When you talk about designing for a tourism business in Hermanus, the first thing you would think of is that it has to be centered around the whales, for which Hermanus is so well known. Hermanus has been called a “culinary coastline’, for the many small producers, farmers, wineries, breweries, farm stalls, and eateries that have become top destinations.

Enter ChillGuru. With buy-in from Whalecoast Tourism, ChillGuru started Hermanus’s first ‘Hop On Hop Off’ bus (it was later sold to City Sightseeing). The company wanted to give visitors a guided tour of the ‘real’ Hermanus, while offering and promoting all the best activities and destinations one can find in the town.

For this tourism business, I designed the visual identity, tourism presentations, marketing flyers, and also the designs for the ChillGuru bus wraps.

During the brand messaging, I needed to explore the best word choice for the tourist market. Part of our process is research, and for this instance we were guided on the following statistics obtained from Wesgro Tourism research and Overstrand Tourism research:

  • Scenic drives (26.9%), culture/heritage experiences (13.4%), outdoor activities (12.1%), cuisine (7.4%) and wine tasting (5.8%) rank ed as the top five activities undertaken.
  • 55 % of visitors are of international origin.
  • Traditional markets such as the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands consecutively ranked as the region’s top three international countries.

The messaging required it to be clear, and concise in a few words, and as an example I explored some options:

The Hermanus sightseeing tour
The only Hermanus sightseeing tour
Hermanus’s only sightseeing tour
Hermanus Hop On Hop Off
Hop On, See & Discover Hermanus
Hop On, See & Discover the real Hermanus
See & Discover Hermanus with the real Guru

The bus branding concept I created was visually very eye-catching but more explanatory with excellent visual queues of activities – using icons. I used striking photographs highlighting top tourist attractions. The visuals were complemented with bold text and logo.

The bus wrap design was printed onto a special film which was then applied to the bus. For this design, I required a half wrap, applied below the windows. Icons and text could be printed on vinyl and applied the same way you would apply stickers. The actual colour of the spray colour of the bus, would be visible on the front and back, and partially on the sides of the bus.