New horizons for a beloved brand

Founded in 2015, as a newsletter to family and friends, Scott’s Cheap Flights now has a membership of over 2 million people. Having grown to encompass a website, search engine, newsletter and soon-to-launch app, they help members find more value when they travel by approaching booking differently. 

Today, with a team of over 60, the brand has grown beyond just Scott, and beyond the initial proposition of ‘cheap flights’. As such, DesignStudio was challenged to build on this incredible growth with a new brand strategy, name and visual identity for the next-leg of the brand’s journey.

One of the many things that makes Scott’s Cheap Flights so special is the way in which they open up the world for their members. By encouraging a new approach to booking that focuses less on the destination, they broaden one's perspective on how to travel through enticing and unexpected opportunities. 

We began our collaboration by speaking with company employees, key stakeholders, and Scott’s members, including longtime followers of the brand. We uncovered a consistent mantra around the idea of ‘invite the unexpected,’ which encourages users to explore new destinations by having the courage to spin the globe and pick a deal somewhere untraveled to them.

When so much of the travel industry is positioned around price, and the company had grown far beyond the individual name of their founder, Scott’s Cheap Flights needed to create differentiation through an emotive platform to better connect with consumers. The name, Going, instills a sense of curiosity and eagerness that they aim to inspire within all of their members.

The marque is a playful interpretation of the spontaneous twists and turns of traveling, which always leaves us landing on our feet with a sense of optimism. The reverse loop symbolizes the brand’s unique deal-first approach, which opens up travelers’ possibilities by starting with price.

The design system is based on the intrepid notion of being open-minded enough to spin a globe and spontaneously pick a destination. This translates digitally into interactive and motion principles that allow one to peruse destinations and deals, never knowing what will be next around the corner, discovering something new with every swipe.

We developed an expansive toolkit for the Going team, in which all assets aim to bring a personal touch; a nod to the brand’s beginnings and a symbol of Scott’s ongoing involvement. Each aspect of the system ties back to our overarching brand idea, to ‘invite the unexpected,’ by hiding and revealing, flipping and rotating.

Our color story is inspired by the biological diversity found within the globe’s four hemispheres. We’ve chosen warm and cool hues to compliment the range of climates depicted in our photography. Pairing these hues with vibrant accents of green, orange, and pink conveys the excitement of traveling and discovering new ways of life.

Our illustrations, created by Olivia Malone, are a depiction of our community members. We have our illustrations interact with our globe and destinations to signify Going’s role in bridging the gap between dreaming of where to go, and actually booking it. Our illustrations were designed to do much more than be purely decorative; we additionally pair them with iconography in educational moments throughout the product to signify how Going is always looking for ways to make travel planning more easy and enjoyable.

Where photography is used, we steer clear of bucket list landmarks and overly posed travelers. Instead, we opt for vignettes of smaller moments that tell unexpected and intimate stories. Where we can, we hero user generated content that represents traveler's perspectives from all walks of life.

Upon launching, Going had the world buzzing through a thoroughly choreographed rollout that allowed its members to not only have a behind-the-scenes look at the rebranding process, but also ask questions to Scott firsthand. While this is a big visual change, Brian Kidwell, Co-founder and CEO at Going says, “one thing that hasn’t changed is the soul of this company.” We’re excited to follow along with all of the new ways Going helps its members travel, beyond saving them money.

Thank you to the Going team: Brian Kidwell, Scott Keyes, Derek Cann, Kim Fred, Rachel Smith, Pratika Appaiah, Kylie Ruffino, Olivia Malone.