Kingdom Hotel Investments

Project Type: Branding / Website / Print
Location: Dubai
Role: Art Direction & Design

The Challenge

Based in Dubai, UAE, Kingdom Hotel Investments are worldwide investors in luxury hotels and resorts. KHI’s portfolio includes Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, Fairmont, Raffles, InterContinental, Swissotel and Mövenpick – with some key assets being The Savoy hotel in London and the Hotel George V, Paris. KHI are owned by Kingdom Holdings of Saudi Arabia and led by Chairman, HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal.

In preparation for their launch on the UK and US stock markets, the directors agreed that a brand refresh was required. During discussions on the new branding, I proposed an update to their website (which I had created previously), to bring it in line with current mobile technologies, inclusion of an investor relations section, and a CMS so they could manage page content themselves.

The Result

I refreshed the company logo with a corporate blue colour for the Arabic/Kingdom element, and a traditional serif font for Hotel Investments, which allowed the logo to appear more unique next to the green identity of the parent company, Kingdom Holdings. This KHI brand now appeared fresh to investors in the marketplace.

I focussed the design of the new website on presenting their portfolio using full screen background photos of their properties across all pages. I introduced the new sections they had requested, including a ticker-tape investor animation on the homepage, and the client loved the ability to quickly and easily update content using the WordPress CMS. The project was a huge success and soon afterwards inspired the parent company to update their ageing websites.