lastering a booth with signage in standard company colors remains the easiest way to advertise your brand on the trade show floor. But rarely does exhibit design and structure itself so clearly communicate brand identity and products than the way it did for General Electric (GE) Power & Water at Windpower 2013.

Employing a vibrant blue-and-green color scheme, curved lightweight fabric structures to represent airflow, and whimsical wind turbine animations, EP&M International's $987,000 exhibit embodied GE Power & Water's eco-friendly brand message and product line – and made Exhibit Design Awards judges take note.

GE Power & Water tasked EP&M with providing an exhibit that had a maximum amount of open space, unobstructed views, and ample seeting. "We accomplished these requirements and more in this exhibit by using fabric structures for semiprivate seating areas while keeping most both structures low enough to maintain an open feel," said Deb Flack, marketing director for EP&M.

Amid tucked-away meeting rooms, product-information stations, and a beverage-service area on the first floor, the exhibit's centerpiece was a 13.5-by-7.5-foot rear-projection video wall with an inset, interactive touchscreen that provided product information. The wall was constructed of three tempered glass panels covered in specialized plastic projection films from Minneapolis-based Spyeglass LLC. Motions sensors on the rear-projector unit lighting the wall detected passing guests and made the animated wind turbines spin.

With the perfect recipe of form, function, and fun, EP&M's design put the wind in GE Power & Water's turbines at Windpower 2013, helping the company propel past the competition.