All Signs Point to CTC 2025
If you’ve ever been to a conference, you’ll know that signage is a crucial part of the experience, it provides attendees with important information and directions, and can boost energy through bold, colorful visuals. That was our intent for the Court Technology Conference (CTC). Hosted every other year by National Center for State Courts (NCSC), CTC is one of the largest court technology conferences in the world. With CTC 2025’s website in place and styles established, we were ready to roll into designing the conference’s on-location visuals.
Getting to the Conference and Checking In
Six hotel lobbies associated with the conference block featured signs with customized walking directions to direct attendees to the conference center. Attendees could confirm they were headed in the right direction upon seeing CTC banners hanging from light poles near the entrance. When planning conference signage, a little goes a long way: These signs showed attendees that NCSC puts care and thought into their experience even outside the conference space.
Once on site, registration counters direct the flow of attendees as they sign in at the conference. While each desk kicker remains the same, flags and smaller easel signs for the desks indicate the purpose of each area in registration.
Welcoming and Directing
Directional meter boards are a CTC must-have. Their narrow proportion makes them the perfect fit for directing attendees through hallways and corridors to registration and the exhibit hall. We rely on succinct text that’s easy to read while on the move, and from a distance. We also use court-related imagery for a thematic visual tie-in to the conference’s education topics.
Setting the Stage
The main hall of the conference gets decked out with, literally, a presentation deck with colorful graphics, a branded podium design, and stage lights in this year’s color scheme. This year, we also designed a desk for NCSC’s midnote panel. All together, the stage packs a big visual punch that’s memorable to attendees.
Meet Me in The Marketplace
In 2025, NCSC rebranded the Exhibit Hall as The Marketplace:
NCSC is excited to introduce The Marketplace—our fresh take on the CTC exhibit hall. This name change reflects changes designed to elevate the experience for both attendees and exhibitors. At CTC 2025, The Marketplace offers a more dynamic and interactive environment where meaningful connections happen.
With extended hours, built-in networking opportunities, and educational sessions right on the floor, The Marketplace is more than just exhibits—it’s a hub of innovation, learning, and collaboration.
The Marketplace entrance is a fantastic opportunity to thank sponsors and promote the host. This year, column wraps were the best option in the space we had. Aisle labels and various banners for different spaces make it easy for attendees to find the booths they want to visit. We relied on simplicity for Marketplace signage content, which allowed text to be large and easy to read from a distance. Using the primary conference colors as a consistent gradient background helped messaging stand out in a busy space.
NCSC’s Center Quarter
Center Quarter is NCSC’s booth space in The Marketplace, and this year it came with a cinema-style theater! Attendees could visit this space to network on the lounge side of CQ—or grab some popcorn and take a seat on the theater side, where NCSC experts led Quarter Talks on the industry’s hottest topics.
We relied on CQ and NCSC logos on the lounge side walls, which provided spatial separation and served as a backdrop for attendee selfies. For the theater side, we selected just over a handful of Quarter Talk titles and turned them into posters, visually referencing blockbuster movies like 10 Things I Hate About You, AI, The Matrix, and more. We especially had fun making mini versions of the posters for unique conference giveaways.
The conference signage was a big hit, and we’re happy that it made such a splash with our client and conference attendees.
Hosting a conference? Exhibiting at a conference? We can design (and produce) anything from small tabletop displays to entire booths or exhibit hall spaces. See more of our signage and display work, or reach out to get started.
