Discover how to design a travel brand people truly emotionally connect with across its visual identity, logo, brand strategy, storytelling and more.
The best travel brands don’t just tell you where to go. They make you feel like you already belong there.
It’s a subtle shift, but a powerful one
In today’s world, where visuals are everywhere and everyone is selling a “dream,” that feeling is what sets a brand apart. It’s what makes someone pause mid-scroll. It’s what turns a follower into a loyal fan, a browser into a booker.
This post is for travel founders and creatives who want to build a brand rooted in purpose, designed with intention, and aligned with who they truly are. Not just another wanderlust copy-paste brand, but something that connects.
As a brand designer, digital nomad, and founder of Supercharged, I’ve worked remotely in over 30 countries since 2021. Along the way, I’ve designed for travel brands like GetYourGuide, Nomad Cruise, Nakie, Panache, and Nomad Wildheart. Each one with its own personality, vision, and story.
And what have I learnt?
The strongest travel brands aren’t designed to impress. They’re designed to connect.
They don’t just look good. They feel meaningful and create something you want to be part of.
This post will walk you through how to build that kind of brand with clarity, creativity, and heart.
Let’s be honest. The travel space is saturated. Everyone’s selling “authentic experiences,” golden-hour beach shots, and minimalist logos with a compass in the middle.
Just like your travels have been memorable to you, you need to make sure your travel brand is memorable to your audience as well.
Building a brand isn't easy.
A memorable travel brand is more than just a pretty logo, it’s an identity, emotion, voice, and community. There are so many aspects that go into it and it’s impossible to tackle them all. What makes all the difference is focusing on the main touchpoints with your customers and make sure they go “wow” with every interaction.
This is where a lot of travel founders get stuck. They try to build a brand that looks good on Pinterest or Instagram, but forget the why behind it all. They copy the aesthetic but leave out the strategy. The result is a beautiful shell with no soul.
Yes, visuals matter in travel. This industry is emotional and aspirational by nature. But aesthetics without clarity are just noise. What your brand means, both internally within your team and externally to your audience, is what gives those visuals weight.
And here's the truth that many forget:
People don’t buy destinations.
They don’t buy itineraries or travel products.
They buy transformation.
They buy the version of themselves they imagine becoming through your brand.
So if you want your travel brand to stay with someone, it’s crucial to tap into your personal journeys and get inspired by places, colours, and emotions that you have felt on your travels. Use your own experiences, your stories, your references. Let the places you’ve been, the colours you’ve seen, and the emotions you’ve felt shape how your brand shows up.
That’s what makes a brand unforgettable. Not just the visuals, but the meaning behind them. Not just the story, but how you tell it.
Before visuals, before content, before your Instagram grid... comes clarity.
Your purpose is why your brand exists beyond making money.
Your positioning is how you’re different from everyone else doing something similar.
Let’s compare:
The second version doesn’t just tell you what it is. It shows you who it’s for and why it matters. That’s the shift. That’s the story.
If your brand feels generic, your positioning probably is too. It’s not enough to say, “I run a retreat in Bali.” There are hundreds of those. Instead, ask: who is it really for?
It’s important to drive a strong mission and vision to understand why you exist and who you’re serving. It’s important to articulate your why in a way that resonates with your audience.
A common mistake founders make is trying to speak to the world. Choose your niche and own it. You cannot speak to everyone. If everyone is your priority, then no one is really your priority.
Look at it this way. Which of the two positions stands out to you more: "A Bali retreat brand" vs "A Bali retreat brand for introverted creatives"?
If you don’t know your positioning, start here:
The more specific you get, the more magnetic your brand becomes.
Generic purpose and positioning will give you generic results. You don’t want that.
I need you to niche down and identify who your ideal customer is and why picking you should be an obvious choice for them.
Go beyond palm trees and passport stamps. Because that’s too easy.
Design isn’t decoration. It’s communication. Your visual identity is how your brand speaks before you say a word.
The way to stand out isn’t to avoid trends entirely. It’s to choose visuals that are rooted in your story. This is where it’s important to make strong design decisions that support a larger brand strategy.
A few things I look at when designing travel brands:
The choice of colours make a big difference for instance dark shades of blues and greens can give mysterious adventure vibes whereas bright colours can give more beachy and playful energy.
Think deep greens and burnt oranges for earthy, grounded experiences. Pastel tones for calm and comfort. Bright hues for beachy, upbeat, youthful brands.
An italics serif font can speak to luxury travel to Monte Carlo whereas a handwritten font may work better for a hostel in the middle of Nicaragua.
Serif fonts feel classic, refined, and luxurious. Sans-serif fonts are modern, minimal, and clean. Handwritten or sketchy fonts can feel raw, playful, and honest.
Go beyond “just pretty.” Use references from real life: ceramics from Portugal, woven textiles from Guatemala, concrete tones from an urban coworking spot in Berlin. The best visual brands are inspired by places and feelings, not just Pinterest boards.
If you’ve explored the world of travel branding, you’ve probably seen the same motifs pop up over and over again: globes, planes, compasses, waves, mountains. They’re everywhere. And while they might be relevant, they’ve also become visually diluted.
The challenge now isn’t just designing a good logo. It’s designing one that still feels fresh in a space flooded with visual repetition. The truth is, coming up with something truly original concept is hard. Almost every metaphor for exploration and adventure has already been turned into a symbol.
But here’s the shift: you don’t need a groundbreaking logo to build a strong brand. You just need one that works. Focus on building a logo that’s:
Start with something that feels like a good fit, even if it’s not the most “out-there” design in the world. Then build the brand around it through story, voice, visuals, tone, and experience. That’s where memorability lives.
The goal isn’t to create a logo that solves everything. It’s to create one that fits and works harmoniously with your brand voice, visuals, and personality. A logo should support the brand, not carry it.
Your logo doesn’t need to say everything. It just needs to be a marker. A recognisable cue. Something that, over time, becomes synonymous with the emotion and experience you create.
Because in the travel world, the brand is always bigger than the logo.
A logo’s value grows over time as the brand is built.
It’s important to finding a brand tone that feels like your actual self. One that your audience relates to and is like the travel guide they wish they had.
Having a consistent brand voice builds emotional consistency across all touchpoints. It shows up in your captions, your emails, your website, your product copy, your welcome kits, your customer replies. If it’s written, it’s part of your voice.
Your goal is to sound like someone your audience already knows or wants to know.
Ask yourself:
For example:
Whatever you choose, commit to it across every touchpoint.
People don’t fall in love with features. They fall in love with stories.
Storytelling is an art that helps you connect with your audience beyond the rational. It allows you to take them on a journey with you in which they emotionally invest in your narrative.
While travelling, you're bound to listen to stories of different cultures, folk tales, fellow travellers, and locals all the time. And on the flip side, you'll constantly be telling your story to all the new people you meet.
When designing a brand, you want to take your audience on a journey that reflects their story and helps them forge stronger connections with one another.
As a storyteller, you need to tell tales that engages people, hooks them in, introduces a plot, and show how you worked through it. All of this interweaved with emotions to add a layer of depth.
You need to weave your brands into all of your touchpoints like website and social media to feel like you’re uncovering a new adventure as you explore deeper and get invested.
Think of your brand as the story that helps them:
You want your customer to be the main character and map their journey out on a canvas. You want their journey to unfold through different chapters of education, implementation, and connection. Eventually resulting in them unfolding their plot using what you’ve designed to solve a problem and add some value to their life!
The goal is not just to “sell” the story. It’s to make people feel like they’re already part of it.
Being a nomadic designer has completely redefined how I approach brand building.
Travelling light made me design with minimalism in mind. Only keep what adds value. And do it well.
Living across cultures taught me that design is not universal. It’s contextual.What builds trust in Tokyo might feel cold in Cape Town. What feels premium in Canada might feel empty in Central Asia.
One example I always return to is payments. In India, I watched street vendors accept money via QR code. In the US, you still sign a receipt. These everyday experiences shape how users expect to interact with technology, and by extension, your brand.
Even something as subtle as whitespace means different things depending on where you're from. Apple’s clean minimalism feels high-end in the West. But in East Asian markets, busier layouts filled with offers and icons often convert better because they signal value and action.
My sense of colour has also been profoundly shaped by place. I’ve started letting destinations influence my palettes, trusting what a location evokes instead of forcing a brand to conform to standard rules. In the medinas of Morocco, the deep, energetic blues made me feel like I was in an oil painting. The greenery of Vietnam created a deeper connection to the earth we belong in. The orange spectrum of Portugal, whether across rooftops, castles, or sunsets, reflects its warm emphasis on community.
If you're curious to dive deeper into how travel has shifted the way I create, I've written more on this here: How Travelling The World Nomad Made Me A Better Designer
Branding, just like travel, is a mix of planning and surrender. You need to embrace the journey as you go on with it. You will learn and grow your brand as you go along. You will make some mistakes along the way, but they’ll make great stories down the line.
Like travel, it’s not just catching the flight that counts. It’s the journey that follows. Similarly, launching a travel brand is meaningless if you aren’t constantly growing it. The best travels come when you deeply experience a lot over the course of your journey. Similarly with branding, it’s a process of ongoing alignment.
I invite you to check out our redesign for Panache World where we helped them refresh their brand to exude an understated luxury and timeless appeal.
Supercharged Studio is a creative technology agency that has crafted websites, apps, logos, and brands multiple businesses, including those in the travel space. We help emerging innovators, industry leaders, hustlers, and dreamers create a competitive edge through design.
Your ideas will like it here.
Supercharged Studio is a creative technology agency that crafts websites, apps, logos, and brands. We help emerging innovators, industry leaders, hustlers, and dreamers create a competitive edge through design.
Your ideas will like it here.
