SYNTAX captured Alaa’s love for travel and transformed it into a business centered around community, openness, and exploration.
SYNTAX's VentureDNA process of multifaceted exploration, ideation and design aims at creating entrepreneurial breakthroughs. Driven by the core values a founder brings to the table, we explore the dimensions of business model, technology, community, content, brand and touchpoints in the context of emerging trends and consumer behavior.
Working in close partnership with a founding team we develop original scenarios for the venture. In the tension between left brain thinking of considering a venture's business logic, and right brain thinking that imagine's a venture's brand, tonality and community outreach we co-create ventures that are holistically designed, primed to create an impact in their markets and invent/reinvent business categories.
For The School of Travel, the project started with an in-depth investigation into the cultural and technological travel trends. Travel is changing for a generation that want to travel for meaning, transformation, connection and purpose. The experience of travel has been transformed by technology and traveler behavior has been transformed by that. We explored the new emerging travel ecosystem, both in the Arab region and globally. Subsequently, the core concept began to emerge: community travel as a way of life.
From there, various scenarios were plotted, giving the client the chance to imagine and assess different possibilities. A scenario was then chosen, developed and refined into a comprehensive longterm strategy—The VentureDNA Map, which explores six key aspects of a business.
Ethos: The School of Travel’s guiding beliefs and ideals.
Idea: the core concept that drives the business and brand name.
TouchPoints: the places where The School of Travel unfolds.
Business Model: revenue streams, costs and risks.
Team: the people who work together to implement The School of Travel’s strategy within a cohesive organizational structure.
Roadmap: a longterm rollout plan.
The journey has just begun for the School of Travel, and we can’t wait to see its passionate vision come to life.
The School of Travel brand is all about being bold. It exists for enthusiastic and passionate travelers for whom traveling is a lifestyle. Those who create stories and share experiences with other like-minded wanderers.
The name 'The School of Travel' was created in direct contrast to the endless string of recent "new age" travel brands and startups that have become confusing. The School of Travel is a way to say: travel teaches life. At the School of Travel, you don't travel alone. The brand name stand for an experience you share with fellow travelers, whether you're sitting around the same camp fire or through content you're sharing with members of your travel community across the planet.
The brand’s visual identity relies on three main elements, the logo acting as the community’s badge and the black and white photographs that come hand in hand with big and colorful typography. It’s all about curiosity, adventure, gathering and bonding.
