Real estate branding in Dubai

Real estate in Dubai is sold from a plan. A developer launches a project to buyers who see the hoarding, the brochure, the sales gallery and the listing page long before they see a finished room, and each of those has to describe the same place. A brokerage sells other people's projects and has to be recognised on every listing it posts. Both buy design for the same reason: until the keys are handed over, the brand is the product.

A real estate brand works at two distances. On the hoarding and the signage it is read from a moving car, so the mark, the name and the colour have to carry at that scale. In the brochure and the sales gallery it is read up close by someone about to sign, so the typography, the plans and the photography have to hold the same idea at arm's length. The website sits between the two. The project pages, the listings, the brochure download and the enquiry form are where a buyer decides whether to book a viewing, and the page has to be found first, which is where the search work begins.

Alternative Space designs the project brand, the website and the content. The project brand starts with the idea, then the mark, the palette and the type. From the same rules come the brochure, the hoarding, the sales gallery graphics and the listing templates. The website is designed and built in the studio, with the copy, the imagery and the search work done together rather than passed between suppliers. Then the launch campaign and the social content start from the idea already on the hoarding.

For a developer that is usually a project brand, or a master brand that several projects sit under. For a brokerage it is the company identity, the website with its listings, the agent collateral and the templates that keep every listing on brand. In both cases the design is made for the pieces that sell: the brochure that leaves the gallery, the hoarding on the plot and the page a buyer forwards to the family.

Damac, AveNew Development and Avenew Real Estate Brokerage are on the client list, with Mustaqbal Fund, a real estate crowdfunding platform. Their work is below.

The way in is one conversation about the project: the plot or the portfolio, the buyer, the launch date and what has to be ready for it. From that the studio proposes the scope, the pieces and the order they are made in. The enquiry below starts it.