A Scruffy Shell Scheme Stand

As the purpose of this stand was to showcase urban decay, the stand had to be visually impactful. The exhibition stand would centre around community and environmental quality, challenging visitors to question how we can expect communities to thrive when their environment is degraded and littered. For this, we used the expertise of Becca, our Head Designer. She designed a concept where there would be two realities displayed on the stand, one of a polished, clean tidy neighbourhood, juxtaposed against a decayed, run down neighbourhood. The focal point of this design would be a park bench perched in front of the graphic display. To depict the two contrasting environments, she chose to use terraced housing, as its uniformity created a smooth and cohesive transition between the two scenes. Becca sourced a photographic image and edited the left side to appear deteriorated, meticulously eroding each pixel and digitally enhancing the right side for a cleaner look.

Aside from the back graphics hosted on the shell scheme, there was also the case of designing a sign to hang from the pelmet. She developed a solution that gave the sign more dimension than a traditional flat graphic. Her idea was to encase grass and litter in an acrylic stand off, which also featured the Keep Britain Tidy logo printed directly in spot white with a drop shadow to the front of the acrylic panel. This was followed by a 20% grey to the reverse of the acrylic on the litter side to enhance the logo and make the panel appear slightly frosted and eroded.

Keep Britain Tidy had opted for a shell scheme for these two conferences, and for this chose Xanita board to be the basis of the wall panels. The selected contrasting imagery was printed on the Xanita board using the swissQprint Nyala 4 printer, that is able to print to an incredibly high-resolution which was integral to maintaining the quality of the photography. The segments needed for the shell scheme exhibition stand were then cut out using our Zünd cutter.

The next stage involved transforming the physical props to match the polluted graphics. To support with this stage of the creation, we brought in Dulcie our resident artist to apply a base coat of wood stain and a splattering of spray paint. This was followed by Becca, who added the harsher layers of black, white, and grey spray paint/acrylic paint, waited for them to dry and repeated the process. She also chiselled hearts and marks into the wood, before finishing it with a few signature tags using paint markers. A second-hand mattress was then brought in and dyed to give it a deliberately disgusting appearance.

As an organisation with a purpose to ‘Eliminate Litter. End Waste. Improve Places’ sustainability was an integral element of this shell scheme exhibition stand. Due to this, the core material chosen was Xanita board, which is developed from 100% post-consumer paper and is fully recyclable. To add to this, it is an extremely durable material, allowing it to be reused, which is what Keep Britain Tidy plans to do for the foreseeable future. When it finally comes to the end of its life, the stand can be fully recycled.

From the initial brief to the final installation, this exhibition stand took one month to develop. The team at Keep Britain Tidy were ecstatic with the result as it depicted the concept perfectly. Not only this, the stand was awarded ‘Best Stand’ at both conferences nodding to its imaginative approach, incorporating multi layers through graphics and props.

As mentioned earlier on, we were commissioned to develop two exhibition stands. The second conference took place in Liverpool, and our team looked to build upon the original design and build a single backdrop that would extend from the previous stand.
The updated stand needed to extend the original street scene backdrop to represent different aspects of Keep Britain Tidy. It had to incorporate the following key elements:
• The Great British Spring Clean
• The smoking-related litter campaign
• The Chewing Gum Task Force.
Becca's challenge was to seamlessly extend the existing street scene design, which had been meticulously assembled from dozens of stock images. The goal was to create a natural, continuous flow of houses without any visible joins, ensuring a cohesive final design.

Aside from the design challenges, this stand needed to be free-standing and include a pavement running along the entire stand. To make the stand freestanding, Dean, our cardboard engineer, was tasked with designing a Xanita supporting structure. He achieved this by creating a sturdy base for each of the back wall panels to sit within, ensuring stability while maintaining a clean and professional appearance.
The flooring utilised our own custom “connect” flooring tiles. The clean side featured seamless paving that could be fitted in any orientation, allowing for quick and easy installation. The "dirty" side used the same seamless paving but with added details such as chewing gum marks, litter, and scattered cigarette butts to highlight the contrast between a well-maintained and neglected environment.
The stand was finished with placards and a large freestanding Xanita duck, providing a perfect selfie spot for delegates. As a subtle detail, 10 hidden "Bin Your Butts" ducks were subtly integrated into the design—see if you can spot them!
For the final piece of the puzzle, John Simpson expertly installed the impressive 9.4m long stand at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Liverpool.