A digital photo frame can be a smart addition to your craft show booth display. They are lightweight, simple to use, and can add enough movement and color to your craft booth to attract customers’ attention without detracting from your items.

You may have read advice to bring your laptop computer to craft shows and project images from your laptop onto a screen in order to add interest to your booth. I know I came across that advice when I first started planning my craft show display. While it may be appropriate in some settings, every time I thought about bringing my own laptop to add to my display at a show, I’d come up with a long list of reasons why I didn’t want to. The laptop could easily get broken, I’d have to find (and transport) some way to project the images, if not done well it has a lot of potential to being too distracting etc.

A good sized digital photo frame; however, can provide a lot of the benefits of a changing display without a lot of the hassles and potential problems of dragging your laptop to a show.

• Digital photo frames are lightweight and easy to transport with the rest of your craft show supplies.
• As long as you pack them reasonably carefully, there’s little chance that they will break.
• They are attractive and meant to display images, so you don’t need any extra equipment (keep in mind, you will need to be able to plug it in).
• While they can be a bit pricey, if you watch the sales, you can get them for a reasonable price (mine was regularly $100, and I got it for about $50 simply by watching the sale flyers that are delivered to my house).
• They are fairly popular, so if you don’t have one already, you may be able to borrow one from a friend to try it out before committing to buying one yourself.
• If you don’t do a lot of shows, you can use it to display personal photos in your home when you’re not using it as a part of your craft display.

Since the frames are typically not huge, you’ll want to keep your images simple and adjust the settings on the frame so the images change at a moderate pace so customers have enough time to take in each image. Keep some consistency to each image you use so they look as though they belong together as a set. You may display:

• Close up photos of your items that show detail and craftsmanship. This can be particularly effective if the items your make are small.
• A list of your prices and any specials you may be offering
• Simple photos of your studio or your items at different stages as they are being created

and/or

• Your business logo

I’ve seen digital photo frames used to very good effect in a few booths. The movement of the changing photos can be very eye catching and can draw customers to your booth, but at the same time, they are subtle enough to fit nicely into the look and feel of many different types of craft show booths.

For more tips on designing your craft booth see the page Craft Show Display on the main Inspiri site.