Design Partner · 2013–2024
I joined Victor when the company had around six people, and worked with them through their growth to a team of 200+, first in-house and later as a long-term design partner, as the company expanded from a London startup to a transatlantic operation. Working within a live transactional booking environment, I collaborated closely with product, engineering, marketing, sales and commercial teams – contributing to the booking platform, supporting the launch of the iOS app, and ensuring cohesion across web, app, email and offline brand touchpoints.
The creative challenge throughout was consistent: a brand that had to live in two registers simultaneously – premium enough to appear in HTSI, Country Life and Robb Report, and accessible enough to convert a first-time booker on their phone at 11pm.
The creative challenge throughout was consistent: a brand that had to live in two registers simultaneously – premium enough to appear in HTSI, Country Life and Robb Report, and accessible enough to convert a first-time booker on their phone at 11pm.
Over ten years, the brand touched a lot of surfaces: a print advertising estate across 100+ publications and six markets, a transactional web and app experience, a weekly email programme and transactional email system, an in-house luxury magazine, B2B sales materials, and a set of new sub-brands. Keeping that coherent – without losing the visual soul of it – as the company scaled was the main job.
What I owned: Brand identity · Website & Landing Pages · App UI (Victor Echo & Main App) · Email Systems · Print Advertising · Editorial (Victor Magazine) · Subbrands (Victor+, Victor HR) · B2B Sales Materials · Social Media · Partnership Design · Brand Photography Direction
Website Redesign & Web Design
From 2013 I was closely involved in shaping Victor's digital presence – from early charter request flows through to the website redesign that introduced the search-led homepage. This was early-stage, high-stakes work: a premium product in a category where the competition was either opaque or dated. The site had to feel like a tech company and a luxury brand simultaneously.
The central UX decision was a search-led hero – clean, minimal, conversion-focused. Inspired by how Airbnb had simplified holiday rental, the idea was to remove every barrier between a first-time visitor and a quote request. No clutter, no confusion about what to do next. Just the search.
From that redesign I contributed to web design across the entire growth period – landing pages, app promo pages, campaign pages, carbon and sustainability pages and the main website evolution through to 2024. I maintained a consistent visual language across a site that was constantly growing and changing. Each page lived in a live transactional environment, built close to engineering, designed to convert.
The search-led hero concept has proven resilient – surviving multiple tech stack migrations and website redesigns over more than a decade. Removed at one point and later reinstated, it remains the primary conversion mechanism on the site today.
Landing Pages
Brand Photography & Print Advertising
Victor's visual identity was anchored by a series of composite brand images – private jet photography from our own airport shoots, placed into city and destination backgrounds sourced and selected for each campaign.
I art-directed several of these images: selecting jet photography, sourcing and evaluating location backgrounds, creating rough composites in Photoshop to brief the retouching agency, and managing feedback through to final approved files. Other images in the series were directed by the founder and CMO. The resulting campaigns ran across 100+ publications and every digital channel for the better part of a decade.
Campaigns included: Marina/Monaco, New York City day and night, Dalmatian Coast, Miami/Ocean Drive, London Business, Music Industry, and the Clive Jackson CEO portrait series used in FT Weekend and HTSI.
Print Advertising
A print advertising estate that ran simultaneously across 100+ luxury publications in the UK, Europe and US – Financial Times, HTSI, Country Life, Robb Report, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Handelsblatt, Le Figaro, Spears, Elite Traveler. Every ad was adapted for the publication's dimensions and tone, while maintaining Victor's visual system.
Over eight years, the brand photography evolved through several distinct campaigns. I designed for every format: DPS, single page, half page, tip-ons, advertorials. The challenge was maintaining a consistent brand voice across formats that ranged from a full-page FT Weekend spread to a half-page in a regional business title.
Measuring the Unmeasurable
To track the impact of print advertising – traditionally difficult to measure compared to digital channels – we introduced fast track codes printed directly on ads, prompting new users to sign up at flyvictor.com or via the Victor app with a unique code tied to each publication. What began as a promotional mechanic ('Get £1,000 off your first flight') evolved into a meaningful acquisition tracking tool: we could compare which publications generated the most new users, quote requests and eventual bookings, helping justify and optimise a significant print advertising spend.
Later expanded with QR codes, this system also shifted attitudes internally – giving the sales team visibility into marketing's contribution to actual bookings, and creating a more collaborative relationship between marketing and commercial teams.
Sustainability Communications
When environmental criticism of private aviation peaked, Victor didn't go quiet. I designed the full communications programme that positioned them as the industry's most transparent operator – moving from a single email signature (200% carbon offset, 2019) through a printed Special Report, to the 'world's first carbon-negative flying' brand position in 2021, to a partnership publication with Neste on sustainable aviation fuel in 2022.
Each piece had to be credible to sustainability organisations while still feeling at home in a luxury brand context. The visual language needed to carry weight – it was doing strategic, not just decorative, work.
Email
I built the email system that made it possible to design hundreds of campaigns at pace – templates, modular image structures, a consistent type/colour hierarchy that could flex across events (Monaco Grand Prix, US Open, Coachella), partnerships (Alto, Burgess Yachts, Net-A-Porter) and markets (UK, US, Europe).
Over eight years the catalogue grew to include weekly sends, triggered flows, seasonal campaigns and co-branded partnerships – from 2016 to 2024. Volume and consistency, without the work looking like a factory.
Social Media
Instagram grid planning, LinkedIn campaign visuals, Facebook ad formats, story templates, and the full social media image system – including templates the wider marketing team could use to maintain consistency at pace. The grid planning work shows the brand thinking: Victor's Instagram feed wasn't individual posts, it was a curated visual environment.
Victor Magazine
Victor Magazine was an integral part of the brand – a high-quality in-house publication produced multiple times a year, distributed to clients and used in B2B contexts. I was involved in the design of multiple issues over the years – covers, feature layouts, advertising integration – working alongside external designers and a design agency on different occasions, providing creative direction and feedback. An editorial challenge quite different from campaign work: building a luxury editorial voice inside a brand that was primarily digital and transactional.
Victor Brochures
Targeted sales and marketing collateral for different audiences and contexts – from brand introductions and corporate materials to niche campaign brochures for the music and business aviation markets.
Internal Subbrands
Victor+
Victor+ was an internal wellbeing and culture programme – monthly fitness challenges, mental health talks, resources and referral initiatives for the Victor team. A distinct subbrand that needed to feel connected to Victor but warmer, more human and more personal than the main brand.
I designed the complete Victor+ identity from scratch: logo, brand colours, brand treatment for photography including graphic devices and vectors applied across images and documents, icons, pull-up banners for the office, monthly challenge templates, letter templates, poster templates and social content templates.
Because it was internal, it allowed for more creative freedom and a deliberate stretch from the main Victor brand – something bolder, more playful and less luxury-focused than we would ever do externally. The goal was for it to feel distinctive and stand out in the office environment and internal communications, while still reading as part of the Victor family. A conscious design decision, not a departure by accident.
Victor HR
A separate brand identity for Victor's internal HR and people team – same challenge as Victor+, different audience. Internal branding is often an afterthought; here it had its own visual system, documents, and communication templates.
B2B, Partnerships & Brand Collateral
Partnerships
Victor's business included significant corporate and partnership sales – to companies including AMEX, UBS, Deloitte, Jaguar Land Rover, ABInBev, and partnerships with Burgess Yachts, Net-A-Porter, Shangri-La, Run-To-Monaco, StayOne, Mandarin Oriental, Auto Vivendi, Formula 1, Dior, Savoy and Neste. I designed the sales presentations and co-branded materials for these. Different creative register to consumer work – more data, more credibility signalling, less aspiration.
Print Collateral
Media kits, press kits, business cards, welcome letters, boarding passes, gift cards, booklets and branded print – the full range of brand touchpoints at the physical level.
