Michael Lee’s photography leads with warmth and atmosphere, a fireplace and a shared plate standing in for the feeling of an evening at the Seaport before a single amenity is named.
A hospitality brand refresh that connected guest experience, communications, and place within Boston’s evolving Seaport District.
SCOPE OF WORK
Brand Strategy, Brand Identity, Visual Language, Print Materials, Advertising, Environmental Graphics, Video, Photography, Signage, Website, Digital Assets
CREDITS
Copywriter – Shelby Hypes
Photography – Michael J. Lee
Printer – Signature Impressions
Located on Boston Harbor, the Seaport Hotel was one of the neighborhood’s earliest hospitality destinations. As the Seaport District evolved into one of Boston’s most competitive hotel markets, the property faced a new challenge: how to remain distinctive as newer hotels, restaurants, and waterfront developments transformed the neighborhood around it.
The goal was not to reinvent a hotel that had already built a loyal following, but to strengthen and evolve the brand for a new generation of guests while creating a more cohesive expression of what had always made the Seaport Hotel distinctive.
The engagement began with immersion. Overnight stays, staff interviews, and a comprehensive brand audit built a ground-level understanding of the guest experience, from arrival through departure.
Working with the hotel’s existing logo as a foundation, the identity expanded into a broader brand language built around it. Rather than erasing the equity the Seaport Hotel had built over decades, the goal was to uncover what made the experience distinctive and translate those qualities into a more intentional and contemporary brand.
The visual language draws directly from Boston Harbor and its navigational history. Historic charts, coastal mapping, coordinates, and maritime graphics inspired a layered visual vocabulary that connects the hotel to its waterfront setting without relying on familiar nautical conventions.
The system brought consistency to a wide range of communications while remaining flexible enough to support the hotel’s many experiences, from guest stays and dining to meetings, weddings, wellness, and special events.
The new brand was introduced from the inside out. Fresh Start, an internal program created for hotel staff, introduced the positioning and visual system before the refreshed brand reached guests.
From there, the identity was implemented over several years across advertising, print and digital communications, meeting and event materials, keycards, guest services, signage, environmental graphics, video, and the hotel’s website. The result was a cohesive system designed to work across the many ways guests experience the property.
“Sea the Difference.”
The tagline captures the hotel’s connection to Boston Harbor while expressing the personal, attentive character of the guest experience. Simple and memorable, the wordplay gives the brand a voice that belongs specifically to the Seaport Hotel and the waterfront setting that has defined it from the beginning.
Michael Lee’s photography leads with warmth and atmosphere, a fireplace and a shared plate standing in for the feeling of an evening at the Seaport before a single amenity is named.
Before a single guest saw the new brand, hotel staff did. Fresh Start walked every department through the positioning and the visual system in plain, practical terms, turning strategy into the everyday rhythms of guest service.
The nautical concept began with a historic map, its margins filled with mythical creatures and old-world detail. The pattern that followed translates its charts and coordinates into a modern visual language.
The palette pairs grounded neutrals with vivid coastal accents. Typography was chosen to hold up everywhere it’s used, from formal event collateral to casual guest-facing pieces, giving the brand room to flex without losing consistency.
The coaster carries the brand’s mermaid mark, while the door hanger carries the custom icon system into a guest’s smallest daily details.
A custom icon system represents the hotel’s individual venues, services, and programming. Drawing from nautical folklore and harbor imagery, the icons became a signature element across signage, menus, collateral, and guest room materials, visual currency no other property in the market had.
Guest directories, sales materials, event collateral, and printed communications carry the brand’s visual language through tactile production, layered graphics, and material choices that reflect the quality of the experience itself.
The print program spanned accommodations, weddings, meetings, dining, and seasonal programming. Each piece was designed to stand alone and function as part of the larger system, so the brand read as cohesive whether a guest encountered one piece or a dozen.
Photography was art directed around atmosphere, not amenities. Rather than cataloguing rooms and features, the images capture the feeling of being at the Seaport: the quality of light on the water, the texture of a meal, the pace of an evening. Every shot by Michael Lee was made to carry the brand story, not just document the property.
Rather than building a single campaign, advertising was organized around distinct guest experiences. Individual creative directions for accommodations, weddings, meetings, dining, and seasonal events let each audience be addressed directly while staying visually connected to the larger brand system.
The result
As Boston’s Seaport District continued to attract new hotels and hospitality brands, the refreshed identity gave the Seaport Hotel a platform to compete on its own terms. The project turned a fragmented collection of communications into a single, cohesive brand experience spanning lodging, dining, meetings, weddings, wellness, and seasonal programming.
Working from strategy through execution across the full scope of the hotel’s operations, the engagement delivered more than a visual update. It gave the hotel a brand system flexible enough to grow alongside the neighborhood while staying unmistakably tied to Boston Harbor.
Adams Design brings this same approach to hospitality and lifestyle branding, brand strategy and positioning, and brand identity for distinctive hotel destinations.
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Adams Design helps established hotels evolve their brand for a new generation of guests without losing what made them distinctive.
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