Visitors to our site, readers of our articles, and vodcast viewers (or listeners) might have noticed a few changes to our presentation recently. These changes are not superficial aesthetic tweaks, but rather the result of a concerted effort to ensure the editorial identity and core mission of Trade Treasury Payments is woven into every aspect of our presentation as we expand our reach further around the globe.
TTP was built to provide independent intelligence on liquidity and risk, for real economy finance, through a premium editorial outlet. This has been our north star from our launch at the House of Lords under the patronage of Lord Waverly and Lord Davies and has guided us through a monumental period of growth.
Though we are a young publication and very much still growing, the reality of our market positioning is rapidly aligning more and more with our ambitions as a publication. As we enter the next exciting phase for TTP, it’s important that we put our best foot forward. It was time for a TTP refresh to ensure that our mission is the core thread running through everything we do, and that we firmly anchor our premium positioning as we scale our operations.
The same trusted TTP, with a few upgrades
We are still, fundamentally, the same publication producing specialist B2B content to audiences across the transaction banking ecosystem. What we have done is make some changes to our overall presentation; we’ve updated the fonts we use, our audiovisual productions now include catchy TTP-original sound motifs, and we have a refined TTP logo front and centre.
This refresh to our has been something we’ve been keen to pull the trigger on for some time and represents an evolution for TTP. It’s a subtle but significant change to our positioning that will carry us forward as we work hard to remain at the cutting edge of an ever-changing international trade and transaction banking landscape.
As far as we’re concerned, there are no small decisions when it comes to changes to how you present information when you’re an organisation that strives to be media commentator offering valuable, independent insights to banks, corporates, regulators, and fintechs worldwide. With transparency and trust at the core of our editorial philosophy, we wanted to take the opportunity to talk you through the decisions we’ve made for this refresh and the importance they represent in the identity and the mission of Trade Treasury Payments.
Refined modern elegance for improved readability
Frankfurt-based designer Gregor Mihelač overhauled our UX presentation, ensuring that our audience enjoys the very best experience possible when visiting our website. This design project was rooted in a deep respect for our readership and consisted of several subtle, but nonetheless effective, decisions based around optimising the way our content is consumed.
The redesigned ‘Share’ button is an excellent example. It makes use of OKLCH colour technology, which makes colours appear more vivid, consistent, and true to how the human eye actually perceives them. Now, whenever you click that ‘Share’ button, you are treated to a moment of delight, as our editor-in-chief Deepesh Patel puts it (I hope he doesn’t mind me quoting him on that!).
But the most fascinating part of the experience update is the augmentation of our typeface. TTP is a new age publishing company, but we looked to pair classical, authoritative presentation with the science and fidelity of modern design. We use Instrument Sans as our sans-serif font – it’s clean and highly legible at small sizes, making it ideal for interface elements, captions, and navigation. There’s a warm, geometric character to it also that keeps our web content feeling modern, and since it’s a variable font, we have the capacity to fine-tune its weight and width to get it exactly how we want it.
Our serif typeface is EB Garamond, a beautifully faithful revival of Claude Garamont’s 16th-century typeface. Garamond has adorned books and essays and been the vessel for sharing knowledge and ideas since the age of the printing press. The timeless ‘bookish’ elegance of the font was the perfect underpinning for a forward-looking financial platform seeking to uphold a tradition of independent journalistic excellence and thought leadership.
TTP’s sonic side was calling out for attention
With our visual identity evolving, we were acutely aware that we have never really had an audio identity; at least, not one that exists as a coherent system. This was the challenge put to sound designer Cameron Byrom, who has previously worked with brands like Hermès and Mini, and provided music direction to London-based rapper AntsLive. He was tasked with directing his musical talents toward creating our first, owned sonic identity, consisting of a core mnemonic and a small set of derived audio pieces that would make TTP content instantly recognisable to the ear.
with immediate presence and gravitas. It went through several experimental iterations before being refined into its final form. The sounds of container ships closing, cargo ships passing, and the ‘pings’ of modern payment transactions were all explored as inspiration when working towards the tri-beat tone that authoritatively establishes ‘T’ ‘T’ ‘P’ when heard. While firm, it also retains an almost sing-song quality that makes it memorable and identifiable, even when lasting only a few seconds.
Cameron has also expertly composed a formidable master track from which intros, outros, and any other musical stings we may need can be derived. The impactful track captures an ambient elegance, with its driving rhythm. It is kinetic and energised, but somehow also underscored with an inviting lightness that makes it alluring and infinitely listenable. It’s a dynamic musical motif that perfectly fits our character in unexpected ways. It’s also an undeniable earworm! The music is identifiable and repeatable, but in no way repetitive.
It’s incredibly versatile also. From this one master track, we can derive music to build suspense and intrigue in the interlude between questions in an interview or roundtable, or craft a triumphant score to mark the achievement of standing on stage with an award in hand.
Perhaps most important of all, all of these are now TTP-specific assets that we own, not assembled from stock libraries. This was vital for our mission of editorial independence. In the same way our journalistic output is not beholden to sponsors, we wanted to be sure our media was in no way dependent on assets we didn’t own.
Even the slightest risk that anything we publish could be flagged or removed was too much of a risk and totally antithetical to the IPSO regulations that guide our operations. Our autonomy and total ownership of our reporting remain our highest priority. No one else can own our sound assets, any more than they can own our editorial judgement.
You get one chance to make a first impression
As this granular insight into how we chose our fonts and crafted our audio identity illustrates, a ‘brand’ is so much more than just a logo. And yet, our logo is the first element of TTP people are likely to encounter when consuming our media or engaging with us at an event. Indeed, it might well have been the first thing you noticed when reading this article.
There is a lot a logo needs to accomplish. It needs to encapsulate a brand and evoke everything it stands for. For us, it needs to crystalise an authoritative, instantly recognisable identity and aesthetic that fully meshes with our editorial mission. Simple enough ask
Core to our mission is the belief that trade, treasury, and payments are three flows of one system, and we’re positioned as a publication that covers them holistically. We assign a colour to each flow: our deepened persimmon orange represents trade, an energetic, orchid purple denotes treasury, and a vivid, leaf-toned symbolises payments. But as these are interconnected subjects, we see these colours as a gradient rather than three distinct blocks. Magenta-violet sits between persimmon and purple, teal between purple and green – each of them shades for flow transitions.
Our new logo subtly incorporates this colour gradient into the ‘P’ portion of our initials, indicating our complete journalistic scope: TTP is where trade, treasury, and payment flows converge. We’re building TTP to be the single reference point for cross-border money flows, not three verticals stapled together, and the gradient in our logo perfectly encapsulates this ethos.
A slight 30° angle was also added to the edges of the lettering to create a sense of flow – TTP is quite literally pushing forward toward the future. The geometry of our logo mark design is also such that it maintains aesthetic integrity whether part of a and we have colour variants optimised for light and dark backgrounds while retaining the three-flow . This was a subtle but crucial consideration for our logo refresh. TTP is positioned as a premium media publication, and we intend it to be instantly recognisable as such.
To securely anchor this premium positioning moving forward, we will be using darker backgrounds more for all digital and physical touchpoints. Our microphone flags, notebooks, pin badges, and all other TTP-branded materials will employ richer canvases to convey our high-end editorial aesthetic, and we wanted to be confident of our logo’s prominence and effectiveness against this deeper palette.
Why now? And what does the future hold?
This rejuvenation of the TTP branding is something we’ve been planning for some time, but this was the perfect moment to pull the trigger. TTP is entering a phase of growth that looks to eclipse the rapid expansion of our first 16 months that saw us build up to a team of 21 people across seven countries. We’re scaling – our presentation needs to match our ambition.
The launch of TTP Studios in North America is on the horizon, and our editorial team will be on hand as media partners at conferences and events around the globe. We’ve already had boots on the ground at almost 100 events across nearly 30 countries, and our output is only going to grow. We want to make certain that our branding is optimised to draw attention and properly present our premium positioning in magazine publications, LinkedIn posts, on conference posters and banners, mobile phone screens, merchandise, and wherever else you might see it.
We also see the refresh as a way to future-proof our standing as a trusted source for independent editorial insight in trade finance. We work hard to be both media leaders and thought leaders in an industry that is dangerously close to being left behind. We’re all too familiar with the narrative around some of the struggles of modernising and digitalising the industry – by thinking forwards and proactively evolving our media presence, we hope to be standard bearers for modernisation, supporting the industry through a period of evolution and not just simply reporting on it.
Expect this refresh to be the first of many. Growth is at the forefront of our mindset; we see TTP as an evolving entity and evolving brand, but central to that brand, always, is trust. Any change, major or minor, that can improve how we deliver news and insights to our community is something we will consider. Transaction banking deserves to be represented well by its media partners, and we pride ourselves on doing just that. We are acutely aware that we need to be vigilant to make sure we’re always maintaining the very highest standards that we have set for ourselves.
We’re not as big as the BBC (yet…), but we aspire for TTP to be as ubiquitous a three-letter media entity in the world of liquidity and risk management. We will accomplish this by giving the utmost care and attention to every aspect of our media positioning, from the highest levels of our editorial governance to the nuance of the font we put to page and screen.
