About
I build brands people can walk into. For twenty years that has meant luxury, automotive, travel retail and hospitality. From the first identity to the spaces, launches and partners that make a brand real.
       
Email, LinkedIn ↗

Currently
Rebuilding a 3M+ member loyalty programme into a travel companion. 

Developing a wellness concept for premium airport lounges with Lufthansa.

Experience
Head of Brand, Strategy & Creative
Gharage (Heinemann Innovation Hub)

Brand & Creative Director
Lucid Motors

Brand & Creative Director
Polestar

Brand & Creative Consultant
Google, Volvo

Executive Creative Director
B-Reel
Partners
Balenciaga, Hublot, Gucci, Acne, Teenage Engineering, Stedelijk Museum, Google, Highsnobiety, 032c, Electronic Arts, Robot Koch, Kanghyuk

Praise
Red Dot “Brand of the Year” 2020
Red Dot “Best of the Best” 2021
Education
Miami Ad School
Art Direction & Copywriting diploma

Pepperdine University
BA, Administration of Justice
Languages
Swedish, German, English   
Viktor VahlBrand & Creative DirectorSelected Work


The soul of a brand 
lives in its
physical form

It is as true for cars as it is for hotels. I was always drawn to experiences that connect real people and real cultures. So while I didn’t set out to work in hospitality, below are 7 cases that show how I naturally ended up here.

1


Polestar
Brand identity
A car brand at the start, free to become something new. The chance to break with automotive convention. 

 Never benchmarking against automotive, we built a design brand that just happens to sell cars.




Brand & Creative Director
Team of 8
0 to 23 markets
1.1
1.2
1.3
 Led the in-house team with a few chosen agencies around it. Built the identity while the company scaled, held the brand together across markets and turned ideas from local teams into global moments.

“The old notion of premium and luxury is changing, and it was great to partner with Polestar for our Afterworld project.”

- Demna Gvasalia, Balenciaga


2

Lucid Motors
Brand & GTM Strategy
 Lucid arrived in Europe late, into a market led by German engineering and crowded with new Chinese brands.

 “Made in California” became the brand expression, because the origin was the one thing no competitor could copy.







Brand & Creative Director
0 to 8 Studio locations
Photography by Nate Barbour
2.1
2.2
 Protecting it was my responsibility. With a studio team in San Francisco, we evolved guidelines, created content and campaigns. Then briefed local agencies and specialists to adapt the execution. Never the identity.

German registrations grew from 92 in 2023 to 386 in 2024, while the EV market fell 27%.

3


Koja
[kå:ja], noun. Swedish for "hut" or "den".
Polestar’s thinking about materials and space, made into a pod in the trees.

 Built for the Fiskars Village Art & Design Biennale, as part of the brand’s entry into Finland.

Brand & Creative Director
Architect: Kristian Talvitie
Location: Fiskars, Finland
3.1
3.2
3.3
 Every material carried the brand’s thinking: wood sourced near the site and fabrics chosen with Polestar’s colour and materials team for durability and sustainability.

4


Hublot
Digital Boutique
The first digital store experience in luxury watch retail.
 Bringing the boutique to the client. A private appointment with a Hublot advisor, wherever the client is.


Executive Creative Director
Agency: B-Reel
Client: Hublot

4.1
4.2
 The digital boutique was a balance between enough tech to show a watch in detail, never so much that it replaced the advisor.  It launched in 2018, before remote selling became the norm.

“The relationship of trust that we have developed with them can now start, in a virtual manner, and continue in a real manner, without any constraint on time or place.”

- Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO Hublot,

5

GateZero
Next generation luxury retail
Airports sell the same brands, the same way, to the same traveller.
 Turning the store into a stage. Curated like a magazine, led by exclusive local collaborations with global luxury brands.



Architecture: Checkland Kindleysides & Brinkworth.
Location: Zurich, Copenhagen & Frankfurt
Partners: Highsnobiety & 032c
5.1
5.2
 For an audience travel retail had never reached, we built the brand around local collaborations with global luxury brands, and media partnerships. What began as a pop-up in Zurich grew into permanent stores in Copenhagen and Frankfurt.

6

Semi Permanent Hotel
Launching without the product
May 2021. The pandemic had closed Australia’s borders, and no cars could arrive in time for the launch.
 When Semi Permanent and Highsnobiety took over Paramount House in Sydney, Polestar arrived as materials and sound, not as a car.



Brand & Creative Director
Collaborators: Zeitguised & Moritz Simon Geist
Location: Paramount House Hotel, Sydney
6.1
6.2
 Working remotely with local production partners, the team built Material Futures: sculptures made from the materials in the Polestar 2 life cycle assessment, from flax composites to fishing nets recycled into nylon, next to a sound film recorded from the car.

The hotel sold out in under five minutes, with more than 2,000 on the waiting list.

7

Super Bowl LVI
Global campaign Polestar’s first Super Bowl. The biggest stage in advertising, where car brands compete on volume: epic voice-overs, celebrities, spectacle.
 Say less. A spot built only from what Polestar would not do: no conquering Mars, no dirty secrets, no greenwashing, no compromises.



Brand & Creative Director
Agency: Forsman & Bodenfors
Director: Christian Larson
7.1
7.2
 The idea came from our own drawer, first written for Polestar 1. With no time to shoot something new, we brought it back for Polestar 2, and with the agency, took it to the screen.

It was the number one ad in EDO’s Super Bowl LVI ranking, driving 23 times the brand search of the median spot, and daily website traffic stayed 280% higher for the rest of February.
Top Viktor Vahl