Redesigning a fresh dining experience
We collaborated with Thistle Hotels to elevate their dining experience and attract a wider audience beyond their core hotel guests. While their venues had enviable locations and loyal footfall, their existing menus felt generic and uninspired, blending in with standard hotel communications and lacking the character needed to position the restaurants as distinct dining destinations in their own right.
Our task was to inject fresh personality into the brand’s food and beverage offering, starting with overhauling the menus. The existing designs relied heavily on an overused core brand teal palette, which was outdated and visually flat. We shifted to a more refined and contemporary blue tone, carefully selected to maintain alignment with the overall Thistle Hotels brand while introducing a fresh visual identity unique to the restaurant spaces.
- Visual Identity
- Brand Guardianship
- Menus
- Campaigns
- Print Collateral
But colour alone wasn’t enough. We wanted to create menus that felt inviting, engaging, and full of personality—something that would encourage guests to explore, linger, and connect more meaningfully. To achieve this, we introduced a series of playful, hand-drawn illustrations that brought warmth and energy to the layout. These visuals helped break up the content, guide the reader’s eye, and reinforce a casual, welcoming tone.
To further connect each venue to its surroundings, we included fun facts and stories about nearby London landmarks and attractions, cleverly placed throughout the menu to encourage discovery and spark conversation. This approach gave each location a stronger sense of place and offered guests, whether tourists or locals, a chance to engage with the area beyond the hotel walls.
The final result is a suite of visually dynamic, easy-to-navigate menus that reflect the quality and character of the dining offering and support the brand’s goal of drawing in external customers. With a more apparent identity, enhanced usability, and a dose of London-centric charm, the new menus have helped to position Thistle’s restaurants as vibrant, stand-alone destinations within the capital’s competitive dining scene.
