Aligning Brand with Interior Design
It happens often enough to be humorous: a client reaches out with a rushed branding timeline, as they’re about to paint the walls of their new business. While we don't necessarily think a brand's color palette needs to match your interior design to a T, if you're choosing paint colors before you've settled your brand identity, you're running behind on multiple fronts.
So, what is the ideal interplay of branding and interior design? From our perspective, it’s more critically a question of storytelling than it is an effort to coordinate color swatches. Too often, architects and designers are asked to develop moodboards and even full interior concepts before the deeper question of brand identity has even been touched, which opens the door to a potential mismatch not only in aesthetic references, but also in the broader understanding of what a business is really about.
Take, for example, our work for The Whit—a landmark mansion reimagined as a boutique hotel, all-day coffee, tea and cocktail salon, and eye-catching event venue. In this case, we were brought into the creative process early on, which allowed us to collaborate directly with the project’s designers and F&B director when conceptualizing our approach to the brand. Still, even with that proactive onboarding, there were still aspects of our process that shifted the client’s perspective on the project (like the inspiration behind the property name). While the new name didn’t entirely change the client’s vision, it did inspire a new creative direction on several fronts, including some changes to the interior aesthetic.
This anecdote is just one of many we might recount, as no creative team can fully anticipate how their process might unfold or what references might capture the imagination of the client. Sometimes our work leads the aesthetic direction—with clients explicitly asking us to create moodboards for interior designers to use as a jumping off point (as in the case of Rosa’s Diner). On other projects, early interior concepts have inspired our work, allowing us to evolve a cohesive brand experience in tandem.
Moodboard imagery gathered for inspiration purposes, credit to original photographers
To share an interior designer’s first-hand experience, we reached out to one of our local friends in the industry, Megan Freckelton at FAM Design:
“When we start the interior design process with a new client, the first step is understanding ‘who they are’. Having the foundation of a clear identity streamlines our process; instead of working through larger brand questions, we quickly move towards how the physical space supports those goals both operationally and aesthetically…
It is hard for a team to work from different playbooks, running in two different directions. Often the brand exploration process uncovers ‘aha’ moments or brand attributes that weren’t understood or articulated during the interior design concept process. Without the depth of identity explored by the brand process, we may not have the whole story early enough to really make it the best it can be.”
Inspiration imagery from FAM Design
In short, the best concepts often benefit from a co-evolution of these creative disciplines. Brand positioning, naming or high-level strategy would ideally set a strong foundation, but the public-facing identity (logo, messaging, etc.) and interior concepts often benefit from collaborative timelines.
If you’re an architect, designer or developer in the hospitality world, we’re always open to connecting and sharing more information about our process. And if you’re a potential client who hasn’t previously considered the value of bringing branding onboard before finalizing your concept, we’d love to speak with you as well.
To read more about the shift toward onboarding branding early in development, check out our recent press feature in Mile High CRE.