How Telescope built Tailored Bathrooms a book that stands out on the showroom shelf, and that three trade partners choose to sell as their own
THE STORY IN SHORT
Most bathroom brochures look the same: product photography, white backgrounds, a race to the middle. Tailored Bathrooms wanted the opposite, a book with real shelf presence, and one built cleanly enough that trade partners could re-skin it and sell it under their own brand.
Telescope has now produced that book across three editions, with a fourth heading to print for a September launch, and the trade-partner network selling it has grown alongside it.
THE BRIEF
Tailored Bathrooms needed a brochure that worked as hard as it looked. In a sector where nearly everyone reaches for product shots on clean white backgrounds, standing out is difficult, and a bathroom brochure has to justify its place in showrooms stocking plenty of alternatives.
There was a second challenge. Tailored supply a network of trade partners who want to present the same core range under their own brand. The book had to be built so it could be re-skinned quickly and cleanly, without rebuilding it from scratch for each partner.
THE SOLUTION
Telescope produces the core Tailored catalogue and three partner editions from a single production process. The trade partners take the core book and re-skin it with their own covers, so each can present the range as their own while the production is carried just once. It is an efficient model that turns one catalogue into four, and a large part of why the relationship keeps growing.
The design direction is what sets the book apart. Early on, Telescope collaborated with Tailored to boldly move away from the photography-and-white-background convention of the sector and towards strong, eye-catching block colour. It was a natural move for a brand that had already worked with abstract concept imagery, and it gave them a shelf presence their competitors do not have. The covers have carried a variety of covers including a soft-touch laminate with gloss UV on the name: tactile, understated, and unmistakably premium.
The design process is also truly collaborative. Telescope brings several concepts to each edition, including the occasional wildcard, and through a hand-in-hand process of assessment with Tailored, establish the best performing to take forward. It is the sign of a partnership that has found its rhythm across multiple books.
Production runs on a streamlined version of the comprehensive PIM and DAM product-data and asset-management platform, with online proofing built in, that Telescope can provide as a multi-faceted service to clients. For Tailored it is used to simply keeps each edition moving through amends quickly and cleanly.
THE WORK, BY THE NUMBERS
Three editions produced, with a fourth heading to print for a September launch.
17,000 copies of a soft-touch laminate and gloss UV cover finish in the current run, with 180 pages per copy.
THE RESULT
The clearest measure here is continuity. Tailored have returned edition after edition, the trade-partner network selling the book has grown, and each new edition brings the chance to move it forward, for the latest, Telescope reworked the intro and feature pages to keep the book feeling fresh.
The covers do exactly what they were designed to do. Tailored tell us the style helps them stand out in showrooms, precisely because it breaks from the photography-led convention everyone else follows. In a sector where most brochures blend into one another, that distinctiveness is the whole point.
WHY THIS COUNTS FOR YOU
If you sell through showrooms or a trade network, your brochure is doing two jobs at once: representing your brand and giving your partners something they are proud to put their name to. Tailored Bathrooms have a book that does both, from a single production process, with a cover that gets noticed for the right reasons.
IN THEIR WORDS
“Together we’ve created an absolute showroom standout! That latest vibrant pink cover grabs your attention instantly, and the clean interior layout makes browsing effortless.”
Han Jones, Tailored Bathrooms’ internal sales and marketing manager