Heritage meets contemporary. Branding rejuvenation.
Heritage dating back to the 12th century is unfortunately no guarantee of future longevity. This iconic hotel in Hereford city centre and just a stone's throw from the Cathedral, was looking more than a little forlorn. So we should congratulate the local businesses who have invested substantially in it’s refurbishment. They see the hotel as an integral centrepiece for the county, fundamental to boosting tourism, and with the space and character to host gatherings and activities, from the intimate to catering for 100+ guests. We were tasked with developing a look and feel compatible with these ambitions, marrying heritage with modernity.
What’s the Thinking
We were in at exactly the right time, the thinking stage, to contribute to the collective vision of how the ‘new’ Green Dragon Hotel should look. Pooling ideas with owners, stakeholders and interior designers our mission was to create an elegant yet accessible brand, exuding comfort and hospitality, heritage and modernity, in line with the overall marketing strategy. We created a full brand identity including logo, colour palette ways and typography which maintain standards throughout. The distinctive ‘g’ hints of the ‘dragon’ and is an effective and flexible shorthand which has been widely used on collateral.
“Our website is a vital part of our business and its ability to convert customers is a key aspect of our commercial strategy. By working with Orphans we have successfully built the best possible website and their management of the process was highly professional. They understood our product and made the whole experience feel extremely simple. The website performs above expectation and Orphans ongoing support is very helpful”
﹣ Julian Vaughan, Managing Director
Key Features
Elegant Brand Aesthetic
High Quality Print Collateral
Strong Mobile Performance
What Follows
With the branding in place we quickly delivered a one-page website to showcase the new brand during the hotel refurbishment. This was shortly followed by a fully-featured WordPress website liberally scattered with beautiful, newly commissioned photography. The website performs equally on mobile as desktop and has digital marketing goals in place to allow ongoing assessment of KPI’s.
We created sub brands for the restaurant, cocktail lounge, bar and tearoom with identities linked to the hotel’s heritage.
‘The Green Dragon Gazette’, a stylish occasional newspaper, designed and printed by Orphans, greets visitors with tempting news and offers for all the exciting dining and refreshment options the hotel has to offer.