The Making of a Premium Travel Brand

Creating a Premium Visual Identity for Smart Luxury Travel

Smart Luxury Travel had a strong editorial core, but the visual identity felt scattered across print, digital, and marketing. The job was to create one unified brand that looked premium and held together everywhere. I built a refined system using confident typography, a focused color palette, and a set of branded travel icons that set a modern luxury tone. That foundation carried through the entire redesign, from the refreshed homepage and mobile layouts to the updated magazine visuals.

How I elevated the visual standard

The previous look relied on inconsistent typography and dated color choices, so I rebuilt the system around one confident masthead, a tight serif and sans pairing, and a palette centered on deep blue, cool gray, and a warm accent red. This created a premium mood and a consistent structure across every touchpoint, supported by a small set of branded items that reinforced the lifestyle tone without cluttering the identity.

Digital experience refresh

Smart Luxury Travel was an elevated section within Sherman's Travel that needed a sharper digital presence, something that could showcase deals, guides, and stories without feeling crowded. I redesigned the experience with responsive layouts that leaned on clarity, cinematic imagery, and confident typography. The homepage opened with a bold hero and a simple category structure, and the mobile layouts stayed clean and editorial. The goal was a premium digital space that felt consistent and intentional across every device.

Editorial evolution

When I joined, the publication lacked a strong visual point of view. The team relied on stock and spent more than forty thousand per issue, yet the imagery still felt uneven. I shifted the strategy by moving to original photography and pulling in photographers from my fashion and lifestyle network. I negotiated lower editorial rates and worked with airlines and retailers to secure discounted travel. That approach opened the door to shoots in India, Japan, Rome, Hawaii, and the Caribbean while bringing the total cost down to under twenty thousand per issue.

Every year the team produced the Smart Luxury Travel Awards (shown below), celebrating standout hotels, restaurants, bars, and global experiences. With a tighter budget, we needed a more inventive way to create a cohesive visual story, since a full photo package was not realistic. For the covers and section openers shown here, we worked with an illustrator to build full scale illustrated sets, then photographed the model in front of them with one physical prop. The approach gave us a distinctive, intentional look that pushed the magazine away from its old stock heavy style and into something more character driven.

Key takeaway Strengthening the visual system made Smart Luxury Travel feel premium, aligned, and easier to scale. The brand now carries a clear point of view across print and digital, and the storytelling holds together without constant redesign or visual drift. The identity works as a complete, modern travel brand ready to grow.