Issue No. 7
A pool with a very unique view. The TWA Hotel’s rooftop infinity pool looks out over JFK runway 4 Left / 22 Right. The Eero Saarinen landmark TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport, originally designed in 1962, was recently re-imagined as an upscale hotel. (Image courtesy of TWA Hotel)
Hi, this is Matt. Later this month, I’m headed to my hometown of Iowa City to spend Thanksgiving with my parents and siblings. For the occasion, my mom hangs a StoryPeople sign: “Rules for a successful holiday. 1. Get together with the family. 2. Relive old times. 3. Get out before it blows.” Well put, mom.
Holiday travel is stressful, and it often begins at the airport. My wife and I have two children under the age of four, carry at least 87 pieces of supplies through La Guardia, and take one of those regional jets where the bathrooms are so small that you have to bend your body into a pretzel shape just to fit in the lav.
In the spirit of rethinking the travel experience, we’ve interviewed Matt Heidkamp, the Creative Strategy Director at the media company Skift. By reporting on the business of travel, Skift has developed into a global authority on the subject. Earlier this year, Heidkamp co-authored Skift’s Design Manifesto to frame how the company looks at the role of design across travel: physical and digital, built environments, tech services, experiential moments, and more. It is one of the best things we’ve read about connecting design to business and real-world interactions.
Here, Heidkamp discusses why Skift wants to broaden the definition of “design”, unpacks how to measure the value of creativity, and makes the case that the best thing design can do for a person is to give them more control of their time.
Happy early Thanksgiving. We’ll be back the first week in December.
Amanda Tuft & Matt McCue, Co-Founders / Editors@thecreativefactor.co
This year, Skift, a leading voice in the travel industry, held its first Skift Design Awards in New York City. Ian Schrager was there, as was Debbie Millman. Yves Behar served as a judge, as did Jen Rubio, the Chief Brand Officer at AWAY, and Kristy Tillman, the Head of Experience Design at Slack. It was a stacked lineup from a media company that has launched one of the most prominent design initiatives out of nowhere. Why?
“Skift deciphers and defines the trends shaping the future of travel, but “travel” has many sectors: airlines, hospitality, food and beverage, business, and more,” says Skift Creative Strategy Director, Matt Heidkamp. “A point of focus between all of these sectors is the human experience.”
Meaningful interactions are key competitive advantages in travel because so many of the hard products—planes, cars, hotels— are physically indistinguishable, face the same regulations, and are largely locked in structurally. In order to differentiate yourself, you need to improve everything around the products, from the check-in process to loyalty programs to customer service.
This responsibility, Heidkamp notes in the Design Manifesto, falls on the designer...and the CEO, CMO, Chief Product Officer, brand marketers, event planners—anyone who has a hand in improving the overall travel experience.
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“Design” like “travel” is a word that gets used as an umbrella term, though it can be interpreted in many ways, depending on whom you ask. How should we define design?
A key part of the reason why we just use the term “design” and didn't go into more nuance—design thinking, architectural design, spatial design—is that we wanted to broaden the definition. We want to unify it around the idea of design being a solution—creating the right flow within an airport or making a mobile app more intuitive, or designing a space or event experience that brings people together—especially for experiences reliant on a series of interactions.
What does effective experience design look like in travel?
The underlying theme is a sense of well-being and respect for the end user. It should be a tool to reduce friction—keyless check-in by using your mobile phone and not having to deal with front lines. Or, on the other side, design can be transformative and enable personal fulfillment.
How do you view personal fulfillment?
For me, it boils down to time. It is such a finite resource. Time is really the ultimate form of currency. When you’re traveling, you’re spending your time going through a series of interactions, and have that heightened sense of expectation. It is a matter of the customer wanting to make sure that they are making the most of their time and returning home with a positive feeling or greater sense of self.
Top: The Sunken Lounge at the TWA Hotel boasts a split flap departures board by Solari di Udine - and a view of the hotel’s restored 1958 Lockheed Constellation “Connie.” Bottom: A view toward the Sunken Lounge from the tarmac where “Connie” - transformed into a cocktail lounge - now sits. Images courtesy TWA Hotel.
Where is good design impacting the travel industry?
I’m seeing better design finding the way to budget hotels, hostels, and other alternative accommodations. We’re seeing these older buildings revitalized in creative ways. It’s coming from a younger generation of design and business leaders that are giving people unique experiences in ways they can actually afford.
What about the other way around: Where is good design in travel being applied elsewhere?
We’re seeing the transformation of third spaces. The hotel lobby is where you now see retail, co-working, and other uses that are merging into one space for both visitors and locals to meet, workshop, whatever it might be.
The line between how we work, live, and play in these spaces is blurred, and I think there are a lot more consumed-branded integrations to come in the hospitality space. Look at the Shinola Hotel in Detroit, or Muji, which just opened a hotel in Japan that mirrors their design and retail bent, or Monocle developing high-end residential properties inspired by their magazines or, hysterically, Taco Bell opening up a pop-up hotel in Palm Springs.
As more interesting brands make their way inside the hotel room, you can think that, if the hotel design speaks to your aesthetic, you might be interested in what they have in their rooms, and you can buy these products to keep living that lifestyle.
Clockwise from top left: The Diner at the Muji Hotel in Shenzhen; A brightly lit corridor of the Shinola Hotel in Detroit; A room in the Muji style at their hotel in Shenzhen; An inviting lounge space at the Shinola Hotel; At the Muji Hotel, you’ll find some of the same goods that can be purchased in their stores around the world. (Images of the Muji Hotel, Muji; images of the Shinola Hotel from Shinola.)
These properties make transactions easy. If I like my robe at the Ace Hotel, I can take it with me when I check out and the hotel will add the cost to my bill. How does that feeling factor into the design ROI?
There's been an evolutionary process of what businesses offer to their customers. At the start of consumerism, it was commodities and tangible products and services. And then it evolved to experiences where we're now paying to engage in things like travel and entertainment.
That gives us a happy memory and provides people the chance to be their best selves. The way we apply that in a real way is something I'm keen to figure out. Good design is often invisible or intangible, and it could be difficult for a customer to say that that experience was transformational for them. Bad design is apparent, and the customer might not come back.
Longer-term you could measure good design on more loyalty, more super fans, and more engagement. What was the feeling that your user or customer walked away with at the end of the day? And are they going to come back to you?
Clockwise from top left: Lounge by the pool at the Taco Bell Hotel pop-up in Palm Springs; Rooms at the Taco Bell Hotel pop-up, complete with hot sauce-inspired throw pillows (images, Taco Bell/Taco Bell Hotel); Your dog is cooler than you are at the Shinola Hotel in downtown Detroit (image, Shinola Hotel).
So looking at the ROI question with effective design being about retention?
You don't write to the company after a great experience and say, “Hey, everything was super quick and seamless. But if it’s a terrible experience, the businesses are going to hear about it.
Why do you think that is?
When people are spending their time and money, they have certain expectations that it will be an amazing experience. For people who aren’t traveling all the time, they have a short window they’ve allocated where they want to have this great experience. If it doesn’t deliver, it’s upsetting. Most people in the U.S. only take two weeks of vacation per year, so it's really important they maximize the enjoyment they get out of it.
Conversation Starters
What is the point of the airline map?
That is a topic authors Maxwell Roberts and Mark Ovenden cover in their new pictorial history book, Airline Maps: A Century of Art and Design. According to the authors, airline maps were never intended for navigation. “They’re intended for empire-defining,” says Ovenden in an interview with City Lab. Early European airlines, who were notably state-subsidized, like KLM and the ancestor of British Airways, could use them to show the reach of their empires.
Flip through the back of an in-flight magazine today, and you’ll see about a zillion lines cutting across the pages to show every route. At some point, the lines blur into one, and the chance to advertise future services to people currently using your services is completely missed. “They’re essentially unusable,” says Roberts. “And that’s the big irony with airline maps: Nobody’s ever used an airline map to plan a journey.”
What it’s like aboard the longest flight in the world
Australian-based Quantas Airlines is preparing to begin nonstop commercial service from New York to Sydney in 2020. Total time for the trip? 20 hours. During the trial phase, Quantas has been testing various methodologies in an effort to create a more pleasant passenger experience, and to try and mitigate the effects of “soul-crushing, body-buckling jet lag.” Bloomberg journalist Angus Whitley bravely withstood voluntary sleep deprivation, group stretching exercises and mood evaluation questionnaires so you don’t have to. Read it here.
Welcome to Oslo. Please make your way through our fantasy forest.
Traveling with kids: necessary, sometimes surprisingly pleasant; other times not so much. Never fear, the folks at Oslo’s Flytoget, a high-speed rail service that connects the Oslo airport to surrounding cities, have your back. At the Flytoget airport station, children are met with a make-believe forest tunnel; climbing through successfully means you get to ride the train for free. This is a fun example of the power of experience design to surprise and delight even the youngest of weary travelers – as well as their weary caretakers. The Flytoget from Oslo airport is already free for kids 16 and under, but shhh - we won’t tell if you won’t.
/ Final Thought
We see you.
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