Plantype

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Tuesday, January 14,
New York, 15:17:57

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About us

We are a New York-based agency uniting strategy and design to make work that evolves with the world we live in.

Updates

Five Years

An inside look at what we've learned over five years of PORTO ROCHA.

Projects

Robinhood

A grown-up identity for a finance pioneer

Projects

W Hotels

A global rebrand for a new era of luxury hospitality

Projects

Nike au Centre Pompidou

An iconic takeover celebrating the Art of Victory at the Paris Olympics

Projects

Brazilian Homo

Brazil’s hottest LGBTQ+ magazine

Projects

Twitch

An identity evolution to match the energy of livestream communities

Projects

Sundance Film Festival

A flexible identity for the champion of independent stories

Projects

PAC NYC

A performing arts identity designed to invite the world in

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GRAU

An artful renaissance for a legacy lighting brand

Projects

Nothing Precious

A publication exploring beauty through the eyes of Marcelo Gutierrez

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Vevo

A new vision for the world’s leading music video network

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VEEPS

An immersive brand and product redesign that transports fans to the front row

Research

Swipe

An ongoing series created artificially by Felipe Rocha as part of our research on A.I. generated images at PORTO ROCHA.

Projects

Tudum Global

A fan-first identity for the biggest event in Netflix history

Projects

No Free Pitches

A resolution to say no to unpaid pitches and change our industry for the better

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BPM

An identity that keeps technology and music culture in sync

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Shop

A captivating brand world for the all-in-one shopping app

Projects

Hiro

A forward-thinking identity for the company bringing Web3 to Bitcoin

Projects

LUNGE

A design-forward identity for a contemporary pet brand

Projects

QUILO

A 300-page photo magazine showcasing the untold story of Brazilian visual culture

Projects

Netflix Is a Joke: The Festival

A type-driven identity for the biggest event in comedy history

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Olympikus

A confident new identity for running and fitness powerhouse Olympikus

Projects

Zigzag

A vibrant new identity for Korea's largest shopping app

Projects

Design Threads

A collaborative digital report and exhibition unraveling the state of design today

Projects

Brooklyn Rail

Editorial design for “Only Anthropophagy Unites Us?”

Projects

Upwork

A people-first identity system for the pioneer of remote work

Projects

Nike Be True

A platform to spotlight and celebrate LGBTQIA+ athletes and creators

Updates

Year Two

What a year! Here is our 2021 retrospective

Projects

QuintoAndar

An inviting new identity for housing giant QuintoAndar

Projects

Netflix Tudum

Connecting Netflix fans to the shows they love most

Projects

Airbnb Tyrus

Designing Airbnb’s latest digital toolkit, built to empower illustrators

Projects

Samba

A contemporary publication shines a light on Brazilian queer culture

Projects

Museu Nacional

Reimagining the Museu Design Experience

Projects

Pollen

Designing Spotify's genre-less playlist

Projects

Comrade

An impactful book cover signals new notions of political belonging

Projects

Melissa Flygrl

Flying with freedom: An expressive visual identity for Melissa’s new collection

Projects

Electric Sky

Unconventional branding for an unconventional wine brand

Projects

Bonde

Spotlighting new perspectives on Brazilian art and design

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Chani Nicholas: You Were Born For This

A mystical cover for a contemporary take on astrology

Projects

Emotional Landscapes

A sensorial perspective on Burle Marx’s Brazilian landscapes

Projects

ℓiⱴε

An open-source identity for a new kind of agency

Projects

YAGA

Designing a new music festival embracing queer identities and subcultures

Updates

Year in Review

We decided to express our gratitude by sharing a retrospective of our first year as a studio

Project Information

Audacious, colorful, and unabashedly fun, W Hotels pioneered luxury hospitality for the creative set in the 2010s. But a decade later, luxury codes had shifted away from in-your-face opulence and toward the subtle flex, from photo-op to holistic experience. With a flock of competitors vying for traveler attention and the hotel’s expansion from single destination to global brand, W Hotels’ brand no longer had the pull it once did.

We teamed up with the hospitality icon to bring meaning back to the ‘W’, reinventing their identity to reflect a new brand position: Luxury, Liberated. We pushed beyond the old signals of aspiration to create a vibrant yet sophisticated system designed to scale. Balancing bold expression with intentional subtlety, the new brand translates across their 65+ global locations and unique property types including Resorts, Residences, and Urban Escapes.

The system we created meets two distinct yet equally important communication objectives: to attract new guests through attention grabbing marketing, and then to enhance their stay once inside the hotel. For promotional moments, bold color, artful photography, large type, and declarative messaging come together to convey the vibrancy beyond the hotels’ doors. But once inside the property, the brand expression becomes more subtle with a neutral palette and an emphasis on tactile materials and finishes.

Preserving the iconic W symbol seen at the top of buildings worldwide, we then radically simplified the logo lockups, information hierarchy, and brand architecture. Opting for a single-sized wordmark integrated with the W symbol itself, we transformed the previous vertical lock-up with multiple fonts into a singular and impactful ‘W HOTELS.’ Akin to a fashion house logo, this approach imbues the brand with greater confidence and flexibility.

This exercise became the basis of a custom typeface developed in collaboration with Lineto that takes the geometric characteristics of the logo and extends them across each letterform. The result is W Supreme — a fully functional typeface that is both expressive and elegant. To ensure consistency across languages, we introduced a custom W Supreme Arabic script, as well as alternates in Mandarin and Japanese. The new typeface allows the brand to communicate in an understated yet uniquely W language, taking pressure off the logo as the only way to signal brand presence.

Color and imagery were key in signaling a new vision of luxury. We developed an extensive palette to replace the previous neons, maintaining their attitude while giving the brand a modern feel. Color combinations were defined for each location as well as an approach to lifestyle imagery that embraces local specificity (from white slopes for W Aspen to the famous boardwalk for W Barcelona). We tapped still-life photographer Sergiy Barchuk to create a suite of artful brand photography to be used across the entire system.

Since the rebrand, W Hotels has continued to grow: opening locations in Budapest and Edinburgh, partnering with new creators, and publishing over a dozen new content series using the system. Free from the constraints of luxury’s past, their refreshed identity now sets the tone for a liberated future.