A new Ukrainian sauna brand launched in the United States

Nebo Ideas Agency, in collaboration with SMPL Design Studio, created a new steam sauna brand for the U.S. market — Woodrop.

Background

The culture of humid steam saunas and traditional bathing rituals is well established in Eastern Europe, yet remains largely absent from the American market. In the U.S., saunas are most often perceived as dry wellness amenities in gyms or spas, lacking a deeper ritual, bodily, and social context.

Objective

To create a steam sauna brand for the U.S. market that reshapes the perception of the humid sauna — not as just another wellness product, but as a complete ritual of relaxation and restoration.

Solution

Woodrop brings together the material and the physical. At the core of the brand is wood as the sole material of the product, and water, present in three states throughout the ritual. The central idea, however, lies in drops of sweat — the result of deep relaxation and physical cleansing.
The name Woodrop became the entry point to this concept, combining wood and drop as symbols of material, process, and embodied experience.
Following the approval of the name, the visual identity was developed: the logo and color palette were created, drawing inspiration from liquid soundscape music and a reimagined approach to contemporary gallery-style identity. The logo features a smoky, droplet-like texture of humid steam with soft blur, complemented by a leaf that references the sauna whisk — a key element of the humid bathing ritual, still largely unfamiliar to American consumers.
To highlight the uniqueness of both the product and the experience, a slogan was created to function as both an invitation and a call to action:
Woodrop steam sauna — Dissolve the tension.
This approach allowed Woodrop not only to enter the market, but to begin introducing a new culture of humid steam saunas to an American audience.