MORE THAN A WORD: Hotel Creative, Air Jordan Wordmark & Innovative Storytelling

A key player and powerhouse global agency, Hotel Creative has continually worked with Nike and Air Jordan since it was first established by founder Mitch Crook in 2010. Acutely knowledgeable and ingrained in the world of sneakers, style and modern culture, the London-based agency’s close affiliation with the historic Beaverton brand has seen them create engaging and community centred installations and projects for Air Jordan 11 Retro Jubilee 25th Anniversary, Nike x Patta, and Nike x Cactus Plant Flea Market, to name a few.

Working across a variety of disciplines to create innovative concepts, Hotel Creative’s design and art direction practice offers a resounding statement of intent that champions creativity with a focus on cultivating identity and diving into the history of product, branding and the stories that link everything together.

Sitting down with founder Mitch Crook and senior designer Francine Oliver, UrlfreezeShops and Hotel Creative discuss the importance of a wordmark, Hotel Creative’s creative process and the unlimited opportunity of design.

Mitch: Well... social media has obviously changed things a lot. I always say (jokingly) everyone thinks they are a creative director now haha. On the one hand I think it means that there is less craft in the creative world than there used to be, but on the other it’s great that creativity and design has become so much more democratised and accessible as a possible career path now. When I was a kid, careers advisors didn’t even know that creative jobs existed – they told me I should be an accountant or join the army!

Francine: In general, since the 00s our increasing dependence on the internet and social media has affected the creative process massively. Even since I joined Hotel 6 years ago, I feel like I’ve noticed that change.

It’s great in a lot of ways - young (& old) creatives can get their work out there more easily than before. It’s really useful to be able to have such a wealth of online information and visual reference at your disposal, but it can also be pretty overwhelming when researching for a project! I think creatives now have to figure out a way to block out the white noise and focus.

M: The Wordmark is so important because it’s the name of a brand. It's what the brand is called, it’s what we say on the streets. Even though Nike has the iconic ‘swoosh' designed by Carolyn Davidson in 1971 - people still say Nike, they don’t call it Swoosh.

Similar to Jordan, the Wordmark existed before the Jumpman, (the Jumpman didn’t come until the Jordan III, in 1988 which is my fave!) but the word mark existed on the other 2 before in the wings logo - okay it’s curved, but it’s still there. Yes people call Nike and Jordan, Swoosh & Jumpman, yes it’s in music, but people still use the word mark terminology in compliments like “Nice Nikes” or “Nice Jordans”.

This also extends to all brands; Apple, Gucci, Louis, Maserati, Arc'teryx. They all have iconic logos: the bitten Apple, the GG supreme, LV monogram, the Maserati Trident, the Dead Bird for Arcteryx. But the iconic logos always come later. If you look at the history of these brands and how they evolved, they always started with words first. It’s the fundamentals of language and communication, it always comes before iconography.

F: Mitch once told me that a wordmark logo should be everything about a brand encapsulated, in an easily understandable form. Every element should speak to the essence of the brand - the form of the typeface, the colour, everything. It gives you more information than a singular logo.

The new ‘Air Jordan’ word mark is particularly interesting to me - I love how it’s a super simplified, minimal version of the original Air Jordan wings logo. The original logo is so iconic that the majority of it can be stripped away. It looks really beautiful with the red embroidery on the apparel.

M: We ALWAYS lead with product; it gives us the insights we need to start to creative process and what stories we want to tell. Sometimes the brief doesn’t always give us the background we need, so we have to go back inside the brand and get that information. Sometimes that’s very hard, but we have built great relationships over the years with creatives and designers and they can usually help point us in the right direction. Whatever we do though, this always ties back to the product. Product is king and our job is teasing out and telling the stories that consumers will get excited about. They are more curious than they have ever been before. People want to know more.

F: It’s all about storytelling at Hotel. When delving into product heritage - you can get little design cues from the cultural history of a product. Discovering niche facts (i.e. random things like the Air Jordan XI design was inspired by a lawn mower) can spark off ideas for the retail space. It’s all about giving the consumer that same feeling of discovery, making the experience richer & more meaningful! Giving them something extra, something tangible that you can’t get when ordering a product online.

F: Community interaction & reactions are really important to our work - at every step of the design process we think about how people will interact, feel and learn from our installations. Also, I always learn so much from a project by how much people have responded - if certain elements have been instagrammed a lot it really cements the success of the project for me!

M: Well we’ve always joked that if anyone steals anything from the event or retail installation that it’s successful as it means people want it (laughs). We are not condoning it, and certainly not talking about product…. never steal that!

We do see statistics and sell through from clients occasionally, but for us 100% sell through isn’t success, it’s just a bonus. In all seriousness, we think success is creating a genuine connection between the consumer and the brand / product. We love educating or informing the consumer to enable them to learn something new, understand why something was designed or made in a certain way, or the history of the product. If they leave one of our experiences with more knowledge and respect for the brand then we have succeeded, even if they didn’t buy anything that day. A customer for life who advocates for your brand is far more valuable than one quick sale, and brands are starting to see that and think of retail differently as a result.

M: I’ve always liked good design, in everything from cars, planes, yachts & watches, to teapots, cutlery and those clear post-it notes (I’m obsessed, have you seen them?). Everything we work on has (or had) a purpose back in the day, and it’s a bonus if it still looks great today. Good design is good design.

I would like to say I’ve always had great taste, but you’d know that isn’t true if you knew where I came from! You learn taste, you experience taste and you see some things that work, and some that don’t. I had some great teachers that helped elevate me, mainly at school in my Art & Design Department, but also after that at university. Slowly, through friends and classmates or colleagues, you find your way and your own taste and what you do and don’t like. People don’t always agree, but if we were all the same the world would be a boring place.

F: Yes - same as Mitch really - I’m really interested in all types of art and design. This sounds wanky (haha) but I’m a bit obsessed with Design classic furniture - I’ve got a load of old books about 50/60s/70s modernist design. One of my favourites is the Kartell book, it’s got all their old print adverts in. I love how simple yet striking they are, the physical form of each piece becomes the graphic language.

I love Charlotte Perriand, Vico Magistretti, Verner Panton, Marcel Breuer (etc.) In fact, recently I managed to get a vintage Wassily chair in a charity shop - best thing I’ve ever bloody bought!!!! The person in the shop told me it used to belong to a magazine editor who donated all his furniture to the charity when he died (I really want to find out who that was!).

I’ve always loved the fact that Breuer was inspired by new technological innovations - the structure of the ‘Wassily’ was formed solely of curved tubular steel which had just been invented in the 1920s. Which brings me back to my love of trainers - the design of so many Nikes/Jordans are inspired by new innovations in technology.

M: Well positively for us, these fashion houses have looked and understand what people want and they have targeted agencies like us to help them get to a new audience. Fashion Houses are trying to be more inclusive now too. Yes there is a long way to go, but they understand that they can’t just be elitist anymore. The audience has changed, the wealth has changed, the international nature of travel has changed. The Machine has had to evolve.

Brands like Jordan and Nike transcend Fashion. Of course, there are more expensive footwear & sneakers in the world, but few cut through and Nike / Jordans are still the hottest property on feet. Nothing even comes close. Look at Virgil’s parting gift of the LV AF1: this is the pinnacle of what a sneaker can do. I don’t think anything can peak that, personally. They are an art piece, mixing old-world traditional materials & production methods from a luxury fashion house, with the 1982 iconic Bruce Kilgore silhouette and cultural relevance of Nike’s basketball history. No one brand can do that alone, Nike can’t do that. Jordan can’t do that; LV couldn’t do that. Dior can’t do it. The point is that they need each other to reach that height. Did you see how much they went for at Sotheby’s? Insane. Not accessible at all, but the money went to the Virgil’s “POST-MODERN” scholarship fund which is amazing for future prospects and something which he would be proud of.

F: I think in terms of our design practice the convergence of streetwear, sportswear & luxury is really interesting - it means that we can play with the different languages of those worlds. There are so many possibilities to subvert & reinvent.

I think the merging of luxury and streetwear is great because it allows a whole new consumer to access the luxury market, people that have an interest in luxury but could not afford it previously. It’s making fashion feel more inclusive and more democratic.

M: Well we talk about this pretty much everyday and my thoughts are fairly blunt: We need both. People want physical, not just digital. Digital is usually an extension of the physical or when this can’t be provided, digital is a next best thing scenario.

I don’t know anyone in the world that would choose a digital sneaker or apparel over the real thing, but that might be me showing my age. I think it’s a nice addition to have a digital option to go with my physical one I’ve just purchased, to play in my game or share on my social media.

As an Agency it’s not that we are against the idea of digital at all, but we are definitely ‘physical first’. Meta uses 2 senses: seeing and hearing. But we breathe, live, touch, smell & experience things. We like to use all senses and maximise human potential. Personally, I think retail is becoming more artful, and art in my eyes exists in the real world.

F: For me, the appeal of digital only experiences is limited - but it’s that intersection between physical & digital that is really exciting for the future. For example, layering in digital elements like Augmented Reality into physical experiential spaces gives consumers something to discover beyond what they first see - it literally adds a whole new dimension to the space.