Investment Banking Deal Toys & Financial Tombstones

More Than a Record of the Transaction

Traditional financial tombstones preserve the essential facts: the parties, transaction type, value, date and advisors. A great deal toy does something more. It captures something distinctive about the company, asset, industry, geography or strategy behind the transaction.

That distinction matters. Investment bankers accumulate deal markers over the course of a career. The pieces that remain memorable are rarely the ones with the most decoration. They are the ones with a clear idea behind them.

Designing Around the Story of the Deal

The strongest concept often comes from one defining element: the company’s product, a recognizable asset, the transaction structure, a location, a visual metaphor, or even an inside reference meaningful to the team, like the project’s code name.

If you have design ideas—a sense of what you’d like to see in the deal toy—that’s great. We’re happy to bring your idea to reality. But you don’t need to have a design idea to get started. Send us the information you have and let the creative process do its job.

We consider the design and the manufacturing process together from the beginning. The concept needs to look good in a rendering, but it also needs to work as a physical object, at the required quantity, within the budget and on the closing schedule.

“After thousands of deal marker projects, I still approach each transaction as its own design problem. The goal isn't simply to put the tombstone text into an object. It's to find the idea that makes that particular deal worth remembering.”

— John Hathaway, Deal Toy Expert, Polaris Custom Awards

What We Need to Get Started

• Final deal text, or a working draft
• Logos for the firms involved, preferably vector artwork
• Quantity and target budget or budget range
• Delivery date and delivery location or locations

That is enough to begin. You don’t need to choose Lucite versus crystal, determine dimensions, create a layout or solve the manufacturing details—unless, of course, you want to. We’ll work with what you give us.

Materials That Fit the Idea

Lucite / Acrylic — Exceptionally versatile for layered graphics, embedded objects, custom shapes and colorful designs.

Crystal / Optical Glass — Weighty, polished and formal, with crisp etching, bevels and a premium presentation.

Resin / 3D Models — Well suited to miniature products, buildings, vehicles and sculptural elements that cannot be achieved effectively with flat graphics alone.

Metal, Wood & Hybrid Construction — Useful when the concept calls for additional texture, contrast, structural elements or a more architectural presentation.

The material is not the idea. We select materials and production methods based on what best serves the concept, budget, quantity and deadline.

Built Around the Closing Calendar

Investment banking schedules move. Deal text changes. Dates shift. Approvals arrive late. Sometimes the request itself comes late.

Our process is built around those realities. Polaris works directly with experienced production partners and designs with manufacturing in mind from the beginning, allowing us to identify practical options quickly and avoid unnecessary handoffs.

Every production job includes a prototype for internal quality control. When client review of the physical sample is useful, we can arrange that; when timing or a repeat design makes an in-hand review unnecessary, we can use detailed photography or video as appropriate.

We will tell you what is realistically achievable and build the production schedule around the date that matters.