Spent half my week in a hotel. A great deal of my life is spent in hotels so I get to appreciate good ones and spot where others could do even better. One of the first things that can tell me a great deal about the hotel, the brand and it's people is of course the environment. A little obvious dont you think? have a look at this little gem however!
So here is a beautiful old Red Call box (designed by Giles Gilber Scott who I think penned Battersea Power Station..). Anyway, hidden within this great British design icon wasn't further aesthetic delight but a copy of the menu for the hotel restaurant (a mere 100 yards away).
What glorious dissapointment.
Far from the menu appearing delicious, it looked weathered and tired, the paper faded from the sunlight and the elements. The hotel poster on the wall had also gone away with the wind and the cutlery looked like a set of abandoned tools rather than a fine arrangement of polished steel enticing the prospective diner to take seat. All that was missing from this sorry ensamble of clutter was the original working phone from which I could make an escape call and a dominoes pizza.
For me this whole thing said more about the hotel and it's relationship with creative thinking than anything else. Why have it? seems someone somewhere went ooh that's a cool thing, an old fashioned letter box, we can put it in the hotel grounds and add character and charm. This will differentiate ourselves from all the other hotels. Perhaps the brainstorm ended there or the first idea that came out won - let's put a menu in it.
I just can't imagine it appearing on the minutes of the DeVere or a matter arising - what to do with the Red Phone box...
.. if it were a solution to advertsie the restaurant, then like most projects, there wasn't enough time spent on the brief. The restaurant was the only choice available in the entire complex.
maybe I've got it wrong though.
Perhaps it's an outdoor table and the Red Phone Box is simply a cover used to keep it dry in the rain.
ax
So here is a beautiful old Red Call box (designed by Giles Gilber Scott who I think penned Battersea Power Station..). Anyway, hidden within this great British design icon wasn't further aesthetic delight but a copy of the menu for the hotel restaurant (a mere 100 yards away).
What glorious dissapointment.
Far from the menu appearing delicious, it looked weathered and tired, the paper faded from the sunlight and the elements. The hotel poster on the wall had also gone away with the wind and the cutlery looked like a set of abandoned tools rather than a fine arrangement of polished steel enticing the prospective diner to take seat. All that was missing from this sorry ensamble of clutter was the original working phone from which I could make an escape call and a dominoes pizza.
For me this whole thing said more about the hotel and it's relationship with creative thinking than anything else. Why have it? seems someone somewhere went ooh that's a cool thing, an old fashioned letter box, we can put it in the hotel grounds and add character and charm. This will differentiate ourselves from all the other hotels. Perhaps the brainstorm ended there or the first idea that came out won - let's put a menu in it.
I just can't imagine it appearing on the minutes of the DeVere or a matter arising - what to do with the Red Phone box...
.. if it were a solution to advertsie the restaurant, then like most projects, there wasn't enough time spent on the brief. The restaurant was the only choice available in the entire complex.
maybe I've got it wrong though.
Perhaps it's an outdoor table and the Red Phone Box is simply a cover used to keep it dry in the rain.
ax
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