Great things abound from the best partnerships, as exemplified by the branding and new website of Vancouver based mortgage advisors Coultish & Co. by Solocube Creative.
Creating a brand from the ground up is a huge undertaking that requires thoughtful collaboration. The best minds come together to plan, develop, create, and execute ideas that form the elements of what drives a brand to success. Ideally, this type of collaboration extends to creating a website, which is like building a house from the ground up. The foundation must be laid out first, and strengthened for it to support the entire structure. In this case, the foundation, which is the Coultish & Co. brand, was established and defined first before moving on to create the company website.
First off, Coultish & Co. is more than just a mortgage broker firm. The company aims to stand out from the pack by offering the same access, services, and products of both a mortgage broker and a banking-style institution. Their corporately-structured brand is the first of its kind in British Columbia, which drives them all the more to be the best in providing professionalism, accountability, continuity, savings, and product access for all their clients. With this in mind, Coultish & Co. decided to partner with the best in the web design and branding industry—Solocube Creative, to help them develop a strong brand and website.
“OUR CRITERIA FOR PARTNERING WITH A LOCAL MARKETING COMPANY WAS VERY SPECIFIC, AND CHOOSING TO WORK WITH SOLOCUBE WAS AN EASY DECISION AFTER WE LEARNED HOW SIMILAR OUR EXPECTATIONS OF A QUALITY SERVICE ARE.
” – Adam Coultish – President & Chief Mortgage Advisor
Solocube Creative was responsible for building the brand of Coultish & Co. from the ground up. They focused on two major elements: Brand Identity, and Web Design and Development. In developing Coultish & Co.’s brand identity, Solocube Creative and Coultish & Co. both emphasized a sophisticated approach. To stand out, they needed a different standard mortgage broker look than the existing competition. Ivan Dancourt, Creative Director of Solocube Creative started first with creating the logo design to establish look and feel, plus brand direction. The next elements tackled were business card design, letterhead design, presentation folder design, banner display signage design for walking street traffic and road advertisements, and finally, email signature design for the use of the entire staff.
The biggest challenge encountered by the Solocube Creative team was making the Coultish & Co. brand look and feel different from the rest of the competition. Since the mortgage broker industry is very competitive, making them look unique was one of the goals in this project. One helpful tip was the use of the term “mortgage advisor”, which was one of the initial requirements by Coultish & Co. because they consider themselves more of an advisor than just a plain broker.
Once brand identity was firmly established, then came web design and development. Solocube Creative built a custom website design which complements and highlights the Coultish & Co. brand. It is also a responsive web design that allows for mobile device, iPad, iPhone, and smartphone viewing. Other elements included were WordPress integration, a custom-built online mortgage application, an integrated and dynamic mortgage calculator, an SSL encrypted website with 256-bit encryption and web content writing.
One of the focus in web development is for visitors to take action in the website and contact Coultish & Co., which is why Solocube Creative built an integrated quick application form to jumpstart the process, and for Coultish & Co. mortgage advisors to immediately help people looking for a mortgage. Also, all web content text and new website content was provided by Solocube Creative with the informative assistance of the Coultish & Co. team.
From the get-go, Solocube Creative worked closely with President and chief Mortgage Advisor of Coultish & Co., Adam Coultish. Ivan Dancourt, Founder and Creative Director of Solocube Creative, is grateful for the expertise the Coultish & Co. President brought to the table. According to Mr. Dancourt:
“Adam really understands the value that a well-designed brand brings, so that made my job easier in creating something of value and most importantly unique to his company.”
Furthermore, Mr. Dancourt has this to say of the successful collaboration:
“It has been a pleasure working with Adam and the team at Coultish & Co., they were very proactive throughout the whole process from establishing their brand, designing marketing material, and finally seeing the final website come to light. It gives me great satisfaction in seeing their team using all the marketing material we created and most of all assisting them in establishing their future clientele both offline and online.”
Likewise, Mr. Coultish expresses his gratitude and appreciation of Solocube Creative’s hard work in providing excellent web design and branding services:
“Our criteria for partnering with a local marketing company was very specific, and choosing to work with Solocube was an easy decision after we learned how similar our expectations of a quality service are. The vision we have for Coultish & Co. is unique and the look had to represent our core values. I remember giving Ivan a list of adjectives describing the service and experience we strive to provide the clients and partners of Coultish & Co., and we needed a strong brand that represented this. Well we couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome. We are very proud of our brand and Website.”
The partnership of Coultish & Co. and Solocube Creative is a story of exemplary teamwork that began with brand development and culminates with this new website launch. Ivan Dancourt expresses his optimism and high hopes for the future of Coultish & Co.:
“In the end, Coultish & Co. now have all the right tools, both offline and online, to cater to their market. I look forward to seeing them grow and working with them along the way.”