“A Vibrant Welcome Home”: the positioning line the whole identity had to earn, not just state. A brand identity proposal grew into two years of campaigns, guest experiences, and merchandise for Hilton Maldives Amingiri Resort & Spa.
Every guest arrived the same way: across the jetty, towards the resort’s thatched arrival pavilion. Rather than introduce a separate symbol, I redrew that structure by hand and built the identity around it.
What changed from season to season wasn’t the icon itself, but the world built around it.
The festive campaign imagined the resort as an art deco-inspired underwater world, with a mermaid named Luna as its thread. Guests met her on the cover of the festive programme, then throughout the pages that followed, from Christmas celebrations through to New Year’s Eve and beyond.
Beyond print, a backdrop shaped like Luna’s sweeping tail welcomed guests at the gala entrance, and themed installations carried the world across the island, so guests could move through the campaign, not just read it.
Created as part of the Oceanic Whispers world, the Kids Club got a cast of ocean-inspired characters designed to live beyond a single festive season.
A custom submarine entrance turned the doorway itself into part of the experience. With porthole windows for children to peer through, a simple threshold became an invitation to play.
Unlike the seasonal campaign materials, these pieces were designed to stay relevant long after the festivities ended, giving the Kids Club a visual language it could keep building on.
For Easter, the visual language shifted completely: a softer, hand-drawn world of florals, tea parties, and familiar Wonderland characters.
The daily programme became the way guests moved through the story, from yoga to the water to the egg hunt.
The following year’s Easter left Wonderland behind for a glowing woodland filled with fairies, streams, and oversized toadstools.
Rather than repeat a previous campaign, the goal was the excitement of discovering somewhere entirely new, while still feeling unmistakably connected to the resort.
Some campaigns lasted weeks. Others centred on a single cultural moment.
For Chinese New Year, the pavilion became a perch for a golden dragon, marking the Year of the Dragon. For the Mid-Autumn Festival, it sat within a glowing full moon above lantern-lit water, with a rabbit leaping off the pier for the Year of the Rabbit. For Ramadan, a gold crescent cradled it beneath a scatter of stars, and for Chinese National Day, it was set in gold against red, framed by lanterns.
One of the most rewarding parts of the project was seeing ideas move off the presentation deck and into the resort itself.
Pastry boxes, water bottles, cable ties, wax seals, guest bookmarks, and other pieces from the original proposal were produced and used across the property, extending the identity into the small moments of a guest’s stay.
Across two years, the work expanded into festive campaigns, children’s programming, cultural celebrations, printed collateral, and merchandise. The visual styles changed again and again. The feeling stayed consistent.