Post #574143 by Chip and Andy on Tue, Feb 1, 2011 10:21 AM

I use a term I picked up from a Science Fiction Writer..... Continuity Clubs.

The plan is this: Today's hectic traveler is looking for some bit of familiarity while in a strange land. If said traveler walks into the local Marriott and it looks like every other Marriott they have ever been in they feel 'safe,' like they are no longer a stranger in a strange land.

An even better example of this idea would be Embassy Suites. Every Embassy Suites I have ever been in looks exactly like every other Embassy Suites I have visited. A nice atrium with a breakfast bar, a happy hour with cheep beer and wine, maybe a night club if your lucky, and rooms that are nice with the only difference in any of them anywhere being the restaurants listed in the little book on the credenza when you walk in.

Then, as to why they always turn to the most neutral color palette possible? It is hard for a corporation to have much (any) imagination. You have marketing and design departments full of ideas presenting their ideas to some middle level of management who put their two cents into the design before they give it to the next higher level of management who add their two cents and by the time it reaches the people who can say yes the idea has been flattened and homogenized so much as there is no character left but the top level management thinks its a good idea because they pay their marketing and design departments big bucks so they must know what they are doing when presenting this bland beige and dusty rose with cranberry accents plan.