THE DESIGN PARTNERSHIP: FIT Graduate Exhibition and Experience Design and ACCESS TCA
For the 2026 spring semester sponsored project, FIT Graduate Exhibition and Experience Design students collaborated with Access TCA, exhibit and event marketing company, on an experiential tradeshow design. Students presented their concepts to Stephen Ross, SVP, Brand Strategy & Experience Design at Access TCA, and Joseph DeLaunay, Experiential Designer at Access and FIT EED alumnus.
Client Description
For over 40 years, Access has earned recognition as a leading specialty fabricator in the face-to-face industry. Their skilled craftspeople create experiences that evoke emotion, encourage reflection, and entice people
to engage. Their creative team designs and builds environments that educate audiences and inspire innovation. The goal is always the same: to ensure their exhibits, ancillary meetings, and attendee engagements motivate the target audience to act and yield measurable results.
The Project
Students were tasked with developing creative strategies and presenting individual experiential design proposals in response to a client’s—Akebia Therapeutics’ brief set at The American Society of Nephrology’s Kidney Week 2026. Working closely throughout the semester with Stephen Ross, the SVP of Brand Strategy & Experience Design at Access TCA and Joseph DeLaunay, Experiential Designer at Access TCA, in conjunction with the FIT Graduate Exhibition and Experience Design faculty, Trevor Steels to expose students to real-world clients and design challenges directly related to experiential marketing and exhibit design in the field.
The project objective was to create a comprehensive experiential strategy based on the information and client objectives conveyed this included floor plans, elevations, renderings, and a technical deck.
The design strategy had to consider the following to develop a holistic approach aligned
with the client’s goals for this site and the audience-specific event:
Site-Specific Design: Consider location and design solutions based on site guidelines
Visitor Journey: Create a visitor journey narrative that describes engagement with the product and key messages specific to the show’s primary audience groups.
Brand Experience: Communicate the client’s messaging experientially.
Campaign Plan: Suggestion approach for engaging audiences beyond the physical event footprint.
Sustainability Plan: Communicate how the activation experience will support sustainability initiatives.
Process
Students delivered to the team and the course professor a concept deck that included research on brand identity, the competitive landscape, and the audience. Other deliverables included mood board, sketches, 3d renderings, plans, elevations, and material selection. The Final Presentation was delivered to client with in-progress technical deck. This document serves as a manual for the construction of the trade show. The Technical Deck was also submitted to course professor: a 3d file, model, and details of design elements to be shared with a fabricator for production. The completed projects were also submitted for consideration for EXSYS Awards that recognize excellence in system -based exhibit design, adaptability, and innovation. Submissions are judges by the Experiential Design Authority (TEDA).
Speaking about the project, Professor Trevor Steels said: “This process required extensive research into
the client’s medical therapy, various audience groups, and industry guidelines when communicating
and developing their creative approach. Not only did all students create unique and innovative solutions with their designs, but they also adhered to the same real-world parameters and guidelines that industry professionals face when creating achievable designs for their clients. Watching the thought, the detail, and the acknowledgment of feedback in their creative process was inspiring.”
“It was a pleasure working with such talented students. You all learned so much in a short amount of time,
and about an industry segment (Life Sciences) that not many designers understand. You listened to our constructive feedback and adjusted your designs to meet all expectations. Congratulations on completing this assignment! I am so proud of you all!,” said Stephen Ross, SVP, Brand Strategy & Experience Design
at Access TCA.
FIT EED student, Jessica Doan, was “grateful for the opportunity to partner with Access TCA for our
first sponsored project this semester. Designing an immersive experience for Vafseo was a daunting challenge; as design students with no background in biomedical sciences, we had to learn a new language overnight. Stephen Ross and his team (Joe DeLaunay, FIT EED Alum) were instrumental in helping us find the human story hidden within the clinical data and regulatory constraints. Their invaluable insights empowered us to create deep, multi-sensory experiences that both inform and entertain. This project proved that if we can navigate the complexities of a medical trade show booth, we can design anything.”
Design and rendering by Sarah Renynolds
FIT EED student, Sarah Reynolds thought that “Getting to work on this project with Access TCA was an incredible experience! It allowed us to apply our classroom learning to a real-world brief and pushed us with novel design constraints and challenges. I appreciated getting insightful feedback from Stephen and Joseph at Access TCA and I feel that this experience has helped me to become a better designer.”
“I had a great experience working with Access TCA
to create a trade show booth for Vafseo. It was a new challenge for our cohort and having a client to build the design around gave us all a chance to use what we’ve learned in the program and apply it to a real world project. Working with client parameters pushed me to think out of the box and be inspired by the brand and the story they wanted to share with their audience,” said Lydia Lee, FIT EED student.
“This project challenged me to focus on how space, lighting, and interaction can communicate a clinical system. Working with Access TCA made the relationship between experiential design and scientific communication much more tangible to me, while also deepening my understanding on the purpose of our kidneys,” concluded Summer Xiang, FIT EED student.
2026 FIT Graduate Exhibition and Experience Design Students:
Anna Soucy
Bhavya Ohri
Christina Walker
Jenny Estevez
Gabriel Pechia
Grace Warnick
Iris Yee
Jessica DoanLily
Lily Li
Lydia Lee
Marina Latto
Maya Peters
Sarah Reynolds
Shreya Patel
Summer Xiang
Click here to view Student Work Samples
For more information on joining the EED program or design partnership projects please contact: Christina Lyons, Chair, FIT Graduate Exhibition and Experience Design, christina_lyons@fitnyc.edu