2018 Sweets & Snacks Expo - Chicago, Illinois
From 2005 to 2018, I led the design and production of the Sweets & Snacks Expo booth for Nestlé USA's Confections & Snacks Division — managing every phase from concept to delivery, including overseeing costs and controlling the budget.
Creative Direction — Set the overall vision and design strategy for the booth year over year.
Artwork Development & Graphic Design — Developed the initial creative direction, then drove the work through brand team approval and into final production-ready artwork.
Booth & Floor Plan Design — Designed the spatial layout to optimize traffic flow, brand hierarchy, and category storytelling.
Logistics & Delivery — Coordinated the delivery of product samples, POS materials, and props to the show floor.
Requirements:
Chocolate: Lead with Butterfinger and communicate ingredient quality. Have Crunch as a 2nd read, followed by Baby Ruth and secondary chocolate brands.
Sugar: Lead with SweeTarts across its four product platforms — gummy, rope, pressed powder, and chewy. Include dedicated sampling stations for both categories.
Seasonal: Bring attention to the Seasonal business by highlight key packs, and brands for each season.
Solution:
Design the booth with two distinct sides — one for Chocolate, one for Sugar — each with its own clear brand hierarchy and visual identity. Include a pass-through to increase booth traffic and easier access to meeting rooms.
Sugar Side: Leverage product forms as key graphic elements. Use both printed imagery and oversized representations of physical product as design elements, with SweeTarts as the dominant first read, followed by Nerds and Laffy Taffy.
Chocolate Side: Butterfinger lead as the hero brand. Use oversized ingredient imagery on wall behind counter to reinforce quality cues. Left most wall (shown in images below) use Crunch as hero image and incorporate secondary Chocolate brands.
Seasonal: Sugar side of the booth - leftmost wall - visually divide into 4 panels, one for each season, showing off their respective key packs and brands. Integrate dump bins for product sampling into each season’s graphic panel.
Social Media Integration
In 2018, social media activations at trade show booths were virtually unheard of. Collaborator Nyleve Henry changed that for us — pitching the idea of an in-booth selfie station and leading its design and execution from concept to completion.
Her instinct to go further paid off: rather than a flat backdrop, Nyleve proposed a fully three-dimensional structure to shoot against.
The extra build complexity was worth every bit of it — the station became one of the most-visited spots on the floor, drawing consistent foot traffic and giving attendees a reason to stop, shoot, and share.
