The most enduring brand identities aren’t invented. They’re uncovered. They emerge from a genuine understanding of what a place means to people, how a business operates, the ambitions of the team that breathe life into it…and then finding a way to make that meaning visible.
When you get it right, the result doesn’t feel like a new brand at all. It feels like the brand simply coming into its own. More like a coming of age.
That’s the story behind our rebrand for The Belfry Hotel & Resort. And it begins, as the best brand work usually does, with a question.
What does this place actually mean to people?
We’ve worked alongside The Belfry for fifteen years, so when the opportunity arose to deliver a comprehensive rebrand, timed with a major multi-million-pound expansion including the creation of the Masters Suite and a new state-of-the-art wellness hub, we knew the work deserved more than a light refresh.
We began with an in-depth discovery phase: brand workshops with the leadership team, stakeholder engagement across the business, guest insight gathering, and detailed market research.
Listening is essential to our process.
This process is important to ensure we truly understand what The Belfry represents at this moment in its history, and what it needs to stand, and to whom, for the years to come.
What we heard was this… guests don’t simply visit The Belfry. They mark moments and milestones there.
The resort is the backdrop to the occasions people remember and look back on. And it turned out that the surroundings were as much a part of the moment as the people attending. Yet the existing brand positioned The Belfry as a destination. A place known for golf and hospitality. It spoke to heritage and reputation, but it didn’t communicate the joy nor meaning behind it all.
It was clear there was a gap between what the experience delivered and how the brand presented itself – and that’s where we came in to join the dots.
That gap became our starting point for ideating a re-brand.
Back to basics
First, we interrogated the name.
What does ‘belfry’ mean to people?
A belfry is a tower that houses a bell, historically found on buildings of civic and cultural significance: cathedrals, town halls, places where communities gathered. Bells themselves carry a unique symbolism – they call people together, mark the passing of time, announce celebrations, signal beginnings. They are, in the most literal sense, instruments for marking moments.
The symbolism was already woven into The Belfry’s identity. It just hadn’t been used yet.
This is something we return to again and again when we re-imagine brands or develop brand strategies. Sometimes the most powerful ideas aren’t invented from scratch, they’re already present in the DNA of the business. The task is to find them, refine them, and give them the voice and visibility they deserve.
What symbols represent a belfry to the layman?
The bell became our focal point – intended less as a simple heritage reference, but more a living metaphor for what The Belfry does. It gathers people together, to mark occasion and signals that something worth remembering is about to happen.
Building the brand’s identity system
With the concept established, the work became about translating a single powerful idea into a cohesive identity capable of stretching across one of the UK’s most complex hospitality environments.
How do we show the scale of what The Belfry has to offer?
The Belfry is not a single venue. It’s a resort with multiple sub-brands: the Club, the Spa, a collection of Restaurants and Bars, major conference and events facilities, and now a flagship new suite. The master brand needed to hold all of that together while giving each element enough independence to feel distinct and considered when stood on its own.
How do we bring that to life?
Against the refreshed bell icon sits against a sophisticated colour palette that lends itself to both premium hospitality and lively consumer experiences. We refined the typography with clean, contemporary detailing; and consulted on a photography direction that shifted entirely away from polished interiors and architectural showcase shots, towards highlighting atmosphere and human connection.
Guests became central to the visual storytelling, with content designed to evoke the feeling of being at The Belfry, rather than just showing guess what The Belfry has.
Sub-brand architecture followed and then brand guidelines, and digital asset libraries were developed to enable internal teams to apply the identity across every channel and format.
Campaign messaging was also developed to reinforce the positioning that The Belfry not just a destination to visit, but a landmark in guests’ personal and professional lives.
How and when do we launch it?
The full identity launched in tandem with the resort’s physical expansion. This was a deliberate decision that meant guests arrived in to a brand and an environment that told the same story as that which they were seeing presented online.
What a long-term client relationship makes possible
Fifteen years working with a client builds a depth of understanding that no brief can fully convey. Time benefitted our team with an instinct for the business, its culture, its ambitions, its aesthetic, and its audience that informed every decision we made.
It also built the kind of trust that allows for genuinely ambitious work. A rebrand of this scale touched every aspect of a major resort’s identity and requires a client willing to commit to a strategic process, not just one set on a quick visual outcome.
Gail Aldridge, Marketing Director at The Belfry, reflected on the experience and said: “Thissaway immersed themselves in our heritage, audience, and future ambitions, delivering an identity that feels both elevated and authentically us. Seeing how strongly our guests and team have connected to the new identity has been very rewarding.”
That connection is the thing we’re always working towards.
When the brief is for a place that marks milestone moments, the brand created had to be worthy of the occasion. We think this one is.
Looking for support with a hospitality rebrand? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch.
