Blackroll is a clever recovery product used not only by the greatest professional athletes in the world, but also by amateur sportspeople. For the exhibition booth that we designed for the Marathon Expo 2017, we decided to honour the number of kilometers Pheidippides run to deliver news of the Athenian military victory at the Battle of Marathon that changed the history: 42,195.

That is because no other number has been so closely interwoven with fortitude, perseverance, effort, endurance, strain, and finally triumphs. Thousands of athletes from around the globe visiting Marathon Expo 2017 run 42,195 kilometers, surpassing themselves.

On the sole white wall of the booth, the number 42,195 was formed by forty-seven Blackroll samples. This wall serves as a first marking of the booth since it is the first thing that passers-by see. It was also designed this way so that it is used as a backdrop wall during the exhibition, for athletes to be photographed in front of it.

All other features are black. Therefore, on the one hand, they create a neutral background serving to directly promote the product and on the other hand, they generate a space of visual tranquility and diversity, opposed to the abundance of colors and images defining the whole of the exhibition, which, in 2017, was visited by 75.000 persons.

photos by G. Sfakianakis