Defining The House Hotel & Residences’ Strategic Brand Vision 

We worked with The House Group to help define their brand structure and translate their identity into visual applications.

The objective was to understand how to brand The House groups’ offerings between hotels and residences across various locations – balancing what should be common between the two brands and what should flex. To do this successfully, we did a brand audit and developed a brand architecture which became the basis for all the design work.

Using Customer Research to inform the brand vision & structure

Both the vision and brand architecture were fundamentally led by research and an understanding of their customer segments and different local needs.

The House Groups vision is now centred around the notion of becoming an admired and respected local hotel and residence brand. Achieved by offering guests warm and attentive Mediterranean hospitality. Supported by values that aim to go beyond consumer needs, desires and expectations – delivering a memorable boutique experience set in prestigious locations and buildings with a unique sense of place.

For the brand architecture, the House Hotel and The House Residence were developed to act as two different brands, each with their own look and brand story. House of brands approach, ‘The House Hotel Collection’ becomes a silent parent brand allowing the sub-brands to be seen as separate brands, reflecting the different offers.

The consistency between the two brands focuses on shared values and standards coming from being endorsed by the overall House Hotel Collection brand. Due to the difference between the two brands, we developed two brand kits.

Developing a visual language echoing the brand identity

The brand in colours

The House Hotel uses a lighter, brighter and more sophisticated palette – the brand red comes through in touches and is more present on the website. This bright red is combined with more muted colours that are flexible in its usage. The House Residences uses red in a stronger and bolder manner, accompanied by a darker palette, plays around with different deep shades but never giving in to the harshness of pure black.

Art direction for the House Group

For The House Hotel we used a mixture of coloured photography from each hotel and its local surroundings. Focusing on beautiful composition and design details. Always taken from an intimate perspective. As for The House Residences we focused on monochromatic imagery around people and lifestyle as well as photography of local areas with an intimate feel to them.

Branded Graphic Application

We also created a typography set for the House group, a typeface that is consistent across both brands; however, the header fonts are able to flex to the personalities of any of the sub-brands (i.e. endorsed hotels). The main differentiators graphically, are the logos for each core brand, which have their own look & feel. As for how to differentiate The House Hotels’ and Residences to make them location specific – we played with geometric patterns inspired by the locations, candid neighbourhood photography and surroundings. These assets were then applied on the likes of stationery, hotel merchandise, and applied across certain interiors.