Framing

For the launch of AIDA Cruises’ new ship of the Hyperion class, a campaign was developed to highlight the vessel’s features and, importantly, its sustainability initiatives. Potential future travelers were provided with insights into the ship’s cabins and decks, offering a glimpse into the onboard experience.

Outcome

• A key visuals focussing the chaismatic bow of the ship and early website drafts were created as a pitch for AIDA, aiming to capture the ambiance.
• The theme of nature, particularly the element of water, was integrated to evoke a sense of connection to the sea.
• The website design aimed to exude a vacation atmosphere, enticing potential travelers with a sense of relaxation and adventure.
• Ultimately, AIDA opted not to proceed with the implementation. No corresponding campaign or microsite was developed.

Approach

I started engaging the AIDA stakeholders to understand their vision, researched brand guidelines, the target market, and competitors. After brainstorming some ideas, the work on the key-visual began, setting the scene for the water-theme of the overall concept. Together with other designers I’ve iterated on the drafts for the website/microsite several times, in order to capture the tone and to come up with a page-structure and some demo-content.

The presentation of the concept took place in a separate meeting with the relevant stakeholders and the response was generally positive, even if initial criticism was voiced about the ‘underwater world’ theme.
However, the core idea was approved. For the implementation the waterline was concealed by placing a slider element with impressions/images at this location.

Learnings

• The project offered an opportunity to increase skills in creating compelling key visuals through Photoshop manipulation.
• Although the departure from AIDA’s design standards didn’t lead to full success of this pitch, it informed future brand design decisions.
• The depiction of a waterline, aiming for tropical and paradisiacal associations, proved suboptimal. Feedback showed that some cruise customers didn’t positively perceive associations with the seabed or “underwater.”

Impressions