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Rivertrees

The 2022 festive season in Emerald Green, from the menus to the photoshoot.

Client

Rivertrees Country Inn

Sector

Hospitality

Year

2022

Scope

Campaign direction, vendor coordination, print production, photoshoot direction and on-site oversight

Rivertrees Country Inn logo over a festive garland of gold bells and baubles under thatch

Rivertrees wanted its 2022 festive season to feel unmistakably Rivertrees: rustic charm with a refined finish, and a guest experience that felt intentional at every touchpoint.

The challenge

  • Create a festive theme that works across marketing, menus, print, decor and photography.
  • Announce four festive moments without the look drifting between them.
  • Keep the campaign warm and refined without it feeling generic.
  • Direct the photoshoot so the images matched the campaign, rather than only recording the decor.

My approach

  • Set the Emerald Green theme with copper, cream and burgundy, and applied it to everything festive.
  • Built a four-part campaign for the Festive Summary, Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day, and New Year’s Eve.
  • Made the print and digital collateral with consistent type, colour, layout and images.
  • Directed the photoshoot with Sky Studios and the details on site, so the photographs told the same story.

The campaign

The festive marketing rebuilt as a single campaign system, made for sharing online and for print around the property.

  • Four adverts: Festive Summary, Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day, and New Year’s Eve.
  • Post and story versions for social media.
  • A3 and A4 posters, A6 table flyers and four-page dinner menus.
Rivertrees Celebrate the Festive Season poster listing Christmas and New Year's Eve dinners
Rivertrees Christmas Eve Dinner poster in green and gold, five-course dinner, reservations required
Rivertrees Christmas and Boxing Day Celebrations poster with kids activities and lunch specials
Rivertrees New Year 2023 poster announcing a live band and five-course dinner
Rivertrees festive greeting cards, menus and New Year poster laid out on dark green

The shoot

The Emerald Green theme brought to life on the property and captured in a directed shoot with Sky Studios.

  • The restaurant entrance, the mini bridge and the flower arch.
  • Table settings, centrepieces, and the reindeers and trees made in-house.
  • The communal dining set-up, the live band stage and the decor across the property.
Two women walking into Rivertrees through a flower-framed entrance past a Karibu chalkboard
Rivertrees restaurant entrance under thatch, decorated with a green garland, baubles and a wreath
Dark wooden table with a white flower arrangement and a green table card, warm lights behind
Wooden dinner table set with peach roses, white flowers, glasses and burgundy napkins
Rivertrees thatched open-sided restaurant glowing at dusk across a green lawn
Driftwood Christmas tree with fairy lights in a warm-lit lounge, a cushioned sofa in front
Driftwood Christmas tree hung with a red bauble and warm fairy lights
Chef at a thatched outdoor food counter with a pizza oven, festive drapes and chalkboard menu
Waiter in a waistcoat beside diners in a thatched Rivertrees restaurant open to the garden
Long garden dinner table at Rivertrees with a flower garland runner under fairy lights
Man in a blue shirt standing by seated guests under fairy lights in the Rivertrees garden
Garden dinner canopy at Rivertrees strung with fairy lights, seen through foliage
Tree trunk draped with fabric and a red and white flower garland above garden tables
Large tree trunk wrapped in fairy lights beside a lamp-lit garden path at Rivertrees

The result

The season read as a complete guest experience.

  • A single festive identityThe same look ran through the marketing, the experience on the property and the photography.
  • Four campaign advertsDelivered and shared, each with matching print and digital versions.
  • Print, decor and shoot alignedPrint production, decor direction and shoot planning followed the same visual story.
  • A complete seasonThe season felt complete to guests, from the adverts to the decor and the photographs.
Rivertrees Country Inn logo over a garden dinner canopy strung with fairy lights

“These revamps and promotions lifted restaurant revenue noticeably at a time when many businesses were still recovering. The materials spoke for themselves. They captured the Rivertrees feel in a way people often overlooked, and they helped the property stay top of mind in town.”

General Manager, Rivertrees

Planning something like Rivertrees?

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Rivertrees Country Inn logo over a sunlit lawn and tall trees framed by leaves

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Planet Lodges rebrand rollout

Hi, I'm Alan.

This site is my portfolio of art direction and creative project management. Today my main service is bespoke website design. Read the quick answers below, or tell me about your project on WhatsApp.

Quick answers

Bespoke website design is my main service today. I also take on:

  • Art direction for brand identity, logo, photo shoot and campaign projects
  • Creative project management, from the first brief to the final files
  • Care and updates for websites that are already live

A website planned and designed for your business only. We agree who it is for and what visitors should do, then every page is designed around your own words, photos and brand. Nothing is cut or cropped to fit a ready-made theme.

Every website is priced after a short brief, and I reply with your price within two business days. See the websites at alansuccess.com.

I set the look before anything is made: the references, the colours, the type and how the photos should feel. I direct brand identity and logo projects, photo shoots and campaigns. I write the brief, choose the designers and photographers, and review their work until you sign off.

For the Rivertrees festive season, I set the Emerald Green theme and directed the shoot with Sky Studios. See the project.

I turn your ideas into one clear brief, choose the right studio or designer, and run every review until sign-off. The work can be a rebrand, a brand rollout across menus, signs and documents, or marketing materials such as brochures, posters, ads and social media content.

You deal with one person, so you don’t have to follow every detail yourself. For Lairs Camps, I wrote the brief for Yöy Agency and managed the work through to handover. See the project.

Planet Lodges, ADINA Lodges, Good Earth Tours, the British School of Zanzibar, Nomad Tanzania, Rivertrees Country Inn, Lairs Camps, Love Boo and Seissense.

See every project

Yes, including websites someone else built:

  • A redesign, or new versions of the pages that are not working
  • Tunza Website Care every month
  • A paid website review: a written list of what to fix first
  • Copy polish, or new copy for your pages
  • An email signature, a Google Business Profile, analytics or an email signup

Send me the link and what you need, and I confirm the price before we start.

Tunza Website Care, each month: about 30 minutes of small changes, updates with a backup first, a security check, a test message through your form, broken links fixed and a visitor report from Google.

Bigger changes are quoted. You can stop with a month’s notice.

Every website is priced after a short brief, because the price depends on your pages, your content and where your business is.

Art direction and creative project management are quoted after I read your brief, because each project is a different size. Your budget sets the scope, and your written quote confirms the price and dates before anything is booked.

In Tanzania. I work with brands across East Africa and with clients in the UK, Europe, Dubai and the USA. Every meeting is online, on WhatsApp, Zoom or Google Meet, so we don’t need to meet in person.

Send me a WhatsApp with what you need, your budget and your date, or use the form here. For a website, you can also send your brief at alansuccess.com, and I reply with your price within two business days.

I take on a few projects at a time, so the sooner you write, the more start dates you can choose from.

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