Malabar Hill
Eco Resort
Services
Brand identity
Creative direction
Website design
Overview
Malabar Hill is a down-to-earth luxury eco resort in the jungle above Weligama, Sri Lanka, built on simple beauty rather than excess.
Objective
Create a brand identity as relaxed and grounded as the resort itself, developed on-site throughout construction so every material, finish, and printed detail felt considered by the time guests arrived.
The Style
The resort did most of the work before the brand started. Terrazzo floors, hand-finished terracotta tiles, pigments pulled from the land, antiques sourced piece by piece from Sri Lanka and India. The identity sits as a quiet, minimal frame around all of it, clean enough to get out of the way.
The Mark
The name came from a bird. While the owner was scouting the land, before any of this existed, he saw a malabar sitting in the treetops on this same hilltop, and the name stuck.
So the mark had to be that bird, in that spot. Drawn by hand, then pulled back into something simple enough to sit on a menu or a building sign and still read clearly. Resting in the trees, looking out over the hills, the way it actually was.
For the word mark, we kept it simple on purpose. The bird was already doing the work, so the type underneath just needed to sit quietly beside it.
Collateral
Menus, room directories, business cards, a map of the property. Every printed thing a guest touches was part of the brief, sourced and made the same way as everything else, locally where possible.
Menus, room directories, business cards, a map of the property. Every printed thing a guest touches was part of the brief, sourced and made the same way as everything else, locally where possible.
Website
We aimed to infuse her website design with the same sophisticated yet minimal essence reflected in her branding. Through subtle yet impactful functionality, bold typography, and a cohesive moody color palette, the website harmonizes seamlessly with the elevated aesthetic of Studio Gaspo.
The Result.
Malabar Hill opened with a finished brand, not one still catching up to the building around it.
It opened on schedule. By 2022, British Vogue named it one of the Top 30 Best New Hotels in the World.