Brand building. Managing the delivery of all brand assets for Tulchan Communications when a new company strategy meant a new brand identity.
Tulchan was a privately owned, medium sized strategic financial and corporate advisory firm with offices in London and Singapore (in January 2023 it was purchased by CVC Group and merged with it’s US PR firm Teneo. It’s was one of the top advisory firms in the country with a portfolio of FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and privately owned companies and trade bodies.
I managed the design department and was responsible for the delivery of multiple presentations, brand development and brand nurturing.
My client
Background
In May 2019 Tulchan’s owner, Andrew Grant, appointed Lord Andrew Feldman as the Managing Partner. He presented a new strategy for the company – a new identity was needed to reflect this significant change.
Visually the firm was keen to lean towards that of a creative boutique agency – portraying the team as friendly, approachable, creative thinking experts, as opposed to their competitors who were generally portrayed with a slightly ‘colder’ corporate appearance.
The turn-around was tight – we spent the summer (3 months ish) working with Jon Hill from Tortoise Media as Creative Lead. Steve and Tom from S-T Design collaborated closely with Jon, the Andrews and myself to deliver the new company website and top-level brand guidelines.
It was a radical change and presented Tulchan with a very different proposition to their competitors.
How it went
I joined the process after Jon and S-T Design had been briefed and started development on the website. Having worked at Tulchan for 3 years, I was well placed to elaborate on the initial briefing process and ensure the design solutions were robust and practical for Tulchan’s working environment. I would be responsible for the production of all print and digital collateral once the website framework and brand guidelines were handed over.
I really enjoyed the collaborative process and the extra challenge of making sure the end solutions really worked for the company environment.
Whilst managing the delivery of the new brand, I also continued to deliver new business pitches and move house!
The solutions
The website
The branding process started with the website, which progressed at speed. I wasn’t part of the initial briefing – joining later in a more practical sense to work out technical solutions and liaising with the FD, IT and web developers about domain registration and site hosting; ensuring deadlines were met; requesting or produced assets; populating the website once site framework was constructed [Craft CMS]; ensured snagging issues were resolved. Post launch I then continued to update web content for areas such as ‘new’ and ‘frameworks’. Also worked with HR to develop new pages.
(Not being the designer for the site, I show the below only as part of the brand story story I am telling here.)
The new brand
Below are a few pages from the brand guidelines. Developing these guidelines was a collaborative process; my role was oversight to ensure proposed solutions would work for Tulchan. Jon, Steve and Tom lead on the design, with feedback and sign-off from the Andrews.
The brand guidelines were top level solutions – I had to work out consistent implementation and production.
Some of the practical parameters I had to work within for production consideration: budget, timeframes, available storage in office, recent B-Corp status, IT set up (highly secure IT infrastructure) and of course the Andrews’ personal preferences.
(Again, not being the designer for these guidelines, I show the below only as part of the branding story I am telling here.)
Print solutions
I created all the usual stationery suite items: letterhead; continuation; comp slip; business cards; envelopes (3 x sizes); folders; invitations.
We chose to print digitally due to limited storage space. Mohawk Superfine Ultrawhite Eggshell was pretty much the only stock to use.
Colorplan Amythest added a pop of colour, sometimes with a luxurious copper foil. Papers by GF Smith.
Tulchan had also recently become B-Corp accredited, so we made sure we used a printers with high sustainability accreditation (Pure Print).
I talk in more detail about the print project here: Producing a new range of corporate stationery – the challenges behind production. One for the print nerds.
In-house documents and templates
I worked with HR, Events and the Advisory Team to understand their needs and how they used the templates and documents (you can read about that process Fixing a template problem for an in-house team – how I took a user centred approach.
Items included a substantial induction pack delivered as an Interactive PDF with form filling functionality (produced slightly ahead of the push to digital due to Covid, where it came in to its own!); Mentor / Mentee booklets; numerous in-house branded emails / newsletters / invitations for MS Outlook; readouts of Tulchan Frameworks networking events (more on this sub-brand here), and powerpoint templates.
Presentations, Frameworks and other items
The new brand solution also had to flow through the company presentations, marketing and networking collateral and the odd client report.
You can read a case study about how I developed the business presentations here: Using delightful touches and visual continuity to leverage a company above their competitors and increase memorability.
Developing a networking programme for Tulchan involved the creation of a new sub-brand called Frameworks which had its own challenges. You can read all about that in this case study: How Tulchan framed the conversation for its programme of informative networking events.
