Without has created the visual and verbal identity for Sleepover – a new airport service that offers stressed travellers a place to nap and relax.
In 2020, Airport Dimensions bought ONGROUND Hospitality, a company that ran Sleep ‘n Fly pods in the Middle East.
Airport Dimensions, which has previously focused on more traditional airport lounges, has ambitious plans to roll out the sleep stations across the world, but it felt the existing brand wouldn’t scale in the way it needed.
“These sleep stations are a huge growth brand proposition for us, that we want to take across the globe ultimately,” says Lauren Burrill, Airport Dimensions’ global marketing director. “But if we really want to be seen as a disruptor, we’ve got to get people to look up and ask, ‘What is this thing?’”
That’s where the new name, Sleepover, and the new visual identity comes in. London-based Without was appointed through a pitching process, and Burrill says it was a challenging brief because they needed to introduce this new type of space to travellers.
“We were trying to give better language to this new category,” she explains. “Is it a lounge? Is it a hotel? No, we don’t want to use any of those words. It’s a transient, ethereal place, where people can recharge and refresh.”
There are 30,000 delayed flights every day around the world, and the problem is getting worse. And there were 55,000 flight cancellations in May this year, so that leaves a lot of people who could make use of a Sleepover.
They offer travellers a choice of spaces, from a nap pod to something which resembles a hotel room, and a flexi-cabin which is modelled on a first-class airline seat.
The company estimates around half of its users will pre-book, because they have a few hours to kill on a planned lay-over, and half will seek them out because of a delay or cancellation.
Without’s new identity for Sleepover airport relaxation pods
Without design director Adam Evans said the fact the brand had to create a new category made it a challenging, but exciting brief.
He says in the strategy phase they identified three things the new identity had to do – it had to be clear, to explain what this new sort of airport offering was, it had to stand out in the visually “hectic” airport environment, and it needed to work for international customers across many different languages.
“We needed visual cues that didn’t rely on words,” Evans explains.
And Burrill points out that it also had to work for people who might be feeling stressed or overwhelmed in the airport.
“Very few people like airports. And I think people underestimate that when people travel, they aren’t their normal selves,” she says. “You have all these heightened emotions and you need to make sure that the brand feels really accessible.”
The name was a big part of the puzzle, Evans says. While Sleep n’ Fly was quite functional, Sleepover is designed to be more playful, and “maybe turn a negative experience into a positive.”
Burrill admits that there were internal concerns over focusing so much on sleep – which is only one of several benefits travellers can enjoy at these stations. But she says, the Without team pushed them to focus on one benefit as a way of introducing the spaces. “That focus will pique people’s interest, and we hugely valued that part of the process,” she says.
In digital applications, the ‘e’s of the name are used in blinking form.
The visual identity is built around illustrated animal mascots, including a sloth, a bear and a cat.
“These animals are all known for being sleepy,” Evans says. “And they work for all audiences. If you’re running through an airport, they will really stand out in the signage, almost like a beacon.”
The colour palette is built around purples, which has connotations of sleep and calm in many different cultures, and the typefaces were all chosen for their combinations of legibility and laidback personality – a modified version of Redonda for the logotype, Degular for headlines and Inter for body copy.
The first of the newly branded Sleepovers just opened in Lima airport in Peru, and a new one is set to open in Doha in December.
Without’s new identity for Sleepover airport relaxation pods
Burrill says that the new identity has already proved very popular, both within the company – “We have some pretty difficult stakeholders in our business” – and with the airports. “Originally at Lima we pitched them Sleep n’ Fly, so when we showed them this new branding, they said it was a huge improvement.”
And she says the process of working with Without was enhanced by the studio’s willingness to question everything. “I love that they challenge us,” Burrill says. “I know not to undervalue that in a client-agency relationship.”
Without’s new identity for Sleepover airport relaxation pods
Without’s new identity for Sleepover airport relaxation pods