Kampaoh: Solo Designer from Startup to Global Growth

Back in 2017, I joined an early stage startup with big ambitions called Kampaoh, led by passionate and hardworking founders. As of 2026, the company has surpassed €40M+ in revenue.

The early days

When I arrived, Kampaoh had a clear idea of the business they wanted to build, but nobody looking after branding or marketing. I saw that gap and proposed to fill it as their creative director.

Working at an early stage startup is hard to explain if you haven’t lived it. There are only a few people, and each of them covers several jobs. In the first months I worked across strategy, social media and visuals, and doing all of it showed me which work suited me best.

At a startup you wear many hats. That is how you find where you add the most value.

From philosophy to strategy

The first challenge was the brand itself. The founders had a philosophy about camping and travel, and my job was to understand it and turn it into a coherent brand strategy. That strategy became the base for the identity: the logo, the visual language and the tone of voice all came from it.

Building the brand as it changed

As designers, we often design a brand for a perfect world. The brand book describes how the brand should be used, based on how we understood it at the start. Once the brand was out there and running on social media every day, that picture started to change.

Kampaoh was growing, and the brand had to grow with it. A brand reflects a business, and a business is alive, so the brand is too. Because I stayed, I didn’t just watch the brand change. I got to build it as it changed.

The real work starts after the brand book, building the brand as the business changes.

The first website and product UI

As Kampaoh moved into digital products, the brand had to work on screen as well as on the campsite. I translated it into a new digital design concept: the first UI elements and the design system that every digital product was built on after.

This is where the value proposition came to life. The way Kampaoh presented its experience online was the first contact most guests had with the brand, so the digital concept had to carry the same philosophy the brand was built on.

The design system mattered too. Documentation and guidelines make work easier and more scalable, and in the end they save the business money. But on their own they don’t create value. So whenever the priority swung between documenting the system and pushing the digital concept forward, I chose the concept, and kept my focus on growth, creativity and expanding the value of the brand.

A brand creates value when it shapes the product, not only how it looks.

Learning to lead design

Looking back, Kampaoh taught me the most about design leadership: taking ownership of design when the rest of the team doesn’t know exactly what design does. Designers often work in the dark, because it’s assumed our work is visual and not strategic.

The visual is always a consequence, not the base.

Explaining that to stakeholders is a soft skill every designer needs to develop to grow beyond the role of an executioner and become a leader.

“Design is a luxury”

On a business discussion with Salva, CEO and founder of Kampaoh, he said: “Design is a luxury”. This phrase has stuck with me ever since. At times, I absolutely agreed with it, other times, I couldn’t disagree more.

The reality is, that design really is a luxury. A luxury reserved for the few that can afford it. Most business can’t afford a design professional or to adhere to design thinking. These business tend to be, for the most of it, mediocre. Not by choice, many times. Many business owners would like to have a more powerful brand or a more effective product scope that engages users or converts sales.

Kampaoh had the foresight of making design thinking a base requirement for their growth, and their results are out there for everyone to see. Design is a luxury, yes, but one that pays off.