The Collection McGrath hotel group is known for its dedication to luxury and excellence, so any site representing this prestigious organisation was required to meet the same exacting standards.
The site had to be carefully co-ordinated across the design, development and content phases because it had to amalgamate three sites – one for each hotel, The Cellars-Hohenort, The Marine, and The Plettenberg – within a single new site that would embody the Collection McGrath brand.
In order to understand the experience that he would have to encapsulate in the look and feel of the site, designer Ryan Levenson stayed overnight at The Marine in Hermanus and visited The Cellars-Hohenort in Constantia, Cape Town.
The outcome is a site that is clean and neat, without becoming too minimalist. The hotels are allowed to speak for themselves through expertly composed, high-resolution photographs, unencumbered by superfluous design elements.
Because the site has to include three separate, but intimately related hotels, each hotel was allocated a signature colour that was carried through all the pages relating to that hotel, within a consistent overall design.
For each of the three hotels, the site had to reflect three elements: the cuisine, the beauty of the hotel’s situation, and guest experiences.
“The website brings together the elegance of Collection McGrath, showcasing the hotels, restaurants and destinations in a delicate manner,” says Flow developer Darren Caboz.
From the home page users can explore the Collection either by accessing a specific hotel, or by browsing via the other key elements of the Collection McGrath experience – the cuisine and the location.
Writer Stuart Dickinson says: “We had to find a seamless way to house all the content from the three hotels, their respective restaurants and the destinations as a whole, while never compromising the user-friendly navigation.
“Essentially, we had to make a very deep content structure seem as shallow as possible on the front end of the website. I think it works very well and visitors are able to easily explore the amazing offerings of these three iconic hotels.”
Through careful consideration of the structure and design of the site, three unique hotels, each with its own distinctive offerings and guest experiences, were encompassed within a single site, without losing any of their characteristic appeal.
“Veronique and her team had a clear vision for the new Collection website and through collaboration and teamwork with the client and a fabulous Flow team, we were able to deliver this vision,” says project manager Roshni Nana.
Veronique Rossouw, sales and marketing manager at Collection McGrath, says: "We understood the need to create a space that was 'future fit'. Mrs M (Liz McGrath) has continued to innovate throughout her career and it was such a pleasure to collaborate with the team at Flow who went above and beyond to co-create this beautiful new space we call home."