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It's always satisfying to see a long-running project come to completion — especially when it's six feet wide.

Readers of the July issue of my Off-Line newsletter may recall that we've been working on designing and producing a table-top exhibitor's display for Graduate & Faculty Ministries. Our staff all around the country often need an easy way to set up an informative and appealing exhibit for showcasing the ministry at a conference, retreat, or special event. And as of today, they can have one.

Above, you can see a greatly reduced view of the whole thing, which is about six-feet wide and four-feet high, and below is a detailed view of just the right-hand panel.

We really had to put on our thinking caps to design this. We needed a single display to serve four distinct audiences within GFM: GFM in general, Faculty Ministry, Professional Schools Ministries, and the Emerging Scholars Network. The solution? Several of the panels, whether with special text or distinctive images, can pop out and be swapped with others to transform the display into four different versions. Presto, change-o!

Kudos go to the graphic artists Gary Nauman and Rebekah Ellfeldt, of InterVarsity's 2100 Productions, and to Sara Scheunemann, my colleague in GFM, who produced the text and midwifed the whole project.

Our GFM version is similar to one that's been well-used by InterVarsity staff working mostly with undergraduates. In fact, we based it on the same collapsible metal framework, so that the two displays are complementary, easy to transport, and use interchangeable graphic panels. It's available to InterVarsity staff through our in-house "staff store," and we expect to move quite a few of them this fall.

I hope that you'll have a chance to see one of these displays yourself before too long! Personally, I'm tickled to be part of a cool project like this — and especially pleased to put a useful resource into the hands of my colleagues and the people among whom they minister.

below: A detailed view of the display's right-hand panel, a collage of images evoking the professions and academy.
 

first published Sep 2, 2004