The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design

The Dock is a waterfront destination hotel in Sweden, around 30 minutes from Stockholm, set on the old harbour site where the town’s docks once stood. Opened in late 2025, it has 183 rooms, a panoramic skybar, restaurants, meeting spaces, a cinema and a spa across 14 floors, made for weekend getaways, dinners and meetings alike. “There was a need for a place that combines an international atmosphere with local roots and a vibrant social environment,” explains CEO Jonas Karlsson. The hotel’s identity is the work of Stockholm-based design company Söderhavet, which shaped the positioning, verbal and visual identity, and the application across the building – from signage and menus to wayfinding and digital touchpoints.

“Instead of starting with a logo and building outward, we started with the guest experience and the physical environment,” Söderhavet tells us, treating every element, from key cards to digital screens, as part of the architecture itself. Stripped of unnecessary graphic gestures, the system lets bold typography, tactile materials, warm photography and open spacing set the tone, so the identity feels like part of the interiors, one that supports the experience rather than competing with it. “A type-driven identity all the way,” the studio adds. “It was remarkably close,” Karlsson recalls of seeing the brand applied across the hotel, “because the brand and interiors evolved together rather than separately.”

That thinking is clearest in the colour, with each tone lifted from the building’s own materials. “The burgundy reflects the warmth found throughout the walls and textiles in the lobby and lounges,” Söderhavet explains, with cream and warm grey drawn from stone and natural plaster, and dusty pink from upholstery, lighting and softer interior accents. “Black anchors the identity, echoing steel details, framing elements and the industrial structure of the building,” the studio continues. Set down with generous saturation and paired with warm photography, the palette gives every touchpoint an inviting warmth. “Together, the colours create an identity that feels like it belongs to the space rather than being applied afterwards.”

If the colour comes from the interiors, the typography comes from the town. The Dock sits on a site with a long history of engineering, manufacturing and shipping, and Söderhavet wanted “that sense of precision and confidence to be present without becoming nostalgic,” drawing the letterforms from “the visual language surrounding docks, machinery, industrial signage and transportation.” The system is set in Pangram Pangram’s condensed sans serif Right Grotesk, its bold and regular weights giving the brand a strong, efficient presence across wayfinding and digital applications. Söderhavet also liked the ‘C,’ which “opens up in its shape and can be interpreted as ‘opening Södertälje up to the world,’” the studio adds. “The typography is intentionally bold, but it’s paired with generous white space, clear hierarchy and carefully considered proportions,” with warm, human photography and a softer palette balancing the strength of the letterforms.

Söderhavet split the writing into two modes: short, memorable headlines and clearer, conversational body text. “We thought of headlines as invitations rather than explanations,” the studio explains, letting the brand sound expressive without ever losing clarity. It is a host’s voice, one Karlsson wanted to match how his team hosts people in person. “The language reflects how we want guests to be welcomed: confident without being formal, curious without being pretentious and charming without trying too hard,” he tells us. The name keeps the same plainness: “a dock is a place of arrival and departure, movement and connection,” the studio details, a short, cross-language word that suits both the waterfront setting and the hotel’s international reach. The wordmark is just as unshowy, letting the condensed type lead.

Typography, colour, layout and tone are consistent across the hotel, while each venue, from the skybar and restaurants to the cinema and spa, finds its own character through photography, pacing and content. The spa has its own connected sub-brand, Paloma, with a logo of its own inside the wider system. “The system is deliberately simple at its core, but flexible enough to support sub-brands,” Söderhavet explains, working towards “one hotel with many experiences and possibilities.” “Our goal is to become a natural meeting place in Södertälje,” Karlsson concludes, “where both locals and visitors feel equally welcome.”