It took a journey to the other side of the world for one of the industry's well-known exhibit designers to discover his area of expertise.
Pat Bromilow, designer and managing director of Ateli Design Australia, an exhibit and commercial art design company based in Melbourne, began his career as a French polisher and cabinet maker.
After touring Europe and working in Milan and London with design companies, Mr. Bromilow returned to Australia where he gained a BA in Industrial Design.
Ateli supplies design expertise to stand builders and other exhibit design companies, and on a smaller scale provides shop fitting and building designs.
Ateli's clients in the exhibition industry choose to use the company for a number of reasons, particularly when they operate without an in-house designer, have an overflow of work, or have special requirements for a design.
For Pat Bromilow, this means they work from a brief already obtained from an exhibitor.
We don't compete with our clients and therefore have no need for sales staff or manufacturing facilities, said Mr. Bromilow. This puts Ateli in a unique situation, which has many benefits but requires strict client confidentiality.
Ateli produces around 500 selling drawings a year with many becoming award winners. In the last four years Ateli designs have won around 50 Best Stand awards.
Ateli will most likely design between two and 10% of the custom built stands for various contractors in a show. For example, we designed 9 of the 38 custom stands in Pacific 06, winning best stand, making it 4 times in a row for that exhibition. said Mr. Bromilow.
The company also designed 36 exhibits, which appeared at Victoria On Show, the Melbourne Exhibition Centre's inaugural show.
Two out of three awards available at the event were given to designs Ateli had involvement in.
For the ATUG exhibition in the mid 1990's, 17 custom exhibits were designed by Pat Bromilow.
According to Mr. Bromilow, Ateli's exposure to a variety of industries and events provides an extensive working knowledge, which is then passed on to clients through design.
Mr. Bromilow has observed changing trends and fads throughout the years and not surprisingly the computer companies lead the way in innovation in the Nineties, while Defence and some building industry suppliers now are setting new benchmarks.
To keep in time with changing technologies and ahead of competitors, the designs in demand are individualistic and eye-catching, Different industries have different fads. The engineering or medical industries tend to be at the conservative end of the scale, however requiring more attention to detail.
Rising costs and shrinking budgets have all but eliminated the days of the PC shows way out and wacky looking things with half the design hanging from the ceiling.
The more conservative clients tend to prefer European styling with some curves, whereas for other clients curves are out and irregular shapes are in. You have to be careful who you design for and what you produce for them, Mr. Bromilow said.
Backed by more than twenty years experience in the design business, Ateli aims to extend a sensitive yet creative approach to each client.