Notes on branding property developments and hospitality venues, written from the projects we work on.
Most property developments choose a name and a logo before they've decided what the development actually stands for, which is backwards. The brand — the story, the tone, the audience it's speaking to — should come first, because everything else, the name, the marketing, the show home experience, should flow from that decision, not the other way round.
Read more →A show home dressed beautifully and a development with a real brand are two different things, and confusing them is one of the most common mistakes in property marketing. Decoration makes a space look good in photos, branding makes buyers feel something specific and remember it, and that distinction is often the gap between a scheme that sells quickly and one that sits on the market.
Read more →Too many hospitality venues design the space first and figure out the brand afterwards, which usually shows. When the brand identity — the story, the tone, the experience you want a guest to feel — comes first, the physical space becomes an expression of that brand rather than a nice room with a logo bolted onto reception.
Read more →Before you brief anyone on branding for a development or a hospitality brand, you need clarity on three things: who you're actually speaking to, what feeling you want them to leave with, and what makes this specific project different from the one down the road. Without that, even the best designer is guessing, and you end up paying twice — once for work that misses, and again for the fix.
Read more →Most developments get their branding and their interiors from two different teams, working months apart, which means the brand often ends up illustrating a space it had no say in shaping. On this project, both were built side by side from week one, so as the spatial concept found its character, the brand could playfully dial against it — more elegant where the space leaned playful, more playful where the space leaned refined — a kind of creative tension you simply can't get when the two are outsourced separately.
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