Inside the Redesign: How Duo Studio Rebuilt Here & Away as One Continuous Project

“Duo Studio is a small design studio based in Baltimore,” Sonia says. “We are a really tight-knit team, and we focus on two things: branding and websites for businesses with real substance.”

The philosophy is the first thing she returns to in conversation, and the one most clearly stamped on the rebuild.

“For us, brand and web are not two separate things,” Sonia says. “They are one continuous project. Strategy, identity, messaging, content, design, and development, all carried by the same team from the first conversation through to the last detail. That is the piece most studios split apart, and honestly, I think it is why so much work out there ends up feeling disjointed.”

Nothing at Duo runs on a template. Everything is custom-built around what each client actually is and what they actually need. The studio works best with a particular kind of client.

“We work best with founders and teams who really care about the details,” she says. “Travel brands, cultural organizations, founder-led businesses with real history. People who know their work is strong and are ready for the way they show up in the world to finally match.”

The first impression was less about what was missing and more about what was already in place.

“Going through Here & Away for the first time, what really struck me was how much care had already gone into it,” Sonia says. “The properties were extraordinary, hand-selected, and very clearly chosen for travelers who care about where they stay. You could feel that in the photography, in the way each stay was being talked about, even just in browsing through the old site.”

The problem was elsewhere.

“What was unresolved was the connection between the inside and the outside,” she says. “The stays themselves were so elevated, and the brand around them just had not quite caught up yet. The messaging had not fully landed, the visual identity did not reflect the caliber of the properties, and the old Squarespace setup could not carry the experience the way it really deserved to be carried.”

That diagnosis is what led Duo to push for a full project rather than a piece of one.

“That is also why we wanted to take this on as one full project, instead of a logo refresh or a site refresh in isolation,” Sonia says. “A strong brand is not a logo. It is the strategy underneath, the way you talk, the way the website moves, the way every little detail makes someone feel something. We knew we needed to address all of it together, and from the very beginning, to do it right.”

The decision to hand the rebuild to a single studio came from a clear set of impressions on the other side of the table. Alexis Jacot, Co-Founder of Here & Away, says the first thing that landed was the way Duo approached the brief itself.

“We were really impressed with Duo Studio’s very structured way of getting to know the brand,” Alexis says, “and with the depth of the analysis they did before any design work began.”

That early thoroughness carried into the visual direction Duo presented.

“The design and branding direction were just as impressive,” he says. “We could see, from the very first presentations, that real time had been spent understanding the work, the properties, and the kind of company we wanted Here & Away to become.”

What sealed the engagement, in his telling, was a sense of recognition.

“We felt that Duo understood, right away, who we were and where we wanted to go,” Alexis says. “That is a rare thing, and it is the reason the project never felt like a fight to be understood.”

The visual direction was clear from the first conversations. Duo wanted the brand to sit alongside the properties rather than on top of them.

“From the start, we knew we wanted to lean really hard into organic elements,” Sonia says. “Natural textures, earthy tones, references that honored the actual places these properties live in, whether that was a desert, a coastline, or a quiet mountain town. Nature was the anchor for the whole thing.”

The thinking behind the restraint was, in Sonia’s telling, almost obvious.

“Each stay is its own world,” she says. “Its own architecture, its own light, its own sense of place. The last thing we wanted was a brand that overpowered any of that. We wanted something elegant and restrained, a brand that knew when to step back and let the properties speak for themselves.”

The references for that restraint came from outside the travel industry as much as from inside it.

“So we went back to the roots, literally,” Sonia says. “The inspiration came from the natural world each stay sits inside, and from the kind of editorial restraint you see in the best travel publications, where the subject matter leads and the design stays quiet around it.”

Duo runs its projects in a deliberate order. The order is part of the method, not a scheduling choice.

“For us, the biggest decisions always happen at the very beginning, in the strategy phase,” Sonia says. “Once we know how we want to position the brand, how it should feel, who it is speaking to, and what it should stand for, everything downstream just kind of follows naturally from that.”

After strategy came the work on language and identity. That is where the Here & Away voice took shape.

“We spent a lot of time on the messaging and identity,” she says. “That is where the voice really came together, where we landed on the tone, the language, the way Here & Away would talk about its hosts, its properties, its travelers.”

By the time the website work began, the design problem had already been mostly solved by the brand work.

“By the time we got to the website, the path was already pretty clear,” Sonia says. “The site did not have to invent its own logic, it just had to translate the brand we had already built into a digital experience. That is the value of doing it in this order. Nothing ever feels patched together at the end.”

Ask Sonia what sets the new Here & Away apart, and her answer starts with what most travel sites are not doing.

“Honestly, a lot,” she says. “Most travel sites are purely transactional. You search, you filter, you book, and that is about it. Here & Away is something else entirely. The site really invites you to slow down and stay a while.”

She lists what is there, in order of how a reader might encounter it.

“You can read full host stories, written almost like editorial features, that pull you into the world behind each property. You can browse the stays just for inspiration, with no booking pressure at all. There is an interactive travel quiz that gives you really personalized recommendations based on the kind of trip you actually want, not just dates and headcount. The filtering goes deep, with maps built right into the discovery experience. And there is a thoughtfully curated shop tied to the travel world too.”

The result, in Duo’s framing, is a hybrid that most travel sites do not even try for.

“Visually, the whole thing really reads more like a beautifully made magazine than a booking site,” Sonia says. “The photography leads, the storytelling carries, and the booking functionality sits underneath all of that in a way that feels considered rather than aggressive.”

And the rare part is the combination of the two.

“Most sites in travel kind of pick a side,” she says. “They go editorial and skimp on functionality, or they go really functional and end up feeling cold. Here & Away does both.”

Looking at the finished project, Sonia speaks about it with the openness of someone who knows the work landed.

“This is one of the projects I am most proud of,” she says. “The branding came out exactly the way we had hoped. It was restrained, elegant, quietly confident. And the website translates that same energy into something you can actually feel as you scroll.”

Asked to point to the single feature she is proudest of, the answer is specific.

“The part I am proudest of is the storytelling on the individual stay pages,” Sonia says. “When you land on a property, you are not just looking at a listing. You are being introduced to the place, and the people behind it. The large editorial photography, the story-driven headlines, the minimal layout, the smooth interactions, all of it works together to put you inside the stay before you ever even think about booking it.”

She finishes on the line that, in many ways, describes the whole approach Duo brought to the project.

“The site is not loud, but it is deeply considered,” Sonia says. “Every little detail is doing something. And the result is an experience where the soul of each property and the voice of each host actually come through.”