Every brand is a hospitality brand. Whether you’re serving products, services, or big ideas, design sets the table for how people feel when they encounter what you offer.
It’s not just about looking good, it’s about creating spaces where your audience feels welcome, celebrated, and at home.
studio ethos
DESIGN FOR COMMUNITY BUILDING
Design gives form to shared identity, memory, and joy. Images and stories are a way for communities to recognize themselves.
DESIGN AS MUTUAL AID
Design can be a tool for survival, helping community-oriented businesses and ventures thrive in systems not built for them.
DESIGN AS INTERVENTION
Design, even when commercial, doesn’t have to feel soulless. Approached like art, it can carry authenticity, wit, subversion, and stories into the marketplace, shaping public life and norms.
DESIGN AS SELF-CREATION
Intentional design is a practice of becoming. Like personal style or self-expression, it is a way of saying: this is who we are, this is the world we’re inviting you into.
about the designer
I'm Ethan Wise, founder of Hot Welcome Studio. My approach to design comes from a deep love of storytelling and a genuine belief that design is constantly shaping meaning and impacting our experiences. I studied poetry in college, which taught me to think in images, rhythms, and narratives, tools I still use every day in my work.
After graduating, I became a Graphic and Digital Designer at a community health center in Boston. There, I got to create campaigns that put queer people and care front and center. From there, I moved into hospitality as Art Director for a national hotel and restaurant portfolio, building brand identities around the country. Through all of this, I learned how design can be both a form of advocacy and a way to shape how people move through and interact with the world.
I started Hot Welcome Studio to pull all these pieces together, working with restaurants, hotels, artists, nightlife venues, and organizations doing good in the world. I create brands and websites that feel as intentional as they are effective, and my background in creative writing and design gives me a bit of a different perspective: I see every project as both a puzzle to solve and a story to tell, built to connect with the people who matter most.
