In another chapter of my life story, I was a vendor at vintage shows.
The largest and most well-known show that I participated in was the Farm Chicks,
a show with hundreds of vendors held every June in Spokane, Washington...
and a fanatical customer base of thousands of people who'd come across country to shop the show!
I was a Farm Chicks show vendor from 2007 to 2011
and I filmed my six-episode video series there in 2007.
But I've never been to the show as a SHOPPER... until this year! It was amazing... it's always amazing! There are many reasons why it's called 'The Happiest Show on Earth'!
I loved seeing my friends who are still vendors/curators.
I found a few special things to bring home, and snapped a LOT of photos.
But before I share the beauty of it all, I wanna' share the BIZNEZ of it all. Because founder and proprietor Serena Thompson is a branding WHIZ
and I know you can learn a lot from her...
Every year, Serena selects a theme for the show. This year, it was 'Home Sweet Home'. The centerpiece of her theme was the imagery of a dollhouse...
and you can read what it was that inspired her here on the Farm Chicks blog
Serena also selects a color palette - and it's repeated in all of the elements she uses.
For example - the logo and all marketing collateral:
From the postcards to the vendor & guest badges to the show map
and even a photo frame for guests to use on social media, it ALL coordinates.
At every show, the main entrance features a HUGE display that reflects the theme... I'm gonna' be honest here and say that I expected some big boxes, assembled and decorated to bring that dollhouse artwork to life.
But nooooooooo, Serena surprised me with her eyepopping creation of BAKERY BOXES!
Read this post on her Farm Chicks blog to find out what inspired her
On the bottom right, you can see the Farm Chicks booth in the entry atrium.
The backdrop of that booth echoes the 'cross stitch sampler' lettering,
and the tables are draped in pastel quilts as they await final merchandise placement. All of this reflects the qualities of a 'Home Sweet Home' and a dollhouse.
Vendors like the girls at Marigold Vintage and Unexpected Necessities
get into the spirit of the theme, too,
by incorporating it into their wardrobes, booth displays and products:
The logo merchandise is thoughtfully coordinated with the color scheme,
and displayed on the quilt-topped tables in groupings prettied up with simple props:
a few pieces of pastel-painted furniture, bright pastel tissue paper, and more
bring the small-scale coffee mug, flat fabric tees and canvas tote bags to life.
The attention to detail here brings the logo to life in living color,
and tells exactly the story that Serena wanted to.
There's a huge staff of Farm Chicks and Farm Hunks that help out at the show, too...
hauling purchases out to customer's cars and straightening displays... all.day.long.
(and how hunky do those guys have to be to be okay with wearing PINK tees, huh?!)
I've always been impressed with the way Serena brands her show...
I even filmed one segment of my video series in the Farm Chicks booth in 2007,
and discussed branding with her and Teri Edwards, her biz partner at the time:
Like Serena says in the video, she views the show as one big product
that needs packaging to sell it... branding is IMPORTANT! Whatever you do, Tell Your Own Story* - and tell it with everything visual that you use!
*I've been using this tagline since 2002. And I really mean it!
In my next post,
I'll share photos of some of the details of successfully merchandised booths that I saw at the show,
and you can see how truly PRO vendors / curators do it! Until then...
It was a fun (and exhausting!) whirlwind week of work,
where I was able to teach Sharyn some tricks of space design
and organizational concepts that really freed up her space and time in the long run.
we started by emptying her studio and leaving only furniture & fixtures...
we evaluated what worked, what didn't, and what was needed for her studio to express her brand image and work more efficiently for her. then we painted the walls new vibrant colors to warm up the space.
and then we went SHOPPING!
we hit the local thrift shops, a friend's house, a local salvage yard, and even found a pile of old drawers on the side of the road!
we went to a local vintage market and found the red paper rack, and found a galvanized metal cart at a local shop.
after some painting and cleaning, the new furniture went into the studio - along with some of the old furniture in new locations! - and we created 'zones' for the different activities that Sharyn undertakes in her studio. supplies were loaded into each zone - some stored in an old locker, some in the drawers we found, some in crates, and then there's that killer stack of suitcases hiding all kinds of creative goodies!
THEN the really fun part started: the decorating!
my goal for Sharyn was to get her art OUT of those flat files and onto the walls! she had years and years worth of beautiful work hidden away, so I pulled it out and put it all over the studio... from little vignettes on windowsills and shelves
to small wall collages above the flat files (featuring her art plus 3-D objects)
to the HUGE collage mural that I created near her beloved printing press:
the background is made up of huge posters of Sharyn's art, formerly used at gift & stationery trade shows. over that, I layered some original pieces from her files, along with cutouts and 3-D objects like tissue paper flowers, vintage millinery & jewelry.
it's a visual reference of all of the many styles that Sharyn loves and has brought to life over the many years of her professional career.
{ i did the large collage while she was in the house, and when she came back out, she literally gasped. i've never been so thrilled by a client's reaction! }
this 'phase one' of the project set into motion a creative flood of ideas
and Sharyn continued refining the space more and more after I left. she's happy with the changes and the way her creative space functions now,
and I'm thrilled that I was able to help her see the possibilities!
