IN-house: ennismore
WEB—UI/UX—wireframing—LEADING DESIGN—figma—protopie—USER-CENTRED DESIGN—hospitality—travel
Morgans Originals is proud to call itself 'the first brand of lifestyle hotels'. It is one brand of many that has gone through a brand refresh following a significant Ennismore merger.
My task was to craft a seamless user experience that embodied the spirit of iconic nostalgia and the magic of Friday nights.
A top-of-funnel user journey starts with discovery of the brand and its unique locations, ending with guiding guests to the beginning of the booking flow.
Morgans Originals is a bold brand with plenty of opportunities to push the envelope on the web.
Naturally, the first steps were to sketch out ideas and develop these into wireframes.
Reviews with hotel managers and marketing leads would come at each milestone to ensure the direction stayed perfectly on-brand.
Quickly getting everything down allowed a lot of interesting ideas to take shape and be reviewed early on with our various stakeholder teams.
Digital sketches of complex or unique interactions in FigJam were very quick to craft and could be viewed/commented on remotely.
Sketches were evolved into a bare structure that could easily be styled with a final layer of high-fidelity elements.
Holding back in this way was necessary so as to not distract the stakeholders with granular details at this stage.
The move to high fidelity elements captured the brand’s embrace of the spirit of the late 70s to early 80s—particularly the heyday of the likes of Studio 54.
Morgans' tagline is 'Friday Feeling Everyday'. It is a love for the nostalgic iconic hey days alongside the magic of a Friday night, where time disappears and seems endless.
In real terms, the brand's personality translated to a palette inspired by snapshots from that era, with type that is rooted in both nostalgia and futurism.
Functionality and UX had to be watertight, as Ennismore had to maintain world-class levels of user experience and high accessibility standards in the industry.
Neon Blue
#235OE9
Chartreuse
#C9D34E
Amber Orange
#D8634O
Lipstick Red
#DD3739
'Kinetic' stacked type adds dynamism to headings
The Morgans Originals logo can stack atop imagery as a motif
Live countdown timers generate excitement for Friday deals
Alternating serif and sans fonts contrast and reflect then and now
Injecting the personality of the brand and elevating the interface created a website that tells the story of the experience one can expect at a Morgans Originals hotel.
In a crowded market space filled with highly static and overly ornamental websites, Morgans Originals is unique.
Note the micro-interactions in the final designs. Quirky hover states, parallax scrolls and text animations all grab an prospective visitor's attention.
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