Peter Pasco
Creative Director
Bestmates
building a Queer Travel community
Overview
Bestmates is a queer-led travel agency founded in New York, operating as a Fora Travel affiliate. As a business partner and creative director, I built the majority of the brand — expanding the identity, voice, digital platform, campaign strategy, and product design — and maintained creative direction through two years of growth.
What started as a small idea among a few close friends became a full-service travel brand with a team of five advisors, a suite of named services, and a flagship group experience that's now in its third year running.
The Challenge
Build a brand that could credibly compete in the luxury travel space while staying authentically rooted in queer community. The audience is discerning — they've seen performative rainbow-washing from big brands and they demand more than just that.
Bestmates had to earn trust through voice, taste, and genuine community investment, not just a logo and a booking link.
At the same time, the brand needed to scale. What began as a small idea needed infrastructure: a visual system flexible enough to grow, a content strategy that could sustain engagement between sailings, and a digital platform that could support multiple advisors, products, and experiences.
Approach
Building the visual system
The core Bestmates identity was built to feel confident without trying too hard — a bold red script wordmark that reads warm and social, not corporate. The "Friends With Benefits" positioning was baked into every touchpoint from the start: the tone is insider and cheeky, not aspirational.
Social Media
Built a recurring content series system for Instagram that gave the feed editorial structure:
- BOOKED by Bestmates: Property spotlight series using a consistent template: dark forest green or warm off-white background, oversized condensed sans headline, script logo lockup, location pin detail. Applied across 10+ properties globally.
- Where to Stay: Carousel format with editorial hotel cards, star ratings, and queer-context copy.
- Splash of Pride: Campaign-specific posts using the sub-brand visual system.
- The Glow Up: Product launch posts introducing the new perks service.The goal was to make the feed feel like a curated travel publication, not a booking feed.
Splash of Pride
Splash of Pride is Bestmates' flagship group experience — LGBTQ+ group sailings on Virgin Voyages, produced annually. Rather than treating it as a sub-product, I developed it as a distinct sub-brand with its own visual identity, colorway, and campaign architecture.
In 2025, I evolved the colorway to a deeper magenta and coral texture, keeping the typographic system intact but maturing the palette. The visual evolution was intentional: it signals growth and staying power to an audience that pays attention to that kind of thing.
Email Campaign
Throughout my partnership with Bestmates, I wrote and produced an email campaign arc for Splash of Pride — from Save the Date through post-trip survey.
The emails weren't just functional. They built anticipation, established personality, and deepened community connection at every touchpoint.
Copy voice throughout: nautical puns, warmth, earned humor. "Can I wear sequins at sea? Yes. Always yes."
The brand moved from announcement to countdown to debrief with a consistent tone that made guests feel like they were already part of the group.
What Got Built
A brand system that runs a real business. Two years in, Bestmates operates with five travel advisors, multiple concurrent group trips, a named perks product, and an active client base — all within a visual and verbal identity built to hold together across every format and touchpoint.
The work wasn't just design execution. It was brand architecture: making the decisions that determined how Bestmates shows up everywhere, and building the infrastructure that lets the team operate independently within it.
Let's connect
Open to creative direction, experience design, and the occasional great trip.