Mirus Journeys:
brand and website for luxury tour specialist
How to rebrand and relaunch a high-end, respected and established luxury tour operator whilst retaining their existing loyal clientele?
Insight:
Mirus Journeys is a highly specialist, privately owned, luxury travel company with an honest and genuine commitment to producing exactly the right journey for each person. They required a new brand, website and print collateral to reflect what makes them so special.
Our audience research showed that their original company name, Ultimate Safaris & Islands was leading people to only associate them with safaris in Africa, and not appreciate the wide-range of holidays and experiences they actually offered. We needed to create and establish a brand and website which clearly communicated the breadth of destinations and holiday types available to this extremely high-end audience, who are looking for the best experiences.
It was such a great experience dealing with the inspiring team at Wild Dog Design; they really took the time to get to know us and what we are all about and they really ‘got us’ where most people don’t! The feedback on our website has been sensational! We make it our business to create life-changing journeys but the journey from start to finish with the Wild Dog team was also exceptional; we can’t recommend them highly enough.
Gara Gharagozlou Managing Director Mirus Journeys
Our approach:
The first step we took was to consider changing the brand name from ‘Ultimate Safaris & Islands’. Research showed that people had misconceptions about what was on offer; whilst additionally the name was cumbersome as a web URL, which in turn could be leading to missed enquiries.
At the agency, we developed a number of options around the concept of relaunching as Mirus Journeys. The name Mirus had a number of benefits, not least it was short and highly distinctive, coupled with this it is Latin for ‘extraordinary’ which perfectly reflected the company’s offering. Whilst combined with Journeys, which complemented the nature of the trips, over that of being simply holidays, the new name Mirus Journeys set the company on a new path; one that offers sophisticated and magical ‘extraordinary journeys’ for their clients.
For the brand marque and ID, we created a supporting graphical device. A very rare and beautiful orchid line-drawing which hints at the exclusivity of the company, but also added a sense of fun and carefree exploration. The a-symmetrical shape also complemented the crisp, elegant typography. The aim was to give the client maximum flexibility to enjoy use of the brand either in it’s entirety with orchid and title combined, whilst ensuring both elements could still work entirely independently whilst remaining ‘on brand’.
The website, like the brand, feels high-end with a clean, crisp design. It is perfect for the high-end audience, often researching the trip of a lifetime, and provides a great platform for exploring the perfect holiday. Working closely with Mirus Journeys, we developed personas, user journeys and wire-framing based on user experience analysis. The project included a comprehensive Information Architecture process, responsive front-end design and development, CMS integration and training.
To support the new brand we designed new stationery with extremely high production values on GF Smith stock with black foil and duplex card.
