The YAYS Neighbourhood Guide

This project illustrates my experience with creative project management, copywriting, and editorial direction.

YAYS is a Dutch hospitality brand offering premium services apartments in cities around Europe. Their concept is based on the promise to unlock the neighbourhood, offering off-track local experiences to their guests. By staying at a YAYS serviced apartment, you gain a base in authentic central neighbourhoods preferred by the locals, while keeping easy access to the main tourist highlights. Experienced concierges – the YAYS Insiders – trained to share ultra-local tips with guests are key to the brand experience and ambassadors of the YAYS neighbourhoods.

The guide

The YAYS Neighbourhood Guide is a travel book condensing the local knowledge the brand is championing. The assignment was to create a series of pocket-size books compiling a curated selection of YAYS’ recommendations about the neighbourhoods where YAYS has its buildings, in Amsterdam West, Amsterdam East, Paris, The Hague, and Antwerp. The guide needed to enhance the brand experience, being gifted to guests upon check-in and mapping unique spots that are normally not featured in mainstream guides.

In 2019, I was appointed with the editorial direction and redesign of the guide – which till then was only available for Amsterdam and had very limited content – and create 5 new local editions.

Goals:

• Highlight the added value of the physical guide as a keepsake
• Improve the content quality of the previous Amsterdam edition
• Differentiate the new book concept from the original version, which came across as too ‘salesy’, misleadingly suggesting that local businesses paid their feature in the book with commissions
• Make the content more engaging for readers, to ensure that they would in fact make use of it as a travel guide during the stay
• Improve the editorial quality of the text compared to the previous editions
• Add innovative features and sections to enrich the product

I was in charge of:

• User research
• Concept and editorial direction
• Creative Direction and book design, in collaboration with the Marketing Director
• Project Management
• Content design
• Copywriting, Editing, and Localisation
• Selection and coordination of vendors (design agency, editor, photographers, etc)
• Quality control.

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