Acumen’s brief for their 2026 AIEC exhibition stand was to re-use graphic design they had produced for a different international education conference, whilst keeping the warm, brown cardboard lounge format of the last two years. There were some immediate conflicts to resolve – the supplied artwork was full-height bright colour and bold supergraphics, and it wrapped three walls, not two.
The strength of the two previous stands Fold Theory produced for Acumen at AIEC was the contrast between a bespoke recycled cardboard environment and the sea of standardised shell schemes around it – invariably brightly lit, with strident graphics and bold colour, intended to stand out yet somehow managing the opposite.
The solution was to strip the colour back entirely, isolating and rearranging the text so it could be printed directly onto the brown cardboard.
There was one other element to the brief – to respond to the event theme of ‘Future Thinking’. Contrarily, Fold Theory’s response to the future was to evoke the past – ancient humans and the primal cave. The L-shaped lounge was already deeply human, with its invitation to sit and chat. And cardboard is a malleable, foldable, three-dimensional ‘fabric’, so the design emphasised the not-flatness – the sculptural modelling of the walls.
As usual, the entire stand was made from cardboard, assembled without glue, and recycled after the show (apart from some hidden metal clips from the stationery shop, which will be reused on future assemblies!).
Client: Acumen
Location: ICC Sydney
Date: 2026
Photography: Tobias Horrocks