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Design Inspiration: 8 Ideas for a Memorable Canopy Tent

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Businesses often travel far and wide to market their products and services. This includes festivals and trade shows, where your canopy tent is foundational to the rest of your marketing efforts. Canopy tents declare your business in a big, bold way – or they can if you get the design right. They also protect your products (and yourself) from the weather, while creating an intimate space for customers to get to know you and your brand. Which makes creating a killer custom canopy tent design important both inside and out.

Read on for a few custom design tips, and 8 ideas for creating a memorable canopy tent for your business.

Why Canopy Design Is Important

If this is your first canopy, you may think designing one is as easy as taking your name and logo, or the banner from your website, and slapping it on a tent. And you’re totally welcome to try that. But to save you some money, time and the inevitable disappointment: that isn’t going to look great. It will, quite possibly, look the opposite.

Why? Well, for one thing, a tent isn’t flat like your web page, a banner or even your business card. You have to account for a three-dimensional object that has corners and folds. You also need to understand how your logo, graphics and brand colors will look printed on canopy tent material. Or rather, you should work with a custom design printing company that can help you understand that (hint: that would be us).

In fact, we offer canopy tent design templates that take into account where the peak bends to ensure the visitor’s line of vision is never compromised!

So how do you start creating your own custom design? With the three key elements below.

How to Create a Custom Canopy Design

Successful custom canopy design creation begins with branding. Ask yourself what purpose your tent needs to serve. Your design needs to grab attention, but what exactly should it say? If you’re a food vendor, for example, your tent obviously needs to let people know where their stomach starts to grumble.

Whatever you sell, your tent needs to project the right vibe for your brand. And a strong brand message relies on:

Choosing Your Hues Wisely

Chances are you’ve already got a brand color scheme to work with. While you don’t have to stick with the same colors from website to advertisements to tent, it’s definitely important to stick with the same vibe. Lean toward strong colors that complement your text and graphic colors. Avoid color combinations that are too jarring because you want to draw people in, not give them a headache trying to read your text.

Opting for Stand-Out Graphics

Graphics, logos and pictures can all work together to make your tent unique. For food vendors, adding a half wall with images of different dishes from your menu are sure to stimulate appetites. If you make outdoor gear for hiking enthusiasts, pictures of your products out in nature can really grab someone’s eye.

Choose the graphics and images you feel work best with your brand, but a word of warning: make sure to use high-quality images that are properly sized. You don’t want blurry images or graphics that don’t quite fill the space.

Announcing Your Business With the Right Text

Obviously, your business name needs to be front and center on your custom canopy design. But what else? A tagline or slogan may work nicely, especially if it gives readers some kind of clue as to what to expect. Keep in mind that at festivals and trade shows you’re dealing with a wide variety of people, and some of them may not know who you are or what you’re all about. Find a way to let them know just that as soon as they see your tent.

8 Memorable Canopy Tent Designs

Once you’ve got your basic design elements in place, you’re ready to start thinking about the overall design and ambiance of your canopy tent. Just as the outside of your tent should announce your business and draw potential customers in, the inside of your tent should be a welcoming place that encourages those customers to linger, get to know you and, of course, buy your products.

Check out these memorable canopy tent setups for inspiration.

1. Set the mood with your own lighting

While festivals are (hopefully) sunny and fair, the interior of your tent can still be a little dark. And indoor trade shows may leave you with fluorescent overhead lighting and the same dim interior situation. Adding your own lighting inside not only creates a cozy and intimate atmosphere, as it does in the image above, but it also means you get to create custom lighting to display your products.

2. Decorate like a boss

Don’t spend so much time setting up tables and stands and arranging products that you forget about the rest of your space. Decorations can take your space from bland and cookie cutter to unique and on-brand. The Humble Crumble booth above went all out in turning their area into an experience rather than just another vendor space.

3. Expand your space with display panels

This Cowbell Brewing Co. booth adds curb appeal to their tent with panels displaying both their slogan and signature brews. Check with your venue about any rules and regulations surrounding the immediate area around your tent – some shows are crowded enough that putting out panels might horn in on your neighbor’s space – but if you’ve got the green light, why not take advantage and add some visual interest to your space?

4. Leverage custom table covers and flags

Even though the booth is usually the centerpiece at events, custom printed table covers should never be an afterthought! This is especially important when you’re displaying beautiful products on a table. If the table does not look appealing, then there is a high chance people won’t be interested in what you have to offer.

In a competitive tradeshow where many brands are competing for attention, also consider custom flags to ensure your booth will get double-takes from passersby.

5. Adding unique accessories to grab attention

The forest service tent above grabs your eye with a bit of foliage and a sign that resembles a hiking trail marker. This design choice gives you a two-fer: it gets attention by standing out from the tents around it, and it tells you what kind of information and resources you can expect to find inside the tent.

6. Create a counter or bar area

Adding a counter or bar outside your tent creates set zones for your space, one for customers and one for you. Nantucket Nectars puts their counter toward the front of the space, creating a welcoming vibe for thirsty customers to try their free samples.

7. Show off your culinary skills

Fused uses a counter setup at the front of their tent to further engage with passersby – showing them the process of making certain tasty dishes. The inside of the tent becomes a space for storage, prep and cooking. Consider adding seating to encourage customers to take a load off and chat while they eat - and maybe order seconds.

8. Add in a wall – or two – or three

Wherever you buy your custom canopy tent, chances are you’ll have the option to purchase additional full or half walls to your design. Walls of the same material as your tent offer additional design space on the outside, while creating a very intimate space within.

Create Your Perfect Canopy With Stomp

Custom made canopy tents keep you covered, indoors and out. But they do more than that. The perfect custom canopy design shows off your brand and sets the vibe for the customers that step inside.

Canopy tents are game-changers for your business and your displays. But creating the perfect design takes time, and you need the right printing company at your side. Stomp is here to help you design a tent that wows the crowds, no matter what kind of festivals or trade shows you go to.

Let Stomp guide you through the process of designing and creating your own custom canopy tent. Contact us and get started today.