Tripadvisor (2025)Copied

Tripadvisor spent 25 years as a travel companion built on real reviews. As it expanded into AI-enabled trip planning and direct booking, competing with booking engines and comparison sites, it risked losing what made it distinct. A global creative studio was brought in to redefine the identity, Creative Boom reported in 2025.

The strategy put the community at the centre. The studio's executive creative director said the entire identity was built around real people, their words, their photos and their stories, on the insight that people want advice from travellers who share their values. The work was framed as a counter to polished, influencer-led feeds: no generic stock images or algorithmic gloss.

The owl mascot, Ollie, was freed from its circle so it can peek, point, wink and travel. The signature green, originally inspired by 'green means go', became warmer and more vibrant, with new shades such as Trip Pine and Trip White. A secondary palette was drawn from thousands of real traveller photographs, from the blush of a sunset to sea foam and city-night blue. The custom typeface Trip Sans takes its circular forms from Tripadvisor's bubble rating system. Graphic devices borrow from travel ephemera, with rounded corners, green dots and postcard-like frames. Photography comes exclusively from user content, unfiltered and narrative-led, unified by a suite of presets that keeps tone and texture consistent. Review dots, rather than stars, remain the badge of trust.

Creative Boom described it as a warm, human-centred transformation built on what Tripadvisor has always done best.

Travel Weekly framed the refresh as a 25th anniversary gesture and pinned down the practical rule: every photo across the website, app, ad campaigns and owned channels would come from travellers who had uploaded them, which the company said captured authentic, sometimes imperfect energy. Ollie's eyes now move and change with the content, and the green got brighter and bolder. Committing all imagery to user uploads is a real constraint rather than a mood board, and constraints are where identities either prove themselves or quietly get abandoned.

Using user photos as the brand's imagery is smart and on-message, and the photo-derived palette is a lovely detail. Letting Ollie out of the circle gives the brand a character instead of a badge. The tension is strategic: a company leaning into AI planning is selling 'no algorithms', and design can only paper over that so far.