As Vertical Aerospace launches “Valo”, a new air taxi designed for a faster and zero-emission future, the brand turned to Pentagram to help shape its image for future customers.
| About Valo: The Valo vehicle is ambitious by any measure. It is a four-passenger electric aircraft with a cruising speed of 240 km/h, a range of up to 160 km and vertical take-off and landing. In practice, this means that journeys such as Heathrow Airport to Canary Wharf could take from 52 minutes by car to just 12 minutes in the air. The long-term vision is to make urban air travel as commonplace as booking a ride on a ride-hailing app. |
Pentagram partner Angus Hyland and his team were tasked with refreshing and modernising Vertical’s existing brand ahead of the Valo launch. The project encompassed brand strategy, a new verbal framework, and the naming of Valo, developed in close collaboration with Vertical’s internal stakeholders.
Most importantly, the design team did not start from scratch, as Vertical already had strong brand value, especially due to the hummingbird symbol – a visual metaphor representing vertical ascent, hovering and agile flight.
Pentagram’s strategic focus shifted towards democratising the vision. Rather than positioning eVTOL as a futuristic novelty, the brand needed to imagine a world where urban life is no longer constrained by traffic. Pentagram says the goal was to create a more democratic, accessible brand while still reflecting the “high quality, innovation and safety standards” at the heart of the business.
That logo remains, albeit stylishly redrawn and “sleek”, becoming less abstract and more realistic, tending to take its cue from the graceful shape of the aircraft itself. A new wordmark, “Vertical”, was also created, using the font “Universal Sans” throughout, creating a “modern, technical and engineering look”.
The Canary Wharf launch marked a clear step change for Vertical. With Valo and its new identity unveiled together, the company signaled its evolution into a more established, authoritative player, extending its reach well beyond the eVTOL sector.
Pentagram’s approach has cemented the brand’s engineering expertise while opening it up to a broader, more inspiring narrative, positioning Vertical not only as a technology pioneer but also as a credible contender for the future of everyday urban mobility. Who knows, maybe soon we’ll all be enjoying trips to the skies to beat the traffic on the ground.
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