Long time readers will know that I am always concerned with how brands manage their design. Design Management is a much underrated skill, often confused with brand identity and styling. However design management goes deeper and is concerned for the implementation and maintenance of operational standards as well the style and brand identity. For a group trying to build a presence in a market place the control of the brand and the associated standards of service etc. is critical to creating a clear differentiation and identity vis-a-vis the competition. For a budget brand growing quickly, as Park Inn has demonstrated, maintaining the brand standard requires a clear sense of the design standards involved, and yet so often we see implementations that depart from successful formulae.

Here Campanile, whose stated intention is to build to 40 to 50 units in the UK quickly, undertook the conversion of a late 1980's build, previously run as an Ibis into one of their first 'Nouvelle Generation' hotels in the UK (beside Northampton the other 'NG' is in Bradford). Inevitably in a concrete frame building there is little that can be done to sensibly enlarge the rooms, so incorporating the brand identity seen at Northampton, where rooms are around 23²metres in rooms that are only around 17²metres provided a challenge to the in-house design management team.

Share|