It’s not about designing what we think is best. It’s about designing what is right.
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“What is right” is what hits the right triggers to elicit the right response from the right targets. “What is right” requires us to suspend our personal biases and create as though we were the targets we were creating for.
"Creative" isn't always about making an ad, something pretty, something "cutting edge" or even something you can hold in your hands. In this business, creative can't live on its own and exist for its own expression. We are marketing architects and creative is a building material we specify to achieve a desired outcome.
We believe creative is relevant thinking applied to a challenge. It's never enough to just skin a trade show booth, use info@ for contact email, or follow the rules on packaging. Relevant ideas drive relevant brands. They drive relevant brand interactions. They drive relevant brand growth.
Your logo is not a brand. A brand is so much more than a logo. Knowing this, Tugboat practice is to create, retrofit or polish a compelling graphic identity that reflects the attributes of the brand position and personality. If there is no specified position, we can proceed in one of two ways: 1) a brand challenge or visioning session where we challenge or create the brand architecture, position and personality or 2) take you through a thorough intake where we fill in the architecture, position and personality, based on you being the "living brand”.
Legacy
Retrofit of Xibita Brand ID
Improved
We approach packaging the same way we approach all creative: start with the desired result and work backwards. Packaging is about presence—table presence, shelf presence, social media presence, even Costco presence.
We consider a packaging system and standard which becomes the genesis for all packages. A program that accounts for colours, new product additions, producers, production requirements, substrates, technology advances, packing lines, human involvement, government regulations, sub-brands/brand extensions, positioning, type, legibility, retail impact, consumer habits and other considerations that can disrupt the harmony of the product line-up.
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Award Winning Simply Marbleous Environmental Packaging
The visitor experience at a trade show can be passive or active, and we choose active means engaging, energizing and memorable. This means saying no to images of every single product in your catalogue and yes to one singular idea designed to elicit a specific response from your target prospects.
Beyond the creation of exciting graphics and stock or custom display systems, we also help (in whole or in part) drive the entire experience, whether it's a 10x10 or 50x30. Show-only product samples, promotional items, staffing, uniforming, guerilla, sponsorship, training, advertising support, video, social media activation, contesting and that Sham-WoW factor that generates buzz on the show floor. Everything we recommend or engage in is designed to get more of the right traffic to your exhibit.
Trade show booth
We bring your brand to life on paper and in pixels. Annual reports, brochures, magazines, on-pack, posters, point-of-sale materials, media kits, digital and printed stationery, forms, guerrilla fodder; essentially anything imagined that communicates the right message and emotion to the right people.
Inlailawatash Annual Report
Inlailawatash Stationary set
Inlailawatash Cover
Inlailawatash Logo
It's easy to buy space, time or pixels. It's another thing altogether to craft the compelling and relevant message that resides in that space, time or screen, and establish how it will present through all mediums as defined by the strategy. When we know what we want to have happen and how to track that it's really happening, it's a lot easier to create advertising that delivers relevance and ROI. Advertising that is meaningful to your targets and your bottom line.
JIND Poster
JIND Poster
Environmental Design
Brochure microsite or comprehensive web application, the Tugboat web development team covers the gamut. Contemporary display design and coding is supported by back office application development capable of standing alone or integrating with any accessible business application. The Tugboat web team are expert Drupal developers.
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Windset entrance
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Windset lobby
Windset freshness
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Windset sign
Windset entrance
Windset stairs
Windset logo sign
Windset lobby
Windset freshness
Windset reception
Web + Application Development
Tugboat.Online is our web and software development engine room. We can develop just about any site or application, any size, for any purpose. In fact, Tugboat.online is so specialized, we needed to give it space to grow.
Curious to know how we'd approach your unique requirements? Let's talk.
Our Services
