfortable in your business. So if your business offers wheelchair accessible parking, doors, restrooms or elevators, you should have those accommodations clearly displayed on signs. Also, any permanent interior signs indicating an entrance/exit, stairwells, restrooms and elevators must have Braille and tactile characters and be mounted at specific heights according to ADA compliance and local fire codes.
Mats
Branded mats are perhaps the most versatile type of signage, because they serve a multitude of purposes. They can be marketing messages, directional tools, safety precautions during inclement weather – or just sheer ergonomic relief for retail staff standing on their feet all day!
A well-designed and properly-placed sign can drive traffic, build brand awareness and increase revenue. Remember to be specific and keep it simple, as too many signs or too much information can have the opposite effect. The Print Refinery is your creative partner for all your commercial printing projects. We consult and collaborate with you to design the best commercial signage that fits your specific business needs.
“Winter Wonderland” may be a great song to listen to when the snow flies, but if you’re sweltering in the summer heat, having it pop up while iTunes is shuffling through your music feels wrong. Happily, there’s a way to prevent holiday music from playing out of season—this trick is also useful for keeping children’s songs from shuffling alongside tracks from Abba, Beethoven, and The Clash. In iTunes, select the songs you want to prevent from being included when you shuffle all tracks, and choose Edit > Get Info. In the Get Info dialog, switch to the Options pane, select Skip When Shuffling, and click OK to save your changes. Note that the easiest way to find such music may be by selecting Genres in the sidebar and then Children’s Music or Holiday in the list that appears.
(Featured image by donnaskolnick0 from Pixabay)
https://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/08/Holiday-music-photo.jpg8001280F-11 Photohttps://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/06/PR-F11Photo-logo.jpgF-11 Photo2019-08-01 11:08:002023-06-27 20:30:29Annoyed by Your Holiday Music Playing out of Season? Stop It with This Tip
Most people are probably waiting until September to buy a new iPhone, but Apple is laying the groundwork for making the migration from an old phone to a new one even easier this time around. In iOS 12.4, Apple introduced a new way to migrate your data directly from one iPhone to another. This is an extension of the iOS 11 Quick Start feature that helps you set up a new iPhone with settings from your current device. All you have to do is turn on the new iPhone and place it next to a current iPhone running iOS 12.4 or later. When you see the prompt asking if you want to set up a new iPhone, tap Continue and scan the animation on the new iPhone using the current iPhone’s camera. Then you have to enter your current passcode on the new iPhone and set up Touch ID or Face ID, and tap Transfer from iPhone. Well, that and you’ll need to wait a while for all the data to transfer. If you don’t see this Transfer Your Data screen for some reason, you’ll still be able to restore all your data from an iCloud or iTunes backup.
(Featured image by Adam Engst)
https://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/08/IPhone-migration-photo.jpg8001280F-11 Photohttps://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/06/PR-F11Photo-logo.jpgF-11 Photo2019-08-01 11:07:002023-06-27 20:05:10Migrate Your Data from an Old iPhone to a New One with iOS 12.4’s New Feature
An ever-increasing number of people have hearing loss due to exposure to loud noise and age. If you’re in that group, but don’t yet need hearing aids, try using your AirPods to help you hear better in certain situations. iOS’s Live Listen feature uses your iPhone’s mic to pick up specific sounds and then sends that audio directly to your AirPods, helping you focus on what you want to hear. To enable Live Listen, go to Settings > Control Center > Customize Controls and tap the green + button next to Hearing. Then put your AirPods in, open Control Center, tap the Hearing button, and tap to turn on Live Listen. Fine-tune what you’re hearing by moving the iPhone closer to what you want to hear and pointing the mic at the source of the sound—pay attention to the sound level meter dots—and by adjusting the iPhone’s volume controls. To stop listening, tap Live Listen again or just remove your AirPods.
https://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/08/Live-Listen-dog-ears-photo.jpg8001280F-11 Photohttps://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/06/PR-F11Photo-logo.jpgF-11 Photo2019-08-01 11:06:002024-12-10 11:07:57Use AirPods to Improve Your Hearing
It’s extremely uncommon for a Mac to freeze or crash these days, but it can happen. What should you do if your Mac locks up and becomes completely unresponsive to the mouse and keyboard? The trick is to press and hold the power button until the Mac turns off. Wait 5 or 10 seconds, and press it again to turn the Mac back on. You will lose any unsaved changes if you do this, so use it only as a last resort when you can’t restart normally. Look for the power button on the back of a desktop Mac, and at the top right of the keyboard on most laptop Macs. For a recent MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar, press and hold the Touch ID button.
(Featured image by Adam Engst)
https://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/08/Power-button-iMac-photo.jpg8001280F-11 Photohttps://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/06/PR-F11Photo-logo.jpgF-11 Photo2019-08-01 11:05:002023-06-27 20:05:17Need to Restart a Mac That Has Frozen? Here’s How
Have you wondered what you can do with the Wallet app on your iPhone? Although it started out life called Passbook, Apple soon realized that the only sensible name was Wallet. That’s because it stores digital versions of roughly the same sort of things you might put in a physical wallet: credit and debit cards, store cards, membership cards, and even cash (well, Apple Pay Cash, anyway).
Nearly all airlines can put your boarding passes in Wallet, too, and if you buy something like a concert ticket online, you may be able to add it to Wallet by tapping the “Add to Apple Wallet” button in the confirmation page or email. Having a boarding pass or ticket, which Apple calls a pass, in Wallet makes it easy to scan for a gate attendant.
Here’s how to use cards and passes in Wallet.
Display Your Cards and Passes
The main Wallet screen shows your cards and passes in a scrollable list, with credit/debit cards at the top. (If you’ve set up Apple Pay Cash, it’s treated as a debit card.)
To view more details about a card or pass, tap it.
In the case of a credit/debit card, you see the face of the card and a list of its recent Apple Pay transactions.
For boarding passes for multi-flight trips, you see a single pass in the main list, but after you tap it, you can swipe horizontally to display the pass for each leg of the trip.
Membership cards, such as the ChargePoint card, may work like credit/debit cards in that you need to hold them near a reader to sign in.
In each case, to access settings related to the card or pass, tap the black ••• button at the upper right.
Adding and Using Credit and Debit Cards
Adding a credit/debit card so it can work with Apple Pay starts with tapping the black + button at the upper right of the Wallet screen. From there, follow the prompts—you can scan your card with the camera instead of keying in the data.
If you add more than one card, you’ll want to specify which should be the default for Apple Pay. Go to Settings > Wallet & Apple Pay. Scroll down to Transaction Defaults, and tap Default Card. Tap the desired card. In Wallet, the default card appears with its full face showing, below your other credit/debit cards.
To pay for a purchase with a stored credit/debit card at a payment terminal, put your iPhone right next to the terminal. The iPhone may automatically prompt you to authenticate Apple Pay, but if not, double-click the Home button or, with the iPhone X, XR, XS, or XS Max, double-click the side button. Wallet displays your default card. To authenticate, rest your finger on the Home button or, with the iPhone X models, authenticate with Face ID. To use a non-default card, tap the card pile at the bottom of the screen and then tap the desired card.
Adding and Using Airplane Boarding Passes and Event Tickets
For flights, when you check in and get boarding passes using the airline’s iPhone app, you’ll be given the opportunity to tap an Add to Apple Wallet button. Do that and the boarding pass appears in Wallet, which will also display a notification for it on the Lock screen in the hours before your flight. When you need to show the boarding pass to security or the gate attendant, tap that notification to display the boarding pass with its QR code.
For events, the ticket-seller may display the Add to Apple Wallet button on the confirmation page of the checkout process or attach the tickets to your email receipt. In the latter case, open the message in Mail and tap the attachment to open it, and then tap Add to put it into Wallet. Later, when you arrive at the venue, open Wallet and display the ticket—again with a QR code—to gain entry.
Deleting Cards and Passes
Although you may want to keep some digital tickets for nostalgic reasons, it’s best to clean out old items:
To delete a credit/debit card, tap the card to view it and then tap the black ••• button. Scroll down and tap Remove This Card.
To remove a pass, go to the bottom of the main Wallet screen and tap Edit Passes. Tap the red delete button for that item, tap the next Delete or Delete All button, and then tap Done at the upper right.
Using Wallet makes it easier to keep your physical wallet slimmer. It can take a few minutes to add your cards and passes initially, but it’s worth the effort.
Social Media: Want to reduce the thickness of your wallet? Try offloading some cards to the Wallet app on your iPhone! Here are the basics:
https://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/08/Wallet-with-cards-photo.jpg8001280F-11 Photohttps://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/06/PR-F11Photo-logo.jpgF-11 Photo2019-08-01 11:04:002024-12-10 11:08:02What Can You Store in Apple’s Wallet App? Credit Cards, Boarding Passes, Tickets, and More!
We’ve all had it happen. “Can I use your Mac for a minute to check my email?” The answer can be “Yes,” but to keep people from poking around on your Mac, have your visitor log in as Guest. To enable the Guest account, go to System Preferences > Users & Groups. If the lock at the bottom left is closed, click it and enter your admin credentials. Then click Guest User in the list, and select “Allow guests to log in to this computer.” To switch to the Guest account, go to the Apple menu and choose Log Out YourAccountName to access the login screen. Your guest can then click the Guest User icon, at which point they’ll have a clean account to work in. When they log out, the account—including any files they created or downloaded—will be deleted, thus protecting their privacy as well.
(Featured image by Apple)
https://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/07/Guest-user-photo.jpg8001280F-11 Photohttps://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/06/PR-F11Photo-logo.jpgF-11 Photo2019-07-01 10:08:002019-08-01 04:45:07Use macOS’s Guest Account to Protect Your Privacy from Temporary Users
One of the big no-nos with passwords is sending them to other people as plain text in email or a text message conversation. You presumably trust your recipient with the password, but what if their email was hacked or phone stolen? Instead, always use a site like 1ty.me or One-Time Secret, which lets you turn a password into a Web link that can be opened only once. Send that link to the recipient, and when they get the password out, they can store it in a secure password manager like 1Password or LastPass.
https://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/07/One-Time-password-photo.jpg30844820F-11 Photohttps://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/06/PR-F11Photo-logo.jpgF-11 Photo2019-07-01 10:07:002024-12-10 11:07:49Never Send Someone a Password in Mail or Messages: Do This Instead!
By default, Safari on the Mac hides full Web addresses—technically known as URLs—from you, showing just the site name in the Smart Search field at the top of the window. If you click in the field or press Command-L, the full URL appears, which is good for checking that you’re really where you think you should be and not on some dodgy site. It’s also useful if you need to copy just a portion of the URL to share or otherwise work with. To make that check easier, go to Safari > Preferences > Advanced and next to Smart Search Field, select “Show full website address.” Then you can verify that the URL looks right with a glance.
(Featured image by Matthew T Rader from Pexels)
https://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2019/07/Full-URL-in-Safari-photo.jpg8001280F-11 Photohttps://f11photo.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2023/06/PR-F11Photo-logo.jpgF-11 Photo2019-07-01 10:06:002023-06-27 20:30:15Here’s How to See Full URLs in Safari’s Smart Search Field
There are over 10,000 trade shows held annually in the US, and standing out in the dense jungle of exhibitor booths is not an easy task. Here are some tips to maximize your visual impact and budget wisely for your next event:
Nearly all airlines can put your boarding passes in Wallet, too, and if you buy something like a concert ticket online, you may be able to add it to Wallet by tapping the “Add to Apple Wallet” button in the confirmation page or email. Having a boarding pass or ticket, which Apple calls a pass, in Wallet makes it easy to scan for a gate attendant.
