THE DESIGN PARTNERSHIP:

2020 Graduate Exhibition and Experience Design Students

Avery Zucker, Bhawika Mishra, Cecilia Moscardó, Keith Comley, Laura Pressler, Lior Gensler,
Mustafa Yigit Ecer, Samantha Kugler, Selen Imamoglu, Shiya Tong, Tzu-Yu Theresa Hsu,
Xuewei Jiang, Yunni Yang

FIT Graduate Exhibition & Experience Design & Medtronic Trade Show Booth, Partnership with Group Delphi

 During the 2020 Spring semester, the students of the Graduate Program in Exhibition and Experience Design at FIT, collaborated with the Group Delphi and their client Medtronic on a student project as a part of their Intro to Exhibition Design course. 

Description of the Project Site 
Group Delphi 
For the past 30 years, Group Delphi has created acclaimed exhibit designs for internationally-recognized brands, such as Medtronic, VMware, Pixar, and Apple. Group Delphi is now the premier experiential partner to the world’s most innovative brands — designing and building immersive experiences for our clients around the world from both our U.S. and European locations. https://www.groupdelphi.com 

Group Delphi is an award-winning exhibit design company with over 30 years of trade show and event design, production, strategy, and interactive excellence. From exhibits and corporate environments to pop-ups, retail stores, and museums, Group Delphi creates immersive, unforgettable experiences for some of the world’s best-loved brands. 

Medtronic 
Medtronic positioned itself among the largest medical device companies in the world. It all started seven decades ago when their co-founder invented the battery-powered pacemaker. The company has operations in 150 countries, and their products treat 70 health conditions, include cardiac devices, cranial and spine robotics, insulin pumps, surgical tools, patient monitoring systems, and more. Their therapies help 75 million people a year and support their mission to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life. https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/index.html 

MEDTRONIC Mission: To contribute to human welfare by application of biomedical engineering in the research, design, manufacture, and sale of instruments or appliances that alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life. 

• To direct our growth in the areas of biomedical engineering where we display maximum strength and ability; to gather people and facilities that tend to augment these areas; to continuously build on these areas through education and knowledge assimilation; to avoid participation in areas where we cannot make unique and worthy contributions. 

• To strive without reserve for the greatest possible reliability and quality in our products; to be the unsurpassed standard of comparison and to be recognized as a company of dedication, honesty, integrity, and service. 

• To make a fair profit on current operations to meet our obligations, sustain our growth, and reach our goals. 

• To recognize the personal worth of all employees by providing an employment framework that allows personal satisfaction in work accomplished, security, advancement opportunity, and means to share in the company’s success. 

• To maintain good citizenship as a company. 

Project Objective: 
“The project is a for-profit venture, and the overarching goal is to stimulate interest and ultimately drive sales for MEDTRONIC as one of the world’s largest medical technology companies while supporting their mission statement within a show theme. The students learned how the commercial exhibit is configured and the rules that govern all aspects of the exhibit. It is to be achieved by developing a captivating interior architecture to frame visitor experience and stimulate face-to-face marketing,” said Professor Robin Drake. 

Description: 
The focus of the project was on the design of a trade show exhibit for MEDTRONIC that is in line with the company’s mission, vision, audience and goals. The students were tasked with designing a modular trade show booth that must be reconfigurable to accommodate different layout options within a standard size. They designed three sizes of booths—20’x20’, 30’x40’ and 40’x50.’ As instructed by Medtronic, the new exhibit program had to support the corporate brand and the sales objectives of the business groups. 

The project began with the visit to FIT by Tony Erpelding, Principal and Chief Creative Officer of Group Delphi and Sue Huff, Director, Global Conventions at Medtronic. Huff and Erpelding outlined project goals and established the Medtronic brand guide requirements with additional information about trade show rules and regulations. 

The midpoint design review and the remainder of the design process, including the final presentations were conducted remotely due to COVID-19. Despite the circumstances, the students successfully created and presented design solutions showing all of the elements required from them starting from the concept design through graphic approach, thematic floor plan of exhibit, and walkthrough of exhibit to 3D renderings of their designs. 

“The project outcomes were so varied and inventive. All the students worked from the branded elements in the design brief. Overall, they were able to present forward- looking ideas to both Delphi Group and Medtronic that implemented experiential goals to increase visitor memory,” concluded Professor Drake. 

The evolution of the project from start to finish has been incredible and the continuous iterative process to refine the presentation technique which brought out the concept much better. It had been such an insight to work according to client guidelines and especially follow their strict brand guideline to work and yet push myself to find the flexibility with the final design. The input from my professor Robin, Melisa, and my peers have been so invaluable. 
—Bhawika Mishra, MA Exhibition & Experience Design Student 

It was an interesting experience to work on something I am not familiar with and reconsider the traditional booth design with a fun twist. I have learned how to become creative and keep myself inspired while staying true to the personality of the brand I am designing for; there was a balance I needed to keep in mind. 
—Selen Imamoglu, MA Exhibition & Experience Design Student 

I enjoyed the whole design process of this project. I learned a lot of things about designing a trade show booth. I felt having real clients helped me practice how to communicate and present design proposal as a product. Also, I like the concept and design development phase when all my classmates have a different approach to design. Having to translate Medtronic’s branding philosophy into space and construct a big plan to create an accessible, welcoming experience for the clients and audiences is an enjoyable practice. A booth is not only an architectural structure for the display of the product, but can also be a place to tell and create the brand experience. Can’t wait to create more cool trade show booths in the future. 
—Tzu Yu Theresa Hsu, MA Exhibition & Experience Design Student