As anyone who runs their own business knows, life is busy, often chaotic, and can come at you fast. Throw a schedule that requires transatlantic travel into the mix and things get even busier. But this doesn’t faze Ryan Crown, who runs his own design business, Crown Creative, while dividing his time between his home near Belfast and New York City.
The business began in the Big Apple in 2018, but the writing was in the stars two years before that. Crown wet his feet working as a marketing manager for The Dead Rabbit, named “the world’s best bar” in 2016 and founded by Belfast natives Sean Muldoon and Jack McGarry. He then moved to a larger hospitality group as creative director, working across everything from Michelin-starred restaurants and cocktail bars to food halls, Italian restaurants and steakhouses.
The variety of projects saw him fall in love with the job and the city itself, but it wasn’t long before he decided he wanted to branch out on his own. After convincing his employer that “they weren’t losing an employee, they were gaining an entire creative studio”, Crown Creative had its first client.
Now, eight years on, the company has a team of 25 working in Belfast, New York and London, and has grown from a branding and design agency, into a full-service studio offering brand strategy, graphic design, interiors and digital, all under one roof.
“That model came from my own frustration as a client, having to co-ordinate several different agencies on a single project,” he says. “We wanted to offer something more joined-up: a single team which understands the entire vision and behaves like an extension of the client’s own business. We describe ourselves as a creative partner because, on the best projects, that’s genuinely what we become.
“There are still days when I have to pinch myself at the calibre of the clients and projects coming through our doors. To see work created by our team in Belfast, London and New York come to life globally is genuinely humbling. It feels as though we’re not simply designing places – we’re helping to create brands and experiences with a real legacy. In the last year we’ve seen a luxury safari resort open in Africa, a restaurant we designed in Grand Central Terminal in New York and a boutique wine hotel in Oregon.”
The 35-year-old, who has a 20-month old daughter with his partner, Ema, wasn’t always destined to be a designer as he studied drama and English at college, before doing a master’s in drama at Queen’s University Belfast. But, although he never trained as a designer, he says that his background taught him “a great deal about storytelling and how to understand an audience – both of which are fundamental to the work undertaken at Crown today”.
Travel is another great source of inspiration for the designer, who says that being away for “at least one week a month”, and also looking beyond his own industry, helps to get the creative juices flowing.
“Inspiration often comes from somewhere unexpected: the pacing of a theatrical production, the typography on an old street sign, or the way a small neighbourhood restaurant makes people feel completely at home,” he says. “Also, my guilty pleasure is magazines. I subscribe to far too many – Monocle, Bon Appétit and Wallpaper among them – and feel guilty every month when I don’t get through the pile. But I love the discovery involved in print, and the physical experience of holding a beautifully made magazine in my hands.”
Neighbourhood Cafe, in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter 
Neighbourhood Cafe: ‘Lighting is the quickest transformation for me,’ says Ryan Crown
The projects undertaken by Crown can vary vastly in size – from the St Regis Cap Cana Resort in the Dominican Republic, where the team created nine individual food-and-beverage brands over the course of two years, to the Neighbourhood Cafe in Belfast, which the founder co-owns with his business partner and best friend, Oisín McEvoy.
Another recent project was The Kithmore in St Andrews, and also a refreshing of the global identity of Peacock Alley, the historic institution associated with the Waldorf Astoria.
But, regardless of the scale, each job is meticulously thought out and executed.
“The budgets and commercial details of many of these projects are confidential, but the developments range from independent hospitality businesses to significant, multimillion-pound international hotel investments,” says Crown. “What matters to us is the same at every scale: finding the story, expressing it consistently, and making every detail feel intentional.
“And there’s something quite surreal about standing in one of New York’s most iconic hotels and seeing a brand developed by our team in Belfast.”
Fashion trends are constantly changing, and the interior design world is no different. But the businessman says while that he and his team are conscious of trends, they “try not to follow them too closely, because if a design is built around a passing visual fashion, it can date very quickly”.
Crown Creative project: The Kithmore boutique hotel in St Andrews, Scotland 
Crown Creative project: Si Cara, Boston
“The strongest movement I see is away from the generic, copy-and-paste international aesthetic and towards spaces that feel rooted in their location,” he says. “There’s a renewed appreciation for character, craft, natural materials and vintage pieces – interiors which can develop a patina over time, rather than looking perfect only on opening day.
“When we began, there was a great deal of emphasis on creating highly ‘Instagrammable’ moments. And while that still has its place, clients are now looking for something deeper. They want comfort, atmosphere, authenticity and a sense that a space could only exist in that particular place.
“Every detail matters, but people rarely leave a hotel remembering a particular wallpaper or bed throw. They remember how the place made them feel. A trend might give you a moment, but a strong narrative gives longevity to a project.”
The design expert says there are many large-scale ideas that can be adapted and work very well in the home, but it is important to be aware of your own style and environment.
“With so many beautiful interiors online it’s tempting to go Pinterest shopping and turn your home into one large mood board,” he says. “But before buying anything, it’s worth understanding your own taste and how you actually want your home to feel. The most interesting homes say something about the people living in them, rather than replicating a nice image online.
“Lighting is the quickest transformation for me. I’ll always choose several small lamps at different heights over switching on the ‘big light’ as warm, layered lighting can change the atmosphere of a room immediately and make even an inexpensive interior feel considered.
“With more of us working from home, it’s also important to create some separation between working and living – even if that simply means a good chair, a dedicated lamp, and being able to put the laptop out of sight at the end of the day. Your home should support the way you actually live, not just photograph well.”
Crown Creative’s Belfast office 
Crown Creative office
While Crown and his team are currently working on several beautiful Michelin-starred restaurant projects in New York, as well as beginning the interior design of two restaurant and bar spaces at The Ritz-Carlton in Geneva, they have also just launched a Substack called Hospitality Everywhere, which is a home for the team’s “observations, opinions and discoveries – from travel and current projects to the bigger questions shaping hospitality”.
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So the future looks bright as he is looking forward to further success and new developments both in his personal and professional life.
“We have such a breadth of experience within the studio, so I’m excited to give more of the team a platform [with the Substack] and see where it goes,” he says. “But, personally, my next major project is the arrival of our second child in October. And amid the nappies, sleepless nights and chaos of having two children under two, I’m also hugely excited about continuing to grow Crown. I genuinely feel we’re only at the beginning of what the agency can achieve, and I’m incredibly thankful for the people I get to work alongside every day.
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“Looking further ahead, I think the word ‘luxury’ has become overused. We’re going to see a return to a more meaningful idea of it – less about marble, thread counts or the size of a bedroom, and more about genuine, authentic experience.
“As our lives become increasingly digital, people will place greater value on experiences that feel human, generous and connected to their location. They won’t necessarily remember every object in a room, but they’ll remember how warmly they were welcomed, who they met and how it all made them feel. To me, that’s the future of hospitality [and design].”