FERUS: Holistic Branding from Zurich
A young studio rethinks hospitality
Zurich, 30 October 2025
FERUS is a newly founded brand creation studio in Zurich that translates the principles of hospitality into branding. Established by Fabian Messer, the young five-person team combines design, cultural programming and commercial awareness into a holistic approach: brands as a space of resonance, between people, places and experience. FERUS creates environments where creativity and perspectives meet, allowing something new to emerge – something that touches people and endures.
What truly moves us? When does something feel right? A place, a moment, a brand? And what happens when brands are co-created? This is where FERUS comes in. The young team envisions brands as movement, as space, voice, and atmosphere. Brands here emerge in resonance – with people, with places, with ideas. They are shared and co-developed. FERUS sees itself as both a platform and a house of experts, orchestrating creative voices and opening spaces for collective creation. Strategy, design, content, product, and experience – everything interlocks, together.
The projects that grow out of this are diverse: hotels, destinations, companies, products. What unites them is the ambition to place the guest experience at the centre and to continually rethink the idea of hospitality – economically, humanly, culturally. Early works include FORESTIS, Das Kranzbach, Gstaad Palace, SCHLOSS Zermatt, Grand Hotel Miramare, Kristiania Lech, Rote Wand, and Belvedere Bellagio.
“I come from hospitality, from a world where it is always about creating atmosphere, not just spaces,” says Fabian Messer, founder and Creative Director of FERUS. “This mindset also defines our work today. In times like these, brands gain strength when they become more human. What creates resonance, stays. And what is beautiful carries success within itself.”
FERUS addresses those who seek shared development, brands with depth, and projects that become both visible and tangible. Design here is expression and at the same time an invitation—to bring new and genuine things into the world.
ABOUT FERUS
The idea comes from Fabian Messer, a creative strategist with roots in Swiss hospitality. Raised in a cheese dairy in the Emmental, he was instilled early with a sense for quality, care, and atmosphere. A childhood memory of a quiet, attentive moment in a grand hotel sparked the desire to create places that touch people, through authenticity and humanity. His path led him through some of Switzerland’s most renowned hotels: from the Lenkerhof to the Schweizerhof Bern and Badrutt’s Palace. Later, as Creative Director and Lead Strategist at Positioner, he was responsible for building the branding and positioning offering. With the founding of FERUS in Zurich in 2024 and the now official launch, he follows an idea of creativity rooted in clarity, substance, and inner growth. Together with the young, dynamic team, the studio develops brands along the entire guest and customer journey – from strategic positioning to visual identity, spatial staging, product and service development, experience design, and co-creations with creatives and experts across disciplines.
THE EXCHANGE
Get the latest member news, interviews, drops and digests in your inbox.