The Top Villas

🧩 Context

Client: The Top Villas
Platform: Web (Responsive), Print
Role: Lead UI/UX & Brand Designer
Team: Worked closely with startup founders and web developers

The Top Villas is a luxury villa rental startup offering premium holiday properties across the globe. I was brought in early to help shape the visual identity and design a website that would act as the company’s main sales channel.

Core Skills: Web Design, UI/UX Design, Graphic Design, Branding, User Research, Wireframing, Prototyping, Design Systems, Interaction Design, Responsive Design, Visual Design, Usability Testing

Tools: Adobe Creative Suite, Sketch

Visit the Top Villas website

🚧 Challenge

As a new brand entering a highly competitive market, The Top Villas needed to quickly establish credibility and stand out visually—while also delivering a frictionless booking experience for high-net-worth customers. I had to balance elegant branding with conversion-focused UX. As the only designer, I owned everything from visual identity to final UI handoff.

🎯 Goals

  • Create a luxury brand identity from scratch (logo, colour palette, typography)
  • Design a website that was visually aspirational but also easy to use and book
  • Validate the booking process through testing and iterate for clarity and ease
  • Deliver developer-ready assets for launch

🔍 Approach

  • Brand Design: Created a timeless logo and elegant visual system to communicate exclusivity and trust
  • Competitor Research: Analysed premium travel brands and villa rental sites to define UX benchmarks and style positioning
  • Wireframes & Booking Flow: Designed wireframes focused on discovery, gallery immersion, and a streamlined booking process
  • Usability Testing: Tested the booking experience with target users to remove friction and improve flow clarity
  • High-Fidelity UI: Developed fully responsive, pixel-perfect designs and interactive prototypes
  • Design System: Built a component-based system to support future scalability
  • Handoff & Dev Collaboration: Provided structured assets and support during development

âś… Outcome

The Top Villas launched with a clean, refined visual identity and a premium digital experience tailored to its audience. The brand and logo have stood the test of time, and the website became the business’s primary driver of bookings and revenue. Its polished interface and frictionless UX helped build trust with high-end users and positioned the company as a serious competitor in the luxury travel space.

đź’ˇ What I Learned

This project highlighted the value of bringing together branding and UX from the very beginning. Creating the brand identity alongside the product design ensured cohesion and clarity across the experience. It also reinforced the importance of designing for both aesthetics and usability—especially when trust, money, and high-value transactions are involved. The end-to-end ownership was a great opportunity to apply both my graphic design and UX skillsets in tandem.

If you’re looking for design support or think I’d be a great fit for a role I’d love to hear from you.