Featured Design Contest: Sun Sea Beach - Hotel Logo Design

If you want to connect with humans, start by catching their eyes. Did you know that half of our brain’s processing power is devoted to making sense of visual information? Studies have even shown that we can remember up to 2,000 images with at least 90%.

Even without degrees in psychology or neuroscience, our Hatchwise creatives know just how important your logo is for connecting with your target audience. Check out all the fun ideas they came up with for a small Caribbean hotel.

What Was Requested

Sun Sea Beach Hotel will soon open in Las Galeras, Dominican Republic. Described by the owners as a “beautiful little hotel in the Caribbean,” the hotel’s target audience includes guests who want to relax and explore a tropical paradise.

The owners requested that the hotel’s namesakes—the sun, sea, and beach—all feature in the logo. They also suggested other elements designers might want to use, including palm trees or humpback whales. They left plenty of room for creatives to experiment with different color palettes, recommending oranges, yellows, blues, greens, sand browns, and maybe purples to evoke sunrise or sunset.

A Few of the Entries

The Hatchwise community submitted 341 entries to Sun Sea Beach’s competition. Here are some that stood out to us:

What we liked about this design was how simple and clean it looked while still having character. The sun, sea, and beach (palm tree) all make an appearance, and the colors are light and fresh, just like a nice day at the beach.

The artwork is charming without being overly complicated. It’s perfect for a small, independently owned hotel trying to stand out from the big corporate chains.

Here we have a design that instantly evokes a tropical feeling. The bright teals and turquoises bring to mind the bright blues of the Caribbean Sea, highlighted by the leaping dolphin and swaying palm trees. One thing we loved about this logo was how the designer used a gradient effect to add dimension to the setting sun.

Watching the sunset over the ocean in a tropical paradise is what people dream about. This logo captures that perfectly with the silhouette of palm trees against the sun in shades of gold, orange, and warm browns.

We also like how the designer included a more subtle, monochrome variation that can be used to watermark documents and images without drawing too much attention away from the main content.

We love when designers make bold choices, and everything about this logo is bold!

First, they went with a varied palette of vivid oranges and blues, then added silhouettes of birds, whales, boats, and palm trees in black to create an eye-popping contrast.

The chunky typeface with heavy outlining sets this logo apart from most other hotel logos.

This is the first logo we’ve seen that experimented with using purple to represent a setting or rising sun, as the owner suggested. It’s also one of the only logos where the designer chose a palette of entirely cool colors. While warm colors are energetic and exciting, cool colors are more tranquil.

This logo conveys that Sun Sea Beach Hotel is the perfect place to relax and unwind in a tropical setting.

This logo is just plain fun! We love how dynamic it is and how the designer flawlessly integrated the sand dune with the word mark.

The color palette is fairly streamlined compared to some of the other examples we’ve looked at, but that only makes the subtle gradient effect on the sun stand out even more.

Most designers chose to create logos with a literal interpretation of the elements outlined in the creative brief.

However, this is a fun example of how you can still create the same connection with a more abstract design. This modern-looking logo combines the sun, sea, and beach with more abstract shapes.

Never underestimate the power of a simple wordmark. This elegant logo is unmistakably beachy while still being simple and streamlined.

This logo wouldn’t look out of place lined up next to some of the most recognizable resorts in the world.

This logo has just the right balance of simplicity and detail. It captures an entire tableau of tropical paradise in simple line art and flat colors.

The streamlined serif wordmark is just quirky enough to highlight the hotel’s charm without overwhelming the rest of the design.

On the other hand, this logo focuses on the wordmark and uses visual elements to complement the wordmark instead of the other way around. The designer chose a fun, bouncy typeface that practically shouts “vacation!” It’s hard to see this logo and not be excited about your upcoming stay.

The Winner

The owners of Sun Sea Beach Hotel had a lot of great options to choose from, but ultimately this was the one they felt represented their brand the best.

This designer put the focus on color and gave the owners multiple options to choose from. The simple line art hits all the marks from the creative brief, and the different gradients in vivid tones really make this logo stand out from the competition.

This designer won $350 for their logo design.

Check out other Logo Design contests:

Boardroom To Beach Life – This is a new blog called “Boardroom to Beach Life”, which focuses on the journey from successful executive to retiring early at the beach, and coaching others on how to do the same. Topics are mostly about health/fitness, finances, and fun!

The Beach House Tanning Salon – An old outdated tanning salon in North Pole Alaska that is being remodeled to look new age and sharper looking. with more of a spa vibe to it. Hopefully adding massage and facials soon. They have 2 military bases near so that’s a large chunk of their customers and then they have the rest of the customers who are regular good ol’ Alaskan adults going on vacation and some teenagers.

Beach Life – Looking for a logo with a beach scene. Like maybe on a beach with a palm tree or something and as for wording just “Beach Life”.

Cocoa Beach Tanning Lounge – Looking for a hot new logo for a tanning salon. The design needs to include a female image laying in a beach lounge chair with a palm tree. The slogan is: “Where the sun always shines”.

Oyster Bay Water Sports – A Water Sports Charter business looking for a logo. They take people out Wakeboarding, Wakesurfing, waterskiing, and tubing.