5 Star Cases was recently contacted to design and supply a complete exhibition display system and flight case solution for CPU Holders 4U and Pro Audio Stash.
From an initial brief from Pro Audio Stash's Rob Platt, the design team at 5 Star came up with some ideas and following some minor tweaks, the project was born, comprising two main product categories.
Pro Audio Stash distributes a range of 19” rack mount cabinets, both free standing and wall mounted, plus a host of rack-mounting accessories like plain panels, drawers, ventilation panels, castors etc.
CPU Holders 4U manufacturers and distributes a range of ‘Under-Desk' CPU holders, laptop security drawers and cable management trays.
5 Star's brief was to provide a bespoke system of ‘pods' and flight cases to facilitate quick display set up of the products at exhibitions and demonstrations.
The ‘pods' were the first element to be designed.
Solid Edge, 5 Star's customized 3D modeling, rendering and visualisation software was used to produce pods that house the CPU holders. They are manufactured from CNC machined plywood into an open frame design, allowing the CPU Holder products to be visible from a wide angle.
5 Star also integrated a smart system allowing each pod to stack onto another by means of male and female interlocks machined into the plywood side panels. This enables the pods to be stacked in a wide variety of layouts to suit different exhibition criteria. Corporate branding was also a key feature of the pods and again, this was CNC machined into the plywood.
All of the display pods were finished in a durable white textured synthetic paint, which ensures a higher visible impact of the products on show. Additionally, 3 high brightness LED's were flush fixed into each pod to illuminate the product and add further visual dynamics.
Two further pods were designed as a ‘desk' system, to accommodate 2 pull out drawers from the CPU range. The top of the desk was machined from 12mm ultra-clear polycarbonate sheet so the entire drawer can be seen.
All pods were supplied with flight cases from 5 Star's Heavy Industrial range, finished in stylish navy blue laminate and screen printed branding.
In total, 15 single pods with 5 flight cases and 2 desk pods in matching cases were supplied, complete with a set of flight cases each housing one of Pro Audio Stash's range of AV and server rack enclosures, including 28, 32 and 42u sizes.
The first exhibitions for the CPU holder pods with be BETT in London and Paperworld in Frankfurt, both in February 2010, followed by The Office Exhibition in Dubai. The first outing for the Pro Audio Stash cases will be at ISE in Amsterdam.