A successful exhibit often hinges on a company's ability to deliver a jaw-dropping design – especially when the featured product involves an actual hinge. Such was the case for ZTE USA Inc., which was promoting its Axon M smartphone at the 2018 International Consumer Electronics Show and tasked Derse Inc. with designing a booth that unmistakably reflected its innovative product. Out of the box, the Axon M looks like a standard smartphone, but it comes with a twist – or better yet, a fold. A hinge running the length of the phone allows users to unfold the back side, revealing a second 5.2-inch screen.

So Derse designed four 11-by-13-foot, backward-leaning LED screens that stretched from the middle of the exhibit's floor to meet a dramatic, 23-by-80-foot, forward-angled ceiling sheathed in Barrisol Mirror fabric affixed to aluminum frames. The material turned the overhead architecture into an enormous reflection of what was happening below. "The mirrored effect was symbolic of the multidimensional user experiences enabled by the Axon M phone," said Todd Sussman, vice president of creative at Derse.

Meanwhile, the LED screens were used for social-media activations and multiple product presentations narrated by ZTE executives. And several times a day, each of the monitors became a virtual arena where visitors competed in free-throw basketball tournaments via motion-sensing cameras that captured participants' movements and transferred them onto on-screen avatars.

Behind the screens was the 5G Future Tunnel, a 12-by-12-by-40-foot thoroughfare dedicated to telling the story of ZTE's progress in 5G and the Internet of Things. "It's a dual experience – very public in the front and more personal in the tunnel," said one Exhibit Design Awards judge. One might even say it's the sort of concept that will likely have future designers trying to mirror it. E