Smart Luxury Travel

My role at Smart Luxury Travel

I worked at Smart Luxury Travel as the creative director of the magazine, which was the premium editorial companion to ShermansTravel, a discount luxury travel retailer. Toward the end of my time there, I also explored a new digital section of the site called Smart Luxury Travel, building early mockups to connect the magazine’s tone to the online experience.

How I elevated the visual standard

The biggest shift I brought to the publication was elevating the photography and overall visual standard. When I arrived, the team relied heavily on stock, spending more than forty thousand per issue and ending up with a look that felt inconsistent. Drawing on my background in fashion and lifestyle photography, I tapped my photographer network, negotiated reduced editorial rates, and worked with airlines and retailers to secure discounted travel. That let us send photographers to India, Japan, Rome, Hawaii, and the Caribbean while bringing the total cost below twenty thousand per issue.

Every year we also produced the Smart Luxury Travel Awards, highlighting top hotels, restaurants, bars, and experiences around the world. With a tighter budget, we had to think creatively. For the covers and section openers shown here, we worked with an illustrator to build full scale illustrated sets, then shot the model directly in front of them, using one physical prop per image. It gave the magazine a more distinctive style, and it felt a lot more intentional than the stock driven approach I inherited.