Fly high: Otherness’ tasteful brand world lets luxury private airline Aero take flight in style

When Otherness, an Amsterdam and NYC-based creative studio was brought on to flesh out the visual universe of luxury private airline, Aero, a few things were already in place. The logo, typefaces and colours of the brand, for example, were defined. “There was also a base set of photos of Aero’s jets, some mockups, and a one-pager on tone of voice,” says Founder & Creative Director Joel Derksen. The brand, though, was incomplete. With just the foundational pieces in place, it was up to Otherness to conjure a complete, comprehensive brand world that would tell the full story of Aero. “What we inherited were the basics and some mockups gesturing towards what the brand could be, without having gone through the exercise of actually producing much work,” Derksen tells us. “The gap between mockups and real-life execution is always quite large, but doubly so when you start applying the broader business strategy, seasonal changes, budgets, and integrate everything into a very orchestrated, luxury service experience.” Digging down into the basic structure of the brand, Otherness first defined the strategy, alongside its brand strategy partner, Heuristic Branding. Once they identified who was flying with Aero and why, the process naturally led them to understand how to speak to that audience. With photography being a central pillar of the brand system, the studio defined the guidelines, which helped them pin down the Aero gaze. “What we look for in an Aero shoot is a sense of the ‘insider’s eye,’ the intimate feeling that someone knows the best kept secret in a destination, and also has the taste to elevate that secret,” adds Derksen. “We also focused on evoking the senses, or a truth about the destination, like emphasising the raw beauty of the wild horses found in Jackson Hole. It isn’t the place itself, but those who love Jackson Hole and fly there regularly will know the reference immediately.”