Manyinuo Fashion

For struggling, aspirational UK designers and designer-makers, trade shows can offer a direct line into the public eye. Exhibiting in a group or design collective can help overcome the main obstacle for young designers – the prohibitive price of tradeshow spaces.

But once you have your space booked, you need to pique the interest of the press (and through them any number of manufacturers, suppliers, architects and the general loving public). To get in front of journalists you need a press release, but to get their attention you need to let them see what they will be writing about: cue the humble thumbnail sheet.

A thumbnail sheet is essentially a collection of images of everything you will have on display at the show, tiled to fit on one A4 page. This gives the journalists a quick idea of what they find interesting, as well as leading them on to request a bigger image for use in print (which, for the designer, is priceless).

The thumbnail sheet of images is a priceless item in the UK designers’ box of tricks, but it needs to be treated with care when exhibiting with a collective. Showing as a group will in itself get journalists interested. Your group will be seen as a source of a few different articles, all conveniently located together. However, confusion reigns in the world of press deadlines, so the attributions of images have to be crystal clear when working as a collective.

First of all you need to decide how the images of your band of UK designers will be presented, alphabetically is usually the best way to avoid arguments regarding whose images appear first. Whichever system you use, you should ensure that individual designers’ images are grouped together. For the images themselves, logos are essential. Regardless of how small they appear on a thumbnail sheet, they give a journalist a pure visual indication that this item belongs to one person and not the group.

You can achieve as much coverage as you like but it counts for nothing without the correct attribution. For this purpose it is also advisable to list using company names rather than designer names. For instance, “Clean Cue Lamp & 8 Ball Chair by David Monkey Design” clearly indicates that while exhibiting in the same space as other UK Designers, you are an individual entity.

There are many ways to lay out a thumbnail sheet, and as UK designers you will all have the design nous to know what looks good. With that in mind, it is advisable to keep things relatively clean and simple. With clear branding and sensible labelling, you can take advantage of the press interest a group of young UK designers can generate, while maintaining your integrity as an individual brand.

Tags: Making

For struggling, aspirational UK designers and designer-makers, trade shows can offer a direct line into the public eye. Exhibiting in a group or design collective can help overcome the main obstacle for young designers – the prohibitive price of tradeshow spaces.

But once you have your space booked, you need to pique the interest of the press (and through them any number of manufacturers, suppliers, architects and the general loving public). To get in front of journalists you need a press release, but to get their attention you need to let them see what they will be writing about: cue the humble thumbnail sheet.

A thumbnail sheet is essentially a collection of images of everything you will have on display at the show, tiled to fit on one A4 page. This gives the journalists a quick idea of what they find interesting, as well as leading them on to request a bigger image for use in print (which, for the designer, is priceless).

The thumbnail sheet of images is a priceless item in the UK designers’ box of tricks, but it needs to be treated with care when exhibiting with a collective. Showing as a group will in itself get journalists interested. Your group will be seen as a source of a few different articles, all conveniently located together. However, confusion reigns in the world of press deadlines, so the attributions of images have to be crystal clear when working as a collective.

First of all you need to decide how the images of your band of UK designers will be presented, alphabetically is usually the best way to avoid arguments regarding whose images appear first. Whichever system you use, you should ensure that individual designers’ images are grouped together. For the images themselves, logos are essential. Regardless of how small they appear on a thumbnail sheet, they give a journalist a pure visual indication that this item belongs to one person and not the group.

You can achieve as much coverage as you like but it counts for nothing without the correct attribution. For this purpose it is also advisable to list using company names rather than designer names. For instance, “Clean Cue Lamp & 8 Ball Chair by David Monkey Design” clearly indicates that while exhibiting in the same space as other UK Designers, you are an individual entity.

There are many ways to lay out a thumbnail sheet, and as UK designers you will all have the design nous to know what looks good. With that in mind, it is advisable to keep things relatively clean and simple. With clear branding and sensible labelling, you can take advantage of the press interest a group of young UK designers can generate, while maintaining your integrity as an individual brand.

Tags: Collective, Designers, Making, Sheet, Thumbnail