Kingdom Hotel Investments
Branding, Print & Website
THE CLIENT
Based in Dubai, Kingdom Hotel Investments are worldwide investors in luxury hotels and resorts – including: Four Seasons, Fairmont, Raffles, InterContinental, Swissotel and Mövenpick – with some key assets being The Savoy hotel in London and the Hotel George V, Paris. KHI are part of Kingdom Holdings of Saudi Arabia and led by Chairman, HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal.
THE CHALLENGE
In preparation for their launch on the UK and US stock markets, the directors agreed that a brand refresh was required – primarily moving away from the existing logo design and colour scheme to something more upmarket, whilst retaining its Arabic roots.
During discussions on the new branding, I proposed an update to their website (which I had previously created and managed for them), as their existing site design had not changed in some years, and the modifications (that included an investor relations section to be added), would benefit from a CMS system their PR team could manage internally.
MY ROLE
- Art direction & design
- Logo redesign & rebrand styling
- Website design & development
- Printed stationery items
TOOLS
- Pencil & paper
- Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop & InDesign
- Adobe XD
- WordPress
The refreshed logo design kept the distinctive Arabic monogram of the parent company, but introduced a unique colour and latin font choice.
The distinctive royal blue was chosen as the primary brand colour, and the latin text in a neutral grey. These two colours became the prominent brand style across all printed and digital assets. The use of an uppercase incised serif font for the logo text was also chosen to represent the upmarket hotels they owned.
WEBSITE
With a portfolio of some of the worlds most famous hotels and resorts, I created a website design that acted as a showcase gallery by featuring full screen background photos across all pages.
When I proposed this design, it was immediately loved by the CEO and senior management – as they wanted something different from the usual corporate style other investment companies use.
A bespoke WordPress solution was created for the client, which allowed them full access to manage all content easily, with custom automated elements – such as an interactive portfolio map and live share price integration via an API.
