brand strategy and positioning for hotels, restaurants, bars and private members' clubs: what the place is, who it is for and why it is chosen over everywhere else on the street. it settles the room rate and the cover price, the tone and the guest you are speaking to, so the name, the look and the words all point the same way.
naming a hotel, restaurant, bar or club is finding a word that sounds like the building and still works everywhere it has to live: the sign, the menu, the web address, the handle, the search result. the area, the history and the trade weighed first, and the name checked as free to use and free to own online before anyone falls in love with it.
tone of voice is how a place sounds in writing: the menu, the website, the booking confirmation, the note on the door. the voice is set and the copy written, so a tasting menu, a press release and an out of office all read like the same house. it is the cheapest luxury there is, and the first thing a guest notices when it slips.
visual identity is the logo, the typefaces, the colours and the marks that tell a guest where they are. designed for hospitality, which means it has to hold at every size and on every surface: a brass sign, a wine list, a coffee cup, a phone screen, embroidered on a lapel. distinctive at the door, and still legible in the dark.
brand guidelines keep a place consistent as it grows: how the logo is used, which typeface goes where, the exact colours, the voice with examples, the rules for photography. written so a printer, a sign maker, a pr agency or a new general manager can follow them without a phone call, which is what holds a brand together through a change of team.
art direction is the look across everything a guest meets: the photography, the film, the print, the website, the feed. one eye over all of it, so a menu and a social post belong to the same place without being identical. it is where most hospitality brands come apart, and it is the part that makes a place remembered.
a world of its own is the part that cannot be bought in: a place given its own visual language and the imagery that carries it, drawn from its own building, landscape and story rather than the stock library everyone else uses. it is what leaves a hotel, restaurant or club with something a competitor cannot copy.