Three club managers and a convenient idea.

Anytime Fitness grew out of a single health club in suburban St Paul, Minnesota. English Wikipedia says its founders, Chuck Runyon, Dave Mortensen and Jeff Klinger, met in the early 1990s while working at a fitness club in St Paul, and in 1995 jointly bought and ran the Southview Athletic Club. The St Paul Pioneer Press reported in March 2008 that the three men had bought the old Southview Athletic Club in West St Paul, later sold it, and used the proceeds to launch Anytime Fitness in 2002.

The idea came from members. Klinger, then chief executive, told the Pioneer Press that around 1999 the partners began asking members why they had joined, and that the overwhelming answer was convenience. The concept they developed was a compact club near a supermarket or retail centre, open around the clock with little staff — what Klinger called “the lazy man’s option for operating a fitness club.” The newspaper described the business as a 24-hour, no-frills gym franchise then based in Hastings, Minnesota, and quoted Runyon saying the clubs did not have smoothie bars or aerobics.

The name states the proposition. “Anytime” describes the opening hours rather than a product, and the brand has been built on that promise of access. Wikipedia says the debut franchise opened in Cambridge, Minnesota, run by Eric Keller, a former Southview employee, with further early clubs in Duluth and Albert Lea opened by other former Southview staff, before the founders opened a company-owned club in Bemidji.

The company expanded abroad from the middle of the decade. Wikipedia dates its opening club outside the United States to February 2005 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, followed by clubs in Mexico, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. In December 2009, Wikipedia says, Klinger sold his shares and stepped down as chief executive, and Runyon took over the role.

From Hastings to Woodbury, and a family of brands.

In 2012, Wikipedia says, Runyon and Mortensen formed Self Esteem Brands as an umbrella organisation for Anytime Fitness and other personal-care businesses. Its first addition, in November 2012, was Waxing the City, a small chain of waxing salons, which they converted to a franchise model like Anytime Fitness. Basecamp Fitness joined in 2018, The Bar Method in 2019 and Stronger U Nutrition in 2021, according to Wikipedia.

Outside capital followed. Wikipedia says Roark Capital Group acquired a large minority stake in Anytime Fitness in March 2014, with Mortensen and Runyon remaining the main holders and continuing to run the business. In April 2016 the company moved its headquarters from Hastings to Woodbury, Minnesota; Wikipedia says the new building included office space, a running trail and a tattoo parlour.

The Pioneer Press described the original format in 2008 as a club of about 4,000 square feet near a supermarket or retail hub, with clubs typically staffed for part of the day and open to members around the clock. Runyon told the newspaper that the clubs kept tanning booths because they did not take up much room.

Technology became part of the offer. Athletech News reported in November 2024 that Anytime Fitness had made headlines in 2023 by partnering with Apple Fitness+, extending the brand into an app-based workout library alongside the clubs.

Signage, light and screens.

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.

Part of Purpose Brands since 2024.

A further change in ownership came in 2024. Wikipedia says that in late February 2024 Self Esteem Brands announced a merger with Orangetheory Fitness, the Florida studio franchise, and that the deal was completed in April 2024.

Athletech News reported on 21 November 2024 that the combined company had been named Purpose Brands, with headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida, and Woodbury, Minnesota, and that Tom Leverton, a former chief executive of Topgolf, would lead it. The holding company included Anytime Fitness, Orangetheory, The Bar Method, Basecamp/Sumhiit Fitness and Waxing the City. Roark Capital, which had previously invested in both Self Esteem Brands and Orangetheory, would continue to support the combined business, the companies said.

Runyon and Orangetheory co-founder Dave Long joined the Purpose Brands board, while Leverton took on day-to-day leadership. Runyon told Athletech News that he and Long had discussed bringing their companies together for several years, and explained the new name: “Going back to the earliest conversations Dave Long and I had, we’ve always (had) very purpose-driven organizations.”

The two brands in the merger present themselves differently. Anytime Fitness is named for its opening hours and built on round-the-clock access; Orangetheory is named for a colour and built on coached classes. The November 2024 report lists them as separate brands within Purpose Brands, each keeping its own name.

The Minnesota roots remain visible in the business. Woodbury, a suburb of St Paul, is one of the two headquarters named for Purpose Brands. The company was based in Hastings when the Pioneer Press profiled it in 2008, and the founders had run the Southview club in West St Paul.

For a design guide, Anytime Fitness shows how a brand can be built on a single promise — access at any hour — and carried by a name and a symbol that must work on a lit sign in a retail strip and on a phone. Compare Orangetheory Fitness, its sister brand under Purpose Brands, and Peloton, another fitness name that moved onto screens. For this guide we use purple, midnight and steel grey with a condensed sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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