This is the first of a few notes on one project, from brief to launch: the website for a hotel in Kyoto, made by our team in Malaysia.
The brief came from Japan
Hotel Hanamiya is a boutique hotel with six suites, above the spot where the Kamo and Takase rivers meet in Kyoto. It hasn’t opened yet. The hotel needs a website that feels like it belongs in Kyoto: quiet, simple and easy to book from. We’re designing and building it from Malaysia.
Two teams, one hotel
We’re not the only agency on this. A branding and PR agency is on the project too. They look after the brand and PR, and we focus on design and development. The brand guide shapes a lot of our choices. For example, the logo should never sit on a busy background, so on the site it lives in a solid brown header and never over photos or video.
We’ve done this together before, so it just flows. Honestly, it’s always a lot of fun.
Danny
One page before the doors open
A full website takes time, but people start looking for a hotel long before it opens. So the first thing we put live was a coming-soon page: the logo, the hotel’s own line about Kyoto’s seasons, and a short welcome. We built two versions, one in the hotel’s brown with a sketch of the building, one in white with a photo of the lounge, so the client could compare them side by side.
Real photos only
Guests book a room from what they see. So the rule on this site is simple: every suite, dining and space photo will be real photography of Hanamiya. Placeholder images stay inside our design files while the final photos are on the way.
What’s next
The full site is designed, and the clickable prototype is with the client now. In the next note, we’ll share their feedback and what changed because of it.
Until then, here’s some of our other work and what we do.
