From Brand Refresh to Scalable Design System
La Quinta by Wyndham
A hospitality refresh extended into a more complete framework for consistency across touchpoints, teams, and future applications.
This case study combines original refresh work for La Quinta Inns & Suites with a present-day rework. The original engagement focused on improving visual alignment across a broad set of brand assets. This portfolio version shows how I would now extend that effort into a more structured brand system with clearer foundations, reusable components, and governance.
Project overview
As creative lead, I directed the creative strategy, art direction, and graphic design for La Quinta’s refresh, evaluating legacy assets, aligning visual decisions to campaign messaging, and identifying opportunities to bring greater consistency and clarity to the brand. The work spanned brand refresh, asset rationalization, art direction, and system reimagining, all focused on turning a fragmented visual ecosystem into a more cohesive and scalable brand expression.
My role
La Quinta’s visual ecosystem had grown unevenly over time. Assets varied across business units, legacy materials remained in circulation, and the brand lacked enough structure to maintain consistency across touchpoints. The challenge was not simply to make the brand look newer, but to modernize the brand while preserving the familiarity and recognition it had already built.
The challenge
Legacy materials showing inconsistent hierarchy, tone, and graphic treatment.
A fragmented asset ecosystem that called for simplification and structure.
The refresh was guided by the idea of Refresh, used not as a tagline but as a decision filter. Every change had to make the brand feel clearer, more cohesive, and more current without disconnecting it from its existing identity. That approach kept the work focused on meaningful improvements, not change for its own sake.
Approach
Using “Refresh” as a filter for visual decisions across the brand.
Early direction-setting that balanced heritage with a more current expression.
The original refresh reduced inconsistency, replaced outdated assets, and introduced a more unified visual language across key customer-facing touchpoints. It helped the brand feel more contemporary while preserving recognizable equity. Many of those refinements remained in use beyond the original engagement, which is part of what made the project worth revisiting.
What the refresh solved
Looking back, the bigger opportunity was not just asset refresh. It was system design. The scale of the asset library, the range of touchpoints, and the lack of visual governance all pointed to a deeper need: a clearer framework for how the brand should behave, repeat, and evolve over time. This rework expands the original project into a more formalized system with clearer foundations, reusable components, channel behavior, and governance.
What I’d do differently now
Updated brand expression applied to a core guest-facing touchpoint.
A cleaner, more cohesive graphic language across branded communications.
Refinements that modernized the brand without breaking recognition.
The reimagined system formalizes the visual logic behind the refresh, turning isolated improvements into a framework built for scale, consistency, and reuse.
Rebuilding the system
Foundations: Clarifying the principles behind identity, hierarchy, and tone.
Visual Architecture: Structuring typography, color roles, layout behavior, and core brand elements.
Reusable components: Turning recurring expressions into repeatable templates and assets.
Channel behavior: Defining how the brand adapts across touchpoints while staying recognizable.
The original refresh improved La Quinta’s brand expression within the scope of its time, reducing inconsistency and creating a more cohesive visual language across key touchpoints. Revisiting the project through a systems lens allowed me to take that same challenge further by formalizing the visual logic into a more complete and scalable framework.
The work was well received internally, and elements of the updated direction remained in use beyond the original engagement, suggesting the refresh had identified durable ideas worth extending into a stronger system.
The outcome
