The client  

TRILITY is one of Australia's leading water management companies managing 49+ treatment plants, and employing over 300 people across Australia and New Zealand. In a market dominated by global giants, TRILITY does the same work with a fraction of the headcount, and does it really well. Ask anyone in the sector where TRILITY sits in the market and they'll tell you: right up there with the big ones.

The story

This story starts in the world of water with a water management company punching well above its weight and a communications team to match. TRILITY’s detail-oriented comms team focus clearly on outcomes and write briefs to match. They think about the audience before they think about aesthetics, and they expect their design partners to meet them at that level.

The work

Rising to the occasion

TRILITY’s relationship with Studio Veld began where most do: a website. Having been with their previous provider for a long time, their needs were starting to outgrow the original website. Business had expanded in size and in offerings, and their existing website was susceptible to security vulnerabilities. The backend was also a bit fragile, so editing and updating content became risky business.

TRILITY came to us with clear site maps, parent pages and every page underneath them mapped out before a single design decision was made. They had worked through the main questions about their users first: (1) who's visiting the website, (2) what are they looking for, (3) how do they navigate from one part of the business to another? This was crucial for a company with a product catalogue of over a thousand items and multiple distinct business units. While Studio Veld could have taken them through that process, it would have taken some deep discovery with such a complex business.

From there, we created wireframes to kick off the collaborative process. Wireframes give the client something concrete to respond to rather than imagining how a page might look. We’ve yet to find a client that doesn’t love them. It gives them a clear understanding of how user pathways are connected.

What makes this website story special is that it needed to launch on the opening day of Australia's biggest water industry conference in Melbourne. With the TRILITY team off-site at OzWater rather than in their office, the complexities of an event-based website launch were heightened.

According to Caroline Kerkhof, Head of Communications:

"We went live on the day we opened our doors to OzWater because we were launching for a major event. The fact that when we got on site at the event and our website was live, it was just a good feeling."

“For a company that's been through four major website overhauls in sixteen years, it was, by some distance, the smoothest one.”

And from the digital comms team member, Jarred Svic, Marketing & Communications Coordinator:

"I was on my computer at our exhibition stand, in fact everywhere I went for 24 hours! It was so important to make this work. Lauren was with me the whole way."

Keeping people in the loop

Running internal communications for a company of TRILITY's size and geographic spread is no small thing. The TRILITY Link employee newsletter goes out to a 300-strong workforce distributed across hundreds of sites, multiple states and two countries.

When Studio Veld first started working with TRILITY on their staff newsletter we were building the process as well. Defining roles and working out the best stage for handover. We arrived at a place where TRILITY consolidates their content into a single brief and our graphic designers access a shared Sharepoint folder.

The TRILITY Link design has been developed with a clean, modular structure that guides the reader's eye. We knew that flexibility would be key because who hasn’t published a newsletter with late additions. Our newsletter design structure is built to manage the “last minute” without disrupting the layout.

TRILITY gives us an opportunity to bring fresh thinking to each edition; our graphic designers create tweaks that lift each edition in its visual appeal. It’s a project that keeps evolving.

"TRILITY Link is a very complex document, and we always get information at the last minute, but even that process has been perfected as we go along." – Caroline Kerkhof, Head of Communications

"TRILITY Link is a classic example where we've given licence to Studio Veld to come up with a few things that are a little different. Sometimes we like it, sometimes we don't, but majority of the time we go with it, and it just enhances the experience for the user along the way without being a big change." – Caroline Kerkhof, Head of Communications

Partnerships that last

When TRILITY first started looking for a new creative partner it had to be local. Their previous provider had been interstate, and after ten years, the distance actually did start to matter. They wanted someone they could sit across a table from.

It started as a website project and expanded into an ongoing graphic design retainer. When TRILITY needs brochures, fact sheets, training manual covers, newsletters, and anything else that’s not obvious at the start, they do it with Studio Veld. We’ve even run strategy sessions with TRILITY's sub-brands including TRILITY Training Services, KDX (their data analytics arm), and TRILITY Water Consultancy.

We’re all about upskilling, so the communications team InDesign training was a satisfying experience. Now they can make smaller edits without needing to send everything across to us.

“Our own positioning in the market is around ‘partners of choice’ and that’s how we describe Studio Veld.  We are the kind of business that earns long-term relationships by delivering exceptional work consistently and we expect it from our partners. Studio Veld is our partner of choice.” – Caroline Kerkhof, Head of Communications

“What's made it last, on both sides, is the communication. Neither party holds back when something isn't working. It might be a brief that needs more detail, a direction that misses the mark, or a process creating friction. It gets named, discussed and adjusted. No judgement, no defensiveness. It's the real reason the relationship is as strong as it is.” – Caroline Kerkhof, Head of Communications

“Studio Veld has been partnering for five years with a business that measures its supplier relationships in decades. That's not nothing.” – Caroline Kerkhof, Head of Communications

What does success look like?

Success for TRILITY’s communications team came in finding a reliable partner of choice who cares about their successes and that they enjoy working with. It’s about the durability of the relationship, and at the five-year mark it’s still going strong.

When we asked TRILITY what success looked like for the website, their first thought was its launch. The site was live, their entire industry sector was watching at a significant event. The fact that it worked cleanly, on time, in front of everyone was the answer. Studio Veld made sure that the comms team and TRILITY looked their best in that moment.

We didn’t ask them to share their web analytics with us, but they are very happy with how the website is performing externally and, importantly, for their staff across two countries.

Moving on to newsletter success. The success of any newsletter can be measured in readership and the TRILITY Link readership numbers confirm that it's working.

“TRILITY Link usually runs four editions a year but with Studio Veld’s support we’ve been able to add two additional issues tied to significant internal moments. The BD newsletter follows the same rhythm, with open rate data tracked so the team can see what's landing.” – Caroline Kerkhof, Head of Communications

"On the newsletters, we get a lot of people reading each time. We know they’re working for that reason."

– Louis Williams, Marketing & Communications Coordinator

Success for TRILITY ultimately sits with developing and sustaining a strong and respected brand in their sector, and Studio Veld supports the TRILITY comms team to achieve this.

“If you were to ask people where we sit in the marketplace, they would say we're up with Suez and Veolia. Except TRILITY has 300 staff compared to 35,000. Studio Veld supports us in building and maintaining our strong brand." – Caroline Kerkhof, Head of Communications

Deliverables

 

  • Website rebuild - full redesign and redevelopment on Divi, including a product catalogue of 1,000+ items and multiple business unit sections.
  • Ongoing graphic design retainer with flexible weekly hours covering brochures, fact sheets, training manual covers, and ad hoc design work.
  • TRILITY Link employee newsletter, produced six times annually, with evolving design and content structure.
  • TRILITY News BD newsletter, a business development communication produced four times a year.
  • Strategy sessions facilitated with TRILITY Training Services, KDX, and TRILITY Water Consultancy.
  • InDesign and website training to solidify business processes between the TRILITY comms team and Studio Veld.