Q&A: Lawrie Ward
Exhibition stand designer Lawrie Ward is approaching her seven-year anniversary on the Smart Display design team and, having created hundreds of stands across the full spectrum of industry sectors, she’s a familiar face to clients all over the UK and further afield. We took five minutes to catch up with Lawrie to find out how she brings brand vision to life through temporary architecture.
Q: What was your background prior to Smart Display?
A: Smart Display was actually my first job after completing my degree in Product Design. I came to the company on a five-month placement as temporary cover for an existing exhibition stand designer, who had taken a sabbatical. When that ended, I did take on another position designing climbing walls and artificial caving systems but, when Smart Display got in touch and invited me to come back on a permanent basis, there was only one answer! That was in 2019, and I’ve been here ever since.
Q: What’s a typical day like in your role as senior exhibition stand designer?
A: Our role encompasses the full spectrum from that initial concept of an idea through to the creation of manufacture drawings that make it happen. So, a typical day could be taking a new brief on board and starting to envisage the exhibition presence we want to achieve for a new client, then having a progress call with an existing customer to move the concept closer to reality. Then I can be tasked with creating the drawings for the live jobs that we have confirmed so they are ready to build on-site. It’s a real process from that mood board stage where we are trying to get to the heart of what our client wants to achieve, through to the structural calculations that ensure the temporary architecture we are building is safe and fit-for-purpose as well as visually striking.
Q: What is your favourite aspect of your role?
A: I enjoy how varied the designs are. The brand can be anything from plush interiors to functional and industrial engineering components, and all they have in common is that they need an exhibition stand that encapsulates that branding within temporary architecture. I also like the rapid turnaround, which means I get to see the designs I have created come to life on-site within weeks or months; when I was working on climbing wall concepts, it could be years before the structure was actually built.
Q: What has been your proudest moment?
A: There have been a lot of proud moments over the years, but one that springs to mind from recent exhibitions is the Quickgrind stand that I designed for MACH at the NEC last week. There were a lot of technical aspects involved in the design, and it was a proud moment when it was built on site and looked exactly as I (and the client) had envisaged.
Q: What’s something that people don’t realise about your role as an exhibition stand designer?
A: How involved we are in every step of the process. We are brought on board at the very start of the process by the sales team, and then we see it through to the end! Obviously we complete the design but, even once that is approved, we continue to work with our in-house joiners and print technicians to ensure that the colours and sizes of components are all as they should be. We supply our project managers with the technical drawings that they need to submit to the show organiser, and we can even be called upon when the installation team is on site if they have any queries about the design. We may remain unseen to many clients, but we are there throughout every step of the process to ensure that that final exhibition stand is an exact reflection of the proposal that we approved back in the studio.
If you would like to see what our design team can do for you and your next exhibition stand, get in touch today #wemakeevents.
