Saint-Urbain’s identity for Now Now invites travellers to the hotel, to ultimately step out of it

Now Now, a pod hotel that sits in the heart of Lower Manhattan, is meant to be a home to explorers who are not afraid to go looking for adventures by themselves. Its suite of compact, single-occupancy rooms is custom-made for a different kind of solo traveller, those who are not looking for their hotel to be a destination in and of itself, but rather a portal to new experiences. As much as Now Now invites travellers to step into its rooms, it also urges them to step out of it, and go explore the world that awaits outside of its doors. This conversation between the inside and outside, and the point of transition from one place to another, had to be distilled into the story that Now Now wanted to tell of itself, and so they turned to creative agency Saint-Urbain to craft its identity and visual voice. “The idea was to create a brand that felt present, immediate, and emotionally open,” Founder & Creative Director Alex Ostroff tells us. “Now Now isn’t a typical hotel, it’s for people who don’t want to spend their whole trip in their room. We wanted the identity to feel like a gentle invitation to connect with the outside world and with yourself. The visuals are meant to feel like a pause, a moment to be here, wherever you are.” The brand had to speak to the solo traveller, so naturally, the team began thinking about how people gather, how solo travel has changed over the years, and how “a small space can feel bigger than it is when it’s full of intention,” says Ostroff. This exercise was imperative for setting the tone for Now Now’s narrative. “We thought about what it feels like to travel alone: the mix of curiosity, introspection, and sometimes a little bit of magic. That’s why we leaned into warmth, softness, and a brand that never screams. The identity is more about offering a moment of calm and connection than trying to be loud or overly branded,” he adds.