The standout moments of 2018.

This year has been a very special year, both for me personally, and for the evolution and continued growth of TOTEM. There are too many people who contributed to making that happen to list here, but you know who you are.

And while it’s tricky to narrow it down to just 12 stand out projects or moments, I’m delighted to have the opportunity to showcase some of what our team and our clients have accomplished over the year. So, here goes nothing….

Fáilte Ireland is the National Tourism Development Authority of Ireland, and a regular client of ours. One of the first stand-out moments that springs to mind, is when TOTEM’s new brochure design for them, hit the headlines.

Fáilte Ireland’s new five-year Food and Strategy document aims to provide international visitors with “immersive experiences” centring on Irish food. And, our final design worked hard to capture that “Irish Food Experience” for the reader, balancing engaging imagery and descriptive learnings in a contemporary style.

Also, reflecting on early in the year, it started with a bang, as we jumped straight into three brand essence workshops with the Trigon Hotel Group – who own and manage the Cork Airport Hotel, Cork International Hotel and The Metropole Hotel Cork.

It was a fascinating project to facilitate such an incredibly passionate internal team, as they explored the unique personality of each of their hotels. And how they all tied back to the Trigon group brand and what that stood for, which is “Creating Exceptional Experiences”.

Following that was the official launch of something we started back in late 2017 – the new branding for Cork Chamber. They had just gone through a strategy process to redefine their focus and ambitions for the future. And had tasked us with evolving their brand to reflect this.

Our first step was to take this thinking, their mission and vision and convert it into a bold brand manifesto that would inspire members. And from this, to develop a new tone of voice and messaging hierarchy. All reflecting the new shared goal of making Cork the best place for business, with a Chamber where every member belongs.

April saw our brochure for the West Waterford Festival of Food, go from a concept into the hands of festival goers. There was a vast array of events and seminars over the three days, so the brochure had a huge amount of times and details to communicate, whilst staying small and convenient enough in size for visitors to carry.

We designed it to a square format using a size that allowed us room to communicate all required information, whilst also giving visuals and photographs space to breathe… to give a flavour of what the festival was about. And best of all, for the first time, the brochure was dátheangach – Gaeilge agus Béarla.

A culture of continuous improvement, innovation and knowledge driven product development defines Boston Scientific Clonmel. They know that even the smallest improvements will make a big difference to somebody’s life.

As part of their winning site, we created high impact signage that brought their values, vision and purpose to life to ensure each employee understood how their performance could positively affect patient care.

This summer we had the privilege of once again sponsoring the Ask Direct Fundraising Summer School Conference in Trinity College Dublin. Ask Direct are a leading fundraising agency, based in Dublin. We work in partnership with them, supporting them in the design of engaging campaigns for some of Ireland’s biggest and most exciting charities.

As well as being a lead sponsor, we had the opportunity to design the full suite of signage and material for this incredible conference, that brings some of the leading international speakers and brightest brains in fundraising together for two days of talks and discussions in Dublin.

One of the stand out clients we worked with in 2018, through Ask Direct, is Trócaire.  They support the most vulnerable people in the developing world while also raising awareness of injustice and global poverty in Ireland. They launched their radical new positioning ‘Until love conquers fear’ in late 2017.

And during 2018 we designed a number of direct mail appeals, under this new banner, to raise critical funds for their many projects. This included the design of their iconic Lent Direct Mail Appeal and their most successful September Direct Mail appeal to date. We are honoured to have played our part in raising these funds that will have a profound impact on vulnerable lives worldwide.

One of the really interesting things about this year, for us as a team, has been the range of industries that we’ve had the opportunity to work across. And the niche expert services we’ve been exposed to. Acorn regulatory would fall into this category.

They are a team of Regulatory Affairs Experts that specialise in helping leading Pharmaceutical and Medical Device companies bring their products to market. We developed a new tagline for them – “Expertise you can trust” and defined their key messages which we applied to a new website, company brochure and presentation.

Another client that provides a very niche, technical service is Onionsack. They provide Software as a Service to leading bookmakers and have developed cutting edge technology that facilitates text and instant messaging. And are now evolving this into voice search solutions too.

We facilitated a workshop with them, to delve into their core brand essence – their ability to understand the unique language of betting. And from this understanding, we were able to create a new brand identity – creating a new logo and company presentation that clearly communicated the key benefits of their offering.

EirGen Pharma is a client we have been working with since they were established in 2005. This year, we had the opportunity to develop a new website and associated materials for them, to showcase their world-class facilities, grow sales and help recruit the best talent.

We designed a clear, impactful and responsive website – applying a mobile-first approach. We crafted new copy to bring a consistent tone of voice through and used a bespoke suite of photography to showcase all aspects of life at EirGen. The end product of a confident and contemporary website is something all of us here at TOTEM are extremely proud of.

And now it gets to sneak peak time, because this isn’t due to launch until January. But, our friends at Cross Electrical have kindly allowed us to share a preview of their new brand identity – logo and tagline – which in the New Year you’ll be seeing a lot more of, when their new website launches.

Cross Electrical is a Waterford based Electrical Contracting and Maintenance Company with an impressive list of clients. They are renowned for exceptional service and quality workmanship. Working with them to develop a new identity, one that reflects the outstanding professional service they provide, has been fantastic.