Num
A website in English and Greek for Num's serviced suites and apartments in Neos Kosmos, Athens, from a 21 m² suite for two to a 105 m² apartment for four. The neighbourhood had to look good without looking like somewhere else.
Overview
Num rents serviced suites and apartments in Neos Kosmos, a residential neighbourhood of Athens. There are six kinds of stay: three suites for two people and three apartments with a kitchen for four.
The identity came with the brand, first under the name Numa: the logo, its letter pattern and the green. When a legal issue forced a new name, I adapted the logo to Num.
I designed the website in English and Greek on WordPress. The owners wrote the first texts and I edited them. The photographs of the rooms came from the client, and I cropped them for the site.
Guests come to Num for the space a hotel room does not have, so the site leads with square metres.
Showing the neighbourhood was the hardest part of the job: it had to be appealing without promising a view Num doesn't have.
Skills: Hospitality Web Design · WordPress · Information Architecture · Image Selection & Cropping · Bilingual Content · Copy Editing · Ongoing Support
Six stays, two families
The six screens follow a first visit, from the opening photograph to the list of what every stay includes. Before anything else, the menu splits the stays into suites and apartments.
Suite or apartment?
Space is the first question, so the site asks it first. The three suites are 21 to 23 m² for two people. The three apartments are 42 to 105 m² for four, with a living room and a kitchen. Every amenities list starts with the same two lines, guests and square metres, so a family can rule out a suite without reading further.
Included or extra?
One page lists what every stay has, from the coffee machine to the Balmain toiletries. A second page lists what costs extra, from breakfast in the room to a helicopter. Keeping the two lists apart keeps the first one honest: everything on it comes with the stay.
Why Neos Kosmos?
Neos Kosmos is apartment blocks and repair shops. It has no postcard views, so the Location page tells its history instead: a gymnasium outside the walls of ancient Athens, a refugee settlement in the 1920s, art spaces and theatres today.
No borrowed views
There were no photographs of the streets around Num. The stock libraries were full of the Athens of postcards, and any of it would have made the page prettier and the arrival a letdown.
So the Location page uses close-ups, and the home page names what is within walking distance.
Pretty or true?
For the Location page alone I gathered almost thirty candidates and kept five. The prettiest stayed out: an alley in Plaka hung with flowers would have sent guests looking for it outside the door.
A close-up can be beautiful without making a promise. The Location page shows Neos Kosmos in close-ups and tells its history, so it promises only what a guest will find on arrival.