Welcome to the Hotel Photographer’s new series by artist and designer Jordan Harcourt-Hughes. Jordan has worked at brand headquarters for a range of hotel brands. In the Beautify Your Brand series, she explores ways to delight guests with a vibrant and connected brand experience.
Creating beautiful brand experiences for guests is a key component of the hospitality business. It can also be immensely fun, and often easier than you think. Very often, enhancing your guest’s brand experience through design and a focus on aesthetics comes down to these four things:
- Colour
- Micro-moments
- Sensory Journeys
- Tactile experiences
I’ll be exploring these elements in detail throughout the series. Many of the tips I have to offer on beautifying your brand have been perfectly captured in the photos taken by the incredible Hotel Photographer Mauro Risch.
Nature invigorates our connection to the primal realm. Showcasing nature as part of your brand experience can provide your guests with moments of calm, restorative beauty and tranquil time-out. Here are five ways you can naturally beautify your brand.
1. Showcase unprocessed gourmet delights
I first experienced honeycomb at Glass Brasserie at the Sydney Hilton. Honeycomb is curious in texture, it’s chewy and not as sweet as you imagine, and it’s also not as easy to eat delicately as you might imagine. Read this lovely article on the lost art of eating and enjoying comb honey. Pulling fresh honeycomb off the buffet, hunter-gatherer style, was such a delightful treat that I’ve retained fond associations with Hilton’s breakfast buffet ever since. Did I get my money’s worth, despite overlooking most of the other food groups? Yes, largely because it was exploratory and tactile and most of all, fun!
2. Make natural light the hero design feature
Days can be long in conferences and meetings, and natural light has this wonderful way of calming people, creating a positive mood and allowing for a sense of greater space for breathing, thinking, talking and moving.
Large windows, sliding or fold-back doors, working patios, balcony restaurants, all of these spaces offer a great chance to let sun rays and light breezes make their presence known.
Light works particularly well when it’s allowed to really extend it’s warm through a space – so get rid of partitions that block it, walls that reduce or redirect it, and dark colour that absorbs it.
3. Frame it like its art
This can take some planning at the building stage – so if you’re creating a new space, or refurbishing and old one, do a survey of the landscape around you. What elements of nature have you got to work with, and how can you frame them? I love this picturesque view that demonstrates how nature can works both as a headlining visual feature, staged by the restaurant, whilst also allowing guests a window onto another guest experience to be explored after lunch.
4. Work with natural colours and textures
Earthy tones and textures can work to slow us down. Rather than overload us with visual stimulation, they invite us to take it down a notch. In a landscape of earthy, natural colours guests are more likely to unwind quickly. They may reach more readily for a book over a phone, a herbal tea over a caffeine hit and may even curl up with loved ones and a few lap rugs for a late checkout. What a great gift to give a guest!
5. The Sky – an ever-changing canvas
Bringing the great dome of the universe above into your brand experience offers a great opportunity for interactive, connected and even spiritual experiences. Stargazing with telescopes, yoga at first light, sunset drinks, outdoor dining, special readings and lectures by moonlight. Connecting with great beyond can be, for guests, restorative, sensuous, and allow time for introspection and meaningful contemplation.
Leave a reply