The Miyako Hotel is an overnight accommodation in downtown Los Angeles infusing Japanese elegance and hospitality within the context of a full-service cosmopolitan American hotel.

Miyako Hotels began as a tea house and Japanese-style garden in Kyoto, leading to the first Miyako Hotel in 1900.

Seeking to bridge the East and West, Kintetsu Enterprise Company of America expanded the Miyako Hotel chain from Japan to San Francisco’s Japantown in 1968.

Today, the Miyako Hotel Los Angeles and Miyako Hybrid Hotel Torrance are the two independent overseas branches of the Miyako Hotels and Resorts chain.

The Miyako Hotel Los Angeles’s primary offering is proximity to many attractions in a historically and culturally significant district of Los Angeles, with further access provided by nearby metro and railway stations.

In addition, the Miyako Hotel Los Angeles features a number of Japanese amenities, including traditional and contemporary Japanese cuisine and buffets at the Tamon Restaurant, a cocktail and karaoke bar at Lounge Ohjah, Japanese heated water bidets, and traditional Japanese baths in premium rooms.

The Miyako Hotel is located in Little Tokyo, a Japanese-American historic and cultural district located in Downtown Los Angeles.

As one of three official Japantowns in the United States, the five blocks of Little Tokyo that remain today carry the legacy of Japanese-American history, representing Japanese-American resilience from immigration, to World War II incarceration, to redevelopment, gentrification, and socioeconomic challenges.

As primarily a business hotel, a large portion of the Miyako Hotel’s clientele include working professionals from around the United States, Japan, and further abroad.

The hotel is also a popular choice for individuals and families in town for conferences and events hosted at the nearby event centers and attractions.

This project expands the current audience by targeting a younger demographic interested in travel and unique cultural experiences, transforming Little Tokyo into a destination rather than a perk.

The current logo is clean and business-appropriate. However, it is not memorable, and fails to capture the cultural history of its surroundings.

The name “Miyako” ｢都｣ means “capital”, referring to the hotel chain’s locations in flourishing centers of business and entertainment, but the Little Tokyo Japanese-American community has been struggling for years.

This brand redesign is necessary to attract more customers to Little Tokyo, revitalizing the community and helping family-owned businesses survive. The redesign will also help update the brand to better reflect its identity as a part of Little Tokyo, and its mission to act as a bridge between cultures.

The logo design seeks to pay homage to the Japanese/Japanese-American Little Tokyo community by introducing elements of wabi-sabi (imperfection) and iki (understated elegance).

The final logo icon concept combines the Japanese character for "Miyako" (都) and the neighborhood block in which the Miyako Hotel resides, bringing Little Tokyo into the Miyako Hotel's brand identity.

The sun radical (日) in the lower left is both an abstract representation of a hotel building as well as the actual location of the Miyako Hotel in the neighborhood map.

Careful attention was paid to maintain wabi-sabi balance and harmony despite having irregular, asymmetrical shapes. The color of the logo is red, similar to the ink used in traditional Japanese hanko stamps, but darkened and desaturated to elevate and refine the iki appearance.

To develop the brand narrative integrating the Miyako Hotel into Little Tokyo, a lookbook was produced documenting some of the public artwork displayed around Little Tokyo.

The lookbook, entitled "Kakehashi" or "bridge", is split into multiple sections based on the street each public art piece is located.

The lookbook, entitled "Kakehashi" or "bridge", is split into multiple sections based on the street each public art piece is located.

Three page formulas and several tip-in pages were used to keep the experience dynamic.

The booking website is calm and welcoming, in line with the brand identity established.