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emple-Inland Inc. was feeling boxed in. For years, the paper-products manufacturer’s exhibit at the Produce Marketing Association’s Fresh Summit International Convention & Exposition had been as boring as one of the plain brown boxes it makes. Every year the company’s exhibit-design strategy was the same: pile hundreds of its flagship cartons in its booth like a Wal-Mart warehouse. So for the 2007 Fresh Summit in Houston, the Austin, TX-based company decided to shed its bland image, as well as differentiate its four main divisions, by blending its products into the exhibit’s aesthetic.

With the help of Reveal Exhibits Inc. of St. Louis, Temple-Inland started thinking outside the box by tossing out the 20-by-40-foot exhibit’s old color palette. In years past, it used barcode blacks and whites for the surfaces and furnishings to contrast with the baked-potato-brown boxes. Now it switched to earthier tones, including a cinnamon reception desk, cappuccino walls, and frost carpet to blend in with its products and create a warmer palette.

Suspended 10 to 17 feet over the exhibit, 20 of the company’s boxes hung like rectangular chandeliers. Visitors drawn by the funky fixtures could enter the open booth and head for product areas located in each corner, which held boxes from one of Temple-Inland’s four divisions mounted on powder-coated aluminum arms. The displays allowed attendees to examine the boxes at eye level like upscale fashions in a Rodeo Drive boutique. Next, visitors could relax in the lounge surrounded by three walls, each wallpapered with the corrugated material that lines the inside of the company’s boxes.

Temple-Inland attributes at least part of the sales made at the show to the booth’s customer-drawing strategy of recasting its merchandise as hip architectural elements, proving that sometimes it pays to think outside the box.e

Client: Temple-Inland Inc., Austin, TX
Design/Fabrication:Reveal Exhibits Inc., St. Louis
Size: 800 square feet (20-by-40 feet)
Estimated Cost: $114,000
Estimated Cost/Square Foot: $143
Get Your Box Off
For years, Temple-Inland Inc.’s booth had been as boring as one of the plain brown boxes it makes. But in 2007, instead of stacking its boxes in piles as it had traditionally done, the company mounted them like a museum installation, using earth tones in the booth’s design to complement the boxes’ colors. The undeniable focal point of the resulting 800-square-foot space was the ceiling element which featured dozens of the company’s cartons suspended overhead.

Charles Pappas, senior writer; [email protected]
Padgett and Co. Inc. is an exhibit- and architectural-photography firm based in Chicago
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