Three European directions, and B
Built the way French and Italian houses and the grand hotels build their pages: one serif for the voice, one sans for the labels, a warm off white ground, near black ink, one accent at most, used on rules and labels, never as a block. Three structures that differ in how the hero, the two ways, the season and your letter are composed. Same words on all four, your lettering as the wordmark, phone first.
Open each page on a laptop and on your phone. A bar at the bottom switches between all six and the study. Nothing on the live site has changed.
Maison
The French house: centred and symmetric, ivory and ink with brass hairlines, Bodoni Moda with Jost, outlined uppercase buttons. A full bleed hero with one centred line, the next departure as an announcement strip beneath it, the season as a carousel with "01 / 09" pagination. Dior, Cheval Blanc, Cartier.
Open S
Palazzo
The Italian house: warm stone, a framed hero inset from the edges, the two ways as feature rows with arched photographs, roman numerals for the chapters, Cormorant and EB Garamond with Marcellus small caps, burgundy as the one accent. Brunello Cucinelli, Passalacqua, Le Sirenuse.
Open T
Grand Hotel
The grand hotel: a night band masthead with the photograph inside a brass hairline frame, ivory ground, brass rules and numerals, Libre Caslon with Hanken Grotesk, your letter inside a second night band. Belmond, Aman, the Orient Express.
Open U
Atlas
Indigo and chalk, one bold grotesk, marigold on one button, travel facts as design. Phone first. The one you singled out.
Open BWhat is the same on all six
- One master copy, written for someone who has never heard of Travalong: the curious headline and the priced Sri Lanka departure in the hero; a true split between the two ways to travel (The Other Land on the dark side, Trips made for you on the light side, both on one screen even on a phone); the season as nine portrait posters that scroll sideways; six real trips we drew this year, with photos; your full letter; the five quotes as WhatsApp messages; The First Draft; the closing band. Gone: Why we chose the hotel, How we work, the sample routes, the Recently designed list, every coordinate.
- One grammar from the houses: ivory or stone grounds, hairlines, square corners, outlined uppercase buttons, Didone or Garamond serifs with a Futura like sans, the arch or the frame as the single shape on a page. Phone first: 52px buttons, 80px between sections, both ways on one phone screen, rails with a counter.
- One motion budget: a hero entrance, headings and photos settling once, hovers, and exactly one signature moment per page. Phones get the light version.
- Text on photos tested against four stress photos (white sand, bright sky, white temple, pale pool) so the hero still reads when you change the picture.
Verification record
Every page was checked by its builder and then again by me, independently, at 1440 and 390 wide.
| Check | A | B | F | G | H | I |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Horizontal overflow, off screen, overlapping or clipped text | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Text over photos failing contrast on four stress photos | 0 of 22 | 0 of 16 | 0 of 23 | 0 of 22 | 0 of 17 | 0 of 24 |
| Your letter, word for word (10 blocks) | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Hyphens or dashes in visible text | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| The word luxury, "on a call", seat count in hero | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Left edges on grid lines only, equal section spacing, three photo shapes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
Round twelve (29 Oct): after a study of 24 French and Italian houses and grand hotels at phone and laptop size (fonts and colours read from their live code), three European directions beside B; the casual looks of round eleven retired. Found and fixed earlier: a head ordering bug that switched off every animation on real phones, and a smooth scroll rule that hid elements from the checker.