THE OPPORTUNITY
Between Beaches already had the kind of product most hospitality brands would love to market: a remote Alaska property surrounded by water, accessible only by boat, with cabins tucked along the shoreline and wildlife moving through the landscape.
The experience itself was remarkable.
The brand and digital presence weren't yet communicating that distinction with the same clarity.
The opportunity was bigger than redesigning a website. It was to identify what made Between Beaches worth traveling for, build a recognizable brand around that idea, and create a digital experience that could turn discovery into direct bookings.
FINDING THE STORY
No roads. Water on both sides. A place removed from ordinary life.
The strongest idea was already sitting inside the experience. Getting to it required more than a creative brief.
I spent multiple trips at the property and many hours in conversation with the owner, asking questions, listening for patterns and working through ideas that weren’t always easy to articulate. Much of what made Between Beaches extraordinary was deeply understood by the person who had built it, but hadn’t yet been translated into language a guest could immediately understand.
That became an important part of my role: drawing out what was already there.
Through those conversations and time spent experiencing the property myself, I began identifying the recurring ideas beneath the business—the isolation, the water, the freedom of being somewhere unreachable by road, and the strange magic of having an entire stretch of Alaska feel almost entirely to yourself.
The goal wasn’t to manufacture a story for Between Beaches. It was to uncover the one that already existed and give it a form other people could recognize, understand and want to experience for themselves.
No roads. Water on both sides. A place removed from ordinary life.
That discovery became the foundation for the positioning, brand voice, visual identity, photography and digital experience that followed.
SURROUNDED BY WATER, KISSED BY THE SUN.
PHOTOGRAPHING THE EXPERIENCE
Between Beaches was evolving while I was working with the brand.
Over approximately two years, I made multiple trips to the property as canvas tents gave way to new cabins, existing accommodations were renovated and the experience itself continued to take shape. I photographed the property throughout that transition, building an image library that documented both what Between Beaches was and what it was becoming.
That meant photographing more than beautiful Alaska scenery. I needed to show the accommodations themselves, where they sat within the landscape and what made one experience different from another. Some cabins were tucked into the woods. Others sat directly along the water. Each offered a different relationship to the property.
The photography became part documentation, part storytelling and part practical customer experience. It gave us the imagery we needed to help prospective guests understand the property from a distance while creating a visual library that could continue evolving alongside the business.
The earlier photographs—including the canvas tents and accommodations that were later changed or replaced—are an important part of that story. They show the brand during a period of transformation rather than a single finished moment.
FROM BRAND TO DIGITAL EXPERIENCE
I first discovered Between Beaches through Airbnb, and the friction was immediate. The website wasn’t responsive, images were improperly sized and slow or failed to load, accommodations were difficult to compare, and there was no clear path to book directly.
Even planning my own stay took considerable effort. The individual Airbnb listings lacked continuity, and it was difficult to understand what each cabin looked like, where it sat on the property or what made one different from another.
That experience became the foundation for the digital strategy.
I reorganized the website around the guest decision-making process, combining new photography with existing imagery to clearly differentiate each accommodation and its relationship to the property—from cabins tucked into the woods to those sitting directly along the water.
I also identified direct booking as a significant business opportunity. Rather than continuing to rely heavily on third-party platforms and their associated fees, we built a clearer path from discovery to choosing an accommodation and booking directly.
The goal was simple: remove uncertainty, help guests understand what they were paying for, and make an extraordinary place easier to book.
BUILDING THE IDENTITY
The visual system grew directly from the environment.
Water, shoreline stones, weathered wood, marine life and organic textures became recurring elements throughout the brand. I developed the overall identity system, including the logo direction, textures to lean into, alternative marks, typography, color palette, brand voice and visual language.
The palette pulled from the landscape rather than relying on the expected blues of an Alaska tourism brand—combining weathered neutrals, deep burgundy, muted greens, warm coral and coastal tones.
Custom illustrations by Mara Parks / Made by Nota brought another layer of personality and place into the system.
THE RESULT
The work brought brand strategy, identity, photography, story and digital experience into one connected system.
Approximately
600% WEBSITE TRAFFIC GROWTH
alongside a shift toward
PRIMARILY DIRECT BOOKINGS
The larger result was a brand that finally had a visual and verbal language distinctive enough to match the experience it represented.
MY ROLE
Brand Strategy
Positioning
Brand Voice + Copy
Creative Direction
Visual Identity
Website Strategy + Design
Customer Journey
Content Strategy
SEO Strategy
Photography
PROJECT CREDITS
Strategy, positioning, brand identity, brand voice, creative direction, website strategy + design, copy + photography
Amber Lanphier / Synergy Brandworks
Custom illustration
Mara Parks / Made by Nota
PROJECT NOTE
This case study documents the original Between Beaches brand and digital work completed through Synergy Brandworks beginning in 2021. Between Beaches has continued to evolve its brand and website since this engagement; subsequent revisions by other creative partners are not represented as my work here.