OutSTANDing

I made a stand!
So for Thought Bubble I was thinking how last year when we laid all our stuff out on our table, I made little stands to hold up comics. But they fell over a lot when people picked a comic up and I think it made people embarrassed and they'd leave our table. Also the whole overall table 'look' wasn't as professional than some others. Lots of people had card holder stands set up and that made them look much more professional.

So we were checking out ebay to see if we could go in halves to buy one. There was a wire one on bid for a fiver but it was soon up to £12 and rising which was more than we wanted to spend. Then we checked out some card ones and they were at a set price of £9. But it seemed like such a lot for something thats made of cardboard. So I decided I would make our stand.

I figured out the rough size I wanted it to be, I was using mount board so the A format limited the size I could do. This was basically the maximum size with fitting both side pieces on one sheet of mount board. I wanted to try to use the least mount board I could and be really efficient. Because its £1.40 a sheet with my student discount and there was no point making it by hand if it was going to cost me pretty much the same.

I didn't realise at the time but because I cut the sides out of the same sheet, and they were the same shape. When I put it together the coloured side is only outward facing on one side. I thought I'd really screwed up at first but then I remembered that we were going to decorate a side each to make it look like our practice, so this just helps separate the two sides. Were doing this because last year I got asked a lot about Hollie's work and I ended up spending too much of my time bigging up Hollie's work instead of my own. But this year it will be obvious who's work is who's. It'll basically look like we got a half table each except that were sharing a stand in the middle. I made it so that it's a size that would leave some table room on either side for us to put our product range on.

I made it so that all the pieces slot into one another. Because then it can be flat pack, which makes it a lot easier to bring back and forth from Thought Bubble. Cutting the little slots was the hardest part because their so fiddly and small but I had to get the sizes bang on because the closer fitting it is, the more stable the whole stand will be.

It took a lot of maths. My high school teacher was finally right. It is useful.

Figuring out where the little shelves land was the hardest bit. I had to wait until I had cut the other pieces so I knew all the measurements. I was trying to get each shelf to have a lean so that when we put the comics on it it will hold them and not just let them topple off the front. 

I had to cut a lot of those tiny slots I hated doing.

This is it all put together. Its actually a lot taller than I thought, even though I measured it all, it just looks so large when all the pieces are slotted in. The bottom part of the shelf sags down in the middle. But I think that is a minor detail to say I built it all myself. So when I put it together at the event I'm going to bring some masking tape and just put two pieces on each shelf and scute it to the back piece which doesn't bend because of the way it sits. I think this will fix the mistake and still leave it looking professional.

This is it all flat packed and folded into a very satisfying small pile. So now I can take it in a big plastic folder and there's no risk of it being ruined by rain or anything else.

 I was going to have the logo boards on the bottom panel because I ran out of room on top. But Rosie Wood pointed out that I could just as easily secure them to the top bit. Also it looks more 'open' and presenting if its up top. And can be seen from far away, which is something we wanted to do because last year the more famous practitioners there had signs with their name on. So I was thinking if we just go ahead and make signs and carry ourselves like were famous, people might just believe.

Fake it til I make it