Custom Wood Product Display – Retail Fixtures – Trade Show Booth Exhibits

Wood Product Displays with your company logo perfect for your trade show booth or retail store

If you build it, they will come. We have been building high quality wholesale wood crate product displays since 2009. In 2015 we built our own screen printing division and integrated it into our manufacturing facility located in Chippewa Falls Wisconsin. It has been a very important part of our growing business. With an endless variety of base stain colors to choose from, along with our ability to custom blend our inks, we can match any base color you would want and the perfect screen printing color. We work closely with our customers to fit their needs perfectly. Below I will share with your how we have helped a variety of companies with their Point of Purchase Displays for products in the retail setting.

Here are some of the custom wood product display crates we have done recently

Chicago Cubs – as the Cubs were clinching the pennant last year, the marketing department was gearing up for some high quality and memorable gift crates with the #FlytheW logo. We created a custom size crate with a removable lid that they could fill up with the gifts they wanted to give their Cub fans.
Hill Billy Bourbon – a very smooth tasting bourbon that has led to their expansion. Each step of the way we have been providing them with POP – Point of Purchase Displays at their retail locations to showcase their great product in a product display that stands out from the crowd. Our custom design and distressed logo was a perfect fit for their product display.
SHI – A technology company from Austin TX – was a doing a large corporate event. Being that they are a corporate re-seller for large brands like Microsoft, Apple, and HP they wanted a wood crate with multiple logos on both ends to give everyone attending their event. They put gifts and company information in each wood crate for each guest to take home.
Hoffmaster – A company that is from our home state of Wisconsin is a leader in the disposable tableware industry. They were looking to make a statement for their product display with a custom designed trade show booth made from our wood crates. We helped with the design, all we need from anyone interested in a quote is the size of booth space you need to have filled. Hoffmaster needed 2 (5 x 6) displays 1- 5 x 10 display and 2- 4 x 4 displays. We staggered their company logo as to not overpower their visitors and created a beautiful booth stained golden oak with black screen print. You can watch the video I made below. The nice thing is, the whole trade show booth exhibit fits nicely on 2 pallets to transport between trade shows.

Custom Trade Show Exhibit with Company Logo

We have expanded our product offerings over the years by working closely with our customers. Our production capabilities now include the ability to custom brand your logo on any of our high quality wood crates and boxes. We have designed much more than the projects I explained above. Please take some time to explore our website and check out our buyers guides for wood crates and wood boxes to learn more.

Feel free to call us at 715-563-0580 or email your questions to northrusticdesign@gmail.com

Screen Printing on Crates and Boxes for promotion and decor

Screen printing on crates

Here at North Rustic Design, one of our unique practices involves screen printing on our traditional solid pine and oak crates. What first started with a customer request for their company logo imprinted on their crate order soon blossomed into a full-fledged division of our company. Fortunately, our graphic designer here at NRD had well over 20 years of experience working in the screen printing industry when he came on board with us and so with his help and the combined efforts of the entire staff, we set up our printing department. We are often asked about our process and we thought it might be fun to share some information with our customers.

When we receive a request for an imprinted logo or design from a customer, the first step is to coordinate with the client regarding their artwork. While most companies are already in possession of their own corporate logo, we do offer design services for those who don’t.

Once we receive the art file from them, usually via email, we go to work on mocking up the art to send to them for approval. Once the proof is accepted, the design is sized to fit on whatever product we are constructing and then transferred to a film positive.

Once the film is prepared, a silk screen is pulled from our inventory. Depending on the detail and overall type of design we are printing, we select a screen with a certain mesh count that supports the art. The screens are coated with a light sensitive emulsion and the film and screen are placed into an exposure unit. Once the time of exposure is calculated, the screen is flooded with high intensity light in a process that we call ‘burning’. This process will harden the emulsion where light passes through and stop the light where the dark areas of the film, the design itself, blocks it.

Once the screen is exposed for the correct amount of time, it is taken out and washed with a gentle spray of water. This opens up the mesh where the design was blocking the light and creates a negative image on the screen. The screen is then dried and all the areas of the screen, other than the design itself, are taped off and readied for printing. The prepared screen is placed onto a print table and clamped into place.

We then prep all the boards for printing by carefully selecting them and sanding them to a smooth finish and staining them if the job requires. These boards are then placed, one at a time in a guide that maintains the proper positioning of the print and a consistent off contact height so that each and every print is the same.

The screen is then ‘loaded’ with a special type of ink that is specifically designed for use on wood and that once cured is totally waterproof and has a hard finish. We offer many different colors of inks, depending on your logo and the color of crate you desire. The screen is dropped onto the wooden panels or boards and the ink is forced through the image area with a tool called a ‘squeegee’. Like everything else in the process, there are several types of squeegee durometers depending on the type of ink and the design itself.

The printed boards are then set aside and dried. Once they are dry and ready to assemble they go to the shop to be constructed.

As you can see, it’s quite a process. The finished product, however is a fantastic way to advertise your brand in a new and unique way that is only available from your friends at North Rustic Design.

Screen Printing on Wooden Crates and Boxes

“Screen Printing on Wood Boxes and Crates – The Authorative Guide”

Here at North Rustic Design we are always creating new stock and working on processes to improve our product line and supply our customers with the best possible goods. With that in mind and based on several customer requests, we created our own in house design and screen printing department.

When I came on board with the company I brought with me over 25 years of design and screen printing experience and it wasn’t long before we saw the potential in embellishing our products with company logos and launching a line of wildlife ammo boxes. We were starting from scratch and the first thing we needed to do was set up a new computer station and aquire the necessary equipment to print on wood. My experiences in the past were always the textile industry. Printing on wood posed a new challenge for us and through careful thought and a little ingenuity we built a top of the line screen printing station and we were off and running. We designed and built our own exposure unit for ‘burning’ screens that would work for the materials we needed to print. By building a glass topped and fan cooled unit to expose the light sensitive screens and by placing the finished art on film in the unit, we were able to make stencils that held fine detail and held up to the rigors of printing on a rough wooden board or box. We discovered a type of enamel based, air dry ink that when cured was as tough as the products we printed on.

I often get asked how we actually do the screen printing on our products and thought it might be interesting to explain the process.

Upon either receiving an art file from a customer or creating one for them in house and having approval for the design, the art is sized to fit the products we are printing and then transferred from the computer to a laser film that allows light to pass through the unprinted areas of the film.
We then take a silk screen that has been coated with a light sensitive emulsion, place the film on the screen and expose it to 1000 watts of light in our exposure unit. The time varies depending on the detail in the design but it is rapidly exposed and ready to be washed out. With a light spray of water the areas that were blocked out of the light on the screen from the blackness of the design are rinsed out of the mesh and that area is what allows the ink to pass through the screen.
After drying the screen it is placed into hinged clamps on our printing table and the image area is aligned with the product we are printing on. We then tape off all parts of the screen that are not in the image area and flood the screen with an enamel ink…the color of which is determined by the customer.

With the screen lowered down to within a small gap between the mesh and the wood in a process that is called ‘off-contact’, the ink is forced through the stencil with a hard rubber bladed squeegee and the finish design is transferred to the wood. The product is then allowed to dry for 24 hours so that it is ready to ship or be stained.

It is a time consuming process and it takes quite a bit of attention to detail, but the end result is a perfectly embellished crate or box with your company logo or our original art. There is a nominal, one time set up fee for the screen. If a customer reorders, that fee is waved the next time around and for as long as that same design is used. We do not charge for art work if the customer supplies their design in a vectored format (i.e. eps, pdf, ai or cdr). We do proudly offer professional art service if you need us to create a logo for you. All art is emailed to our customers for art approval before it is ever put on their product. I hope this was informative and the whole embellishing process makes a little more sense to those who don’t have prior screen printing knowledge. Please remember that we are here to assist you with your product development and will do everything possible to give your goods an exciting and unique appearance.

Kevin

North Rustic Design Art and Printing Dept.

Logo Screen Printed Crates

Wildlife Series Ammo Storage Boxes