Responses by Ritik Dholakia, founder/managing partner, Studio Rodrigo

Background: Context Travel is a uniquely positioned global tours brand that provides private tours of the world’s cultural capitals for travelers who love to learn. The website is its primary digital brand experience, serving travelers directly and also helping travel agents book on behalf of clients. The site was part of a larger brand design, which included a refreshed mark, a new tagline “Tours for Travelers Who Love to Learn,” an updated visual language and a new promotional and marketing strategy. For the website redesign, we wanted to amplify the essence of the brand while expanding the reach to audiences who may not be familiar with Context or may not have taken a private waking tour before.

Highlights: The goal of the site was to elevate the individual guides, who are all experts in their fields, and to showcase the uniqueness of the tours, while also communicating the premium experience of being on a private, expert-led tour. From the updated wordmark re-finished by hand, to the supporting globe mark, to the considered photo direction, the goal was to create a scalable, global travel experience that felt cultured and elevated, while maintaining its approachability.

Challenges: While the visual language of travel is romantic and exciting, it can also be clichéd—particularly in popular tourist destinations. We had to build a design language—from copy, to photo selection, to graphic language—that communicated how Context tours were different from the standard walking tour you might encounter in a city center. This included writing tour headlines and descriptions that elevated the passion and curiosity provided by experts—showing not just the sites you see, but the experience of being on a tour—and rolling out an updated photography and video style (still in progress) to help capture tour moments.

Anything new: We had to discover how to define a brand refresh that could be rolled out iteratively, to support the needs of an operating business and marketing and technology teams that de facto had to prioritize efforts and initiatives. However, we were able to create a holistic new design language.