A family club in Manhattan.

Equinox began as one club in Manhattan. According to English Wikipedia, the Errico family — Danny, Vito and Lavinia Errico — opened the club on the Upper West Side on 23 September 1991. ABC News, reporting in July 2014, gave the same founding year, 1991, and described the company as an “upscale gym chain” based in New York.

The family did not keep control for long. Wikipedia says Harvey Spevak became chief executive in 1999 and in 2000 led a management buyout of Equinox to two private-equity firms, North Castle Partners and J.W. Childs. In 2006, it says, Spevak partnered with principals of Related Companies, the New York property developer, to acquire a controlling interest, and in 2017 the private-equity firm L Catterton took a significant minority stake. Wikipedia today names the owner as The Related Companies and describes Equinox Holdings as owned by a group of investors including Spevak, now executive chairman and managing partner, and Related principals. In short, a group including Related principals has controlled Equinox since 2006.

The company name on its filings and on Wikipedia is Equinox Holdings, Inc., headquartered in New York City; the trading name on clubs, apps and hotels is simply Equinox. The group sits in the same broad market as connected-fitness and athletic-wear brands — compare Peloton — though it began as a bricks-and-mortar club rather than as a product company. By 2014, ABC News reported, Equinox clubs were operating in cities including New York, Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and London; Wikipedia now lists clubs in major US cities as well as London, Toronto and Vancouver.

A club that became a group of brands.

Over the next two decades Equinox added brands around the core clubs. ABC News reported in July 2014 that Equinox had brought Pure Yoga, a yoga studio business with branches in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and Taipei, to New York City in 2008. In May 2011, the same report said, Equinox acquired a majority interest in SoulCycle, the indoor-cycling studio company, and in 2011 it set up Blink Fitness as a separate, lower-priced gym brand without classes or pools. Equinox had bought Sports Club/LA properties in Southern California and at Rockefeller Center in October 2011, and in July 2014 it announced it was buying further Sports Club/LA and Reebok Sports Club locations from Boston-based Millennium Partners, ABC News reported. In a statement quoted by ABC, the company called its “long-term vision” a portfolio of “complementary fitness brands.” Of the clubs it had already taken over, the company said it had “elevated the member experience” through new equipment, “extensive renovations,” new signature classes and trainer education. ABC also noted that Blink was sometimes called the “poor man’s Equinox,” offering machines, weights, mats and showers but, typically, no classes, pools or spa-style amenities — a distinct brand from its parent.

The portfolio later moved beyond gyms. Wikipedia says Equinox opened Equinox Hotels at Hudson Yards in Manhattan in July 2019, alongside a club there and, according to Wikipedia, a coworking venture called Industrious at Equinox in the same neighbourhood; the group also launched the Equinox+ app for digital classes. It also lists Precision Run, Project by Equinox, Equinox Explore and Equinox Media among the group’s brands. Blink Fitness filed for Chapter 11 protection on 12 August 2024, according to Wikipedia, and was later sold.

In its digital life, Wikipedia cites a 2024 interview in which Equinox’s chief technology officer said online membership sales were first developed in 2010, in preparation for Blink, and that the Equinox app offered class recommendations and check-in by proximity.

Design and documentation.

A gym or fitness-studio brand reaches people through spaces as much as through screens, so its identity has to work on a wide range of surfaces. Exterior signage is often the first contact: a fascia or illuminated sign has to read from across a car park or a busy street, which tends to favour a short wordmark, a simple symbol and a colour that holds up at night. Inside, the brand moves onto walls, floor graphics, wayfinding, locker areas and reception desks, where tone of voice and typography carry as much weight as the logo itself.

Lighting is a design tool in this category. Some studios use coloured light to set a mood for a class, while others favour bright, even light and pale finishes; either way, the chosen light changes how the brand colour looks in person. Apparel and merchandise extend the identity onto staff uniforms, towels, bottles and bags, so marks need to survive embroidery, single-colour print and small sizes. Apps and booking tools add another layer, translating the palette and type into icons, buttons and class schedules on a phone. A consistent system ties these touchpoints together without forcing every location to look identical.

Provocative advertising and a black-and-white name.

Equinox’s public image has rested heavily on its advertising. In July 2014 ABC News said the company was “known for its racy advertisements with scantily clad models.”

The brand reached beyond the clubs early on. In June 1996, in a piece about the rival New York gym Crunch, The New York Times reported that Equinox already had an active-wear line that it sold in its gyms, and that it planned to open an apparel and sporting-goods store of its own on the Upper West Side that August. The paper presented this as part of a wider move by Manhattan gyms to sell clothing and other goods under their own names.

The brand’s association with its owners has also been public. In August 2019 Vox reported calls to boycott Equinox and SoulCycle after Stephen Ross, the founder of Related Companies, hosted a fundraiser for Donald Trump’s re-election campaign; Vox noted that Equinox had supported LGBTQ charities in the past, and quoted an Equinox statement that the company “believe[s] in tolerance and equality and will always stay true to those values,” while SoulCycle called Ross a “passive investor.” On 2 June 2025 CBS New York reported that New York’s attorney general had announced a settlement with Equinox and SoulCycle over how members could cancel their memberships.

The group’s naming follows two patterns. Acquired or separately launched businesses kept their own names — SoulCycle, Pure Yoga and Blink Fitness — while newer ventures carry the parent name, as in Equinox Hotels, Equinox+, Equinox Explore and Project by Equinox. Equinox’s chairman is Harvey Spevak and its president Marc Mastronardi, according to Wikipedia.

For a design guide, Equinox shows how a single club name can be stretched across studios, hotels and an app while keeping one restrained visual voice. Compare lululemon and Peloton, two other fitness-lifestyle names, and Crunch Fitness, another New York club brand of the 1990s. For this guide we use black, stone and a bronze with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Equinox’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.