Presentation Design. Using delightful touches and visual continuity to leverage a company above their competitors and increase memorability.
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. During the 4.5 years I worked there I delivered c.260 presentations on time, every time, meeting the high expectations required by the Partners.
My client
Background
Tulchan had originally been loosing work due to the dated, poor quality of their pitch documents and a preference for a printed presentation
They were invited to present more, and stopped losing pitches due to quality of the design once I joined
I worked towards streamlining the design process, ensuring creative solutions and accurate content. We changed the presentation software from Indesign (print based – a decision made years before I started) to Powerpoint – (screen based) – which proved great foresight once Covid hit). This made the pitch process more agile as more people had the software and those tiny amends could be done by anyone, it was less time pressured as you didn’t have to factor in print times and the overall presentation felt modern
I was assisted and co-managed a team of Client Account Managers who helped populate the content of the slides
The problem
In a competitive world, especially a pitch process how do you make yourself memorable?
How do you create high-end bespoke assets, quickly and easily for a team to put together – nothing that adds to the pressure.
The parameters: colour-calibrated laser printers available in-house; limited storage; wiro-binding machine (glue binder machine planned); big budgets; premium quality finish
The solutions
Delight: Personalised envelopes
Contains a bound version of the presentation. As this then feels like more of a keepsake, it reduces the chance of the attendee reading the presentation in their hands, rather than watching the presenter.
Continuity: The presentations
Continuity of visual branding and company offering was very important as was using the most recent version of the credentials pages (tricky to manage with multiple people creating presentations and a habit of using old presentations as a base for new ones!).
Presentations were either in-house branded or styled in the tone-of-voice of the brand / company holding the pitch process.
Components and parameters: Covers were pre-printed 2 x colour litho print onto heavy board; Presentations were wiro bound (ugly but very limited on options – copper wiro used as per brand guidelines); we were in the process of purchasing a glue binding machine when Covid hit (much smarter). Internal pages were printed on the in-house laser printers.
We also created bound books by sending artwork out to external printers – more pressured to deliver final book in time to make print deadlines.
*Please note that I can’t show much of my most recent work, due to honouring NDA’s. Please get in touch if you need to see more recent work and I can see what’s possible. What I have shown – again due to confidentiality may have been redacted – so please excuse the odd weird block of blank space or fuzzy areas, it’s not shoddy craftmanship.
Memorability: The leave-behinds
A little keepsake. An A5 booklet with an overview of the company offering, and biographies of the team.
If we had time; printed externally, on uncoated paper. No time; printed internally using the grumpy booklet function on the in-house laser printer. Was working towards building a supply of pre-printed board covers when Covid hit.
