A Summer Postcard You’ll Want to Keep: Designing the World of RIKA Retreats

Skipping Euro Summer, Designing One Instead

Skipping Euro summer this year was a tough call. But with client brand launches stacked mid-year, staying in Singapore felt like the grown-up decision. Besides, we’re never short of sunshine here. Still, watching everyone sip spritzes on the Adriatic coast was enough to inspire a new brand identity project.

This time, we set our sights on creating something that blended our professional design practice with a personal longing for the sun-soaked, carefree essence of European summers. Fresh from working on two private island websites in Indonesia, the concept practically begged to be born. And so it was: RIKA.

When Your Name Becomes the Brand

Naming a brand is always the hardest part. This one came closer to home than usual. RIKA is a shortened form of my own name, Jerica, with a cheeky swap of the C for a K. When we soft-launched the identity online, only my brother caught on (and promptly roasted me for it). But hey, manifesting your future boutique retreat brand starts somewhere, right?

At its heart, RIKA is a boutique retreat experience that blends conscious travel with inner work in some of the world’s most breathtaking places. Unlike the cookie-cutter wellness brands that lean heavily on beige and solemn silence, RIKA brings a different vibe. It’s spirited. Colourful. Sun-drenched. A quiet rebellion against the travel industry’s obsession with ticking boxes and surface-level escapes.

RIKA offers fewer retreats by design, each one carefully crafted with soul. Think remote island sanctuaries in Lombok, mystical caves in Greece, or golden coastlines in Koh Samui. The point isn’t to pack in more, it is to give participants space to discover.

A Retreat That Refuses to Whisper Beige

If most wellness brands dress in neutrals, RIKA shows up in colour-blocked swimwear with a spritz in hand. The palette is unapologetically vibrant: lemon yellow, cobalt blue, and sunset orange. It’s Amalfi umbrellas, Greek island rooftops, Aperol hours, and the kind of tan lines you still notice weeks later.

Yellow brings warmth and energy, blue grounds it with clarity and depth, while orange adds that playful, slightly rebellious kick.

Retro Script Meets Modern Sans

The RIKA logo is deliberately playful. Lowercase lettering keeps things approachable, while the customised “R” — whose tail joins up to dot the “i” — adds a touch of unity and flow. It’s subtle, but symbolic: everything comes together, coalescing as one.

The typography choice drives home the carefree spirit. California Script is bold, fun, and just the right amount of retro. Paired with geometric sans-serifs, the brand balances youthful energy with clean modernity. On occasion, a hand-drawn spiral makes its way above the logo, adding character and a hint of whimsy.

From Assouline Covers to Aegean Blues

This is where the identity comes alive. The imagery is sun-soaked, skin-glazed, and citrus-splashed. Photos lean candid, joyful, and saturated, the kind you’d find tucked inside a travel diary, not staged in a studio.

And then there’s the towel. Remember the signature yellow-white striped beach towel? It became the tactile heartbeat of the brand. A pattern, a backdrop, even a standalone brand object connects RIKA to a physical reality, something you can touch, lay on, tan with, or sling over a sunbed.

We also drew inspiration from the bold covers of Assouline’s travel series. Each retreat location takes on its own colour-led sub-brand identity. Zakynthos in deep Aegean blue, Lombok in volcanic orange, Isla del Sol in tropical teal. All while staying within RIKA’s broader visual language. The result is a set of “mini-identities” that feel distinct yet harmonised, like postcards from the same adventure.

Bringing It All Together

RIKA is a brand about contrast: intentional travel, done with flair. It marries conscious retreats with European summer nostalgia, inner work with outer joy. It’s fun, flamboyant, and a little irreverent, but never careless. The design system reflects this balance as bold typography pairs with plenty of white space, bright colours organised by structured grids, and retro-inspired imagery rooted in contemporary application.

It’s a reminder that wellness doesn’t always have to whisper. Sometimes it can let its hair down.

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At KOVA, we see projects like RIKA as a playground, a space where personal inspiration meets professional craft. It’s where identity design moves beyond colours and fonts, becoming an experience you can almost taste (and sunbathe in).

For us, RIKA is proof that with the right story and soul, a brand can feel alive long before it exists. And who knows? Maybe one day, you’ll find yourself on a RIKA retreat, Aperol in hand, basking in the sun. Until then, we’ll keep building identities that feel just as real.