The Harbourview Hotel

Located in the spectacular Glens of Antrim, the Harbourview Hotel was built in 1848 by the Marchioness of Londonderry and was once owned by Winston Churchill before coming under the stewardship of the O’Neill family for almost 80 years. In 2024 a hotelier and master distiller purchased the listed property, with the vision of transforming it into Ireland’s first whiskey hotel.

Our design challenge was to rename and rebrand the venue, acknowledging its history, marking the start its new chapter and defining its new positioning. The design had to be sensitive to and inclusive of the local community, while also appealing to a diverse audience including whiskey lovers, international tourists and weekend visitors.

Creating the Harbourview Hotel brand – we started by naming the hotel and establishing brand pillars, tone of voice, and crafting a distinctive brand story and messaging that leans heavily on aspects of Irish hospitality, (comfort, warmth of welcome, location) and celebrating whiskey in all its forms (especially Irish).

For the Harbourview Hotel’s brand identity, we drew inspiration from the land, sea, and whiskey. The motifs reflect the arches and towers of the adjacent landmark bridge, barley used for whiskey production, and the sea itself. We opted for an expressive font featuring unique glyphs for the name style. We developed a rich colour palette directly inspired by the surrounding landscape: greens of seaweed, sea lettuce, and limestone for the hotel, alongside barley gold and whiskey gold for the bars and whiskey offerings.

We developed a comprehensive set of brand guides, a compete signage scheme, marketing literature, website, social media suite to advertise room bookings, getaways, whiskey event, live music and functions.