Salvatierra is a hotel and yoga retreat located on a private 10-acre beachfront along Playa Coyote, Costa Rica.

Our client contacted us to develop the Strategy, Naming and Branding for this space. A place where he himself had experienced a feeling that had been difficult to explain, that goes beyond a lifestyle or an ideology and for that reason he wanted to create this project to share it.

During the process of building the strategy we discussed the convergence point of certain statements mentioned in the book “The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age” (William Rees-Mogg and James Dale, 1997) and the philosophy of yoga. The book talks about the revolutionary change that will occur when certain individuals begin to give value to “intangible things”. The physical world (nation- state, traditional economy) begins to lose value, and therefore to disappear. This giving value to intangible things happens also in Yoga philosophy, but it is taken even further, considering that everything that is threatened by change (body, things, thoughts, desires) are illusions that have no importance. The only thing that’s real is The Self.

In conclusion, the “sovereign individual” is not a digital nomad that is “free” from old structures (but needs 24/7 internet access), but has the spirit of the yogi, understands the world differently, got out of the rat race, values every experience in life, in nature, and chooses peace above all else.

The purpose of the brand is to create a space where these people can meet and find inspiration to continue on the path they are on.

The name Salvatierra arises from the idea to build the brand around a proper noun. The thought process to choose a proper name native to the Costa Rican land, led us among other ways, to literature. We analyzed some of the outstanding Costa Rican authors and their works and discovered a poem, written by Isaac Felipe Azofeifa, which gives us a lot of inspirational material for the task. We chose a poem named: YO SOY MI PROPIA PALABRA / I AM MY OWN WORD where the author mentions a list of famous and fictional characters (like Cortázar and Don Quijote) and some others that are only known by the author (like José Salvatierra, the bricklayer). “Salvatierra” was a great name because even though it is a last name, it is formed by two words: “salva” which means to save (rescue) and “tierra” which means land.

Regarding branding, we purposely decided to intervene as little as possible in the space or fill it with unnecessary signage. We made the wordmark, the monogram and a series of symbols that speak of what the project is about, with brush and paint. An exercise to intentionally move away from the digital in order to be coherent with the whole concept.

In addition we were in charge of the design and development of their website, which can be consulted at SALVATIERRACR.COM