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In Profile:
by Richard Roseman
Airborne Design

In Profile:

Richard Roseman
Airborne Design

Shortlisted: Private Jet Design - Concept Award

The International Yacht & Aviation Awards 2025

IYA 2025
Richard Roseman Airborne Design

Name: Richard Roseman

Company Name: Richard Roseman Airborne Design

Position Within Company: Founder

Website: https://www.rraddesign.com/

Tell us a little about your background in the sector:
I have spent the last 33 years as an independent designer of private aircraft, predominately in Bizliner / VVIP & Head of State – but also top-tier Bizjets. I studied art & architecture at University and began my professional history as an architectural illustrator. Eventually that led to working with ID firms doing interior renderings. Eventually I was contacted by a Texas based defense contractor who had accepted a project from the president of Mexico for the interior retrofit of a B-727-200 to full VVIP as a presidential aircraft. I collaborated with the president’s designer generating the presentation renderings. During the final stages of design, the retained designer passed away unexpected. I was asked to step in and complete the project. As a kid, I had been obsessed with airplanes having built hundreds of models and R/C aircraft. So, it was an easy decision. I finished the project and my career path was set. I hung out my shingle as an independent aircraft interior designer under the name RWR Designs LLC (later RRAD Design). I used my skills as an illustrator to check and validate the aesthetic viability of my designs through design development eventually completing the final set of renderings for presentation to my clients. At the height of my career I maintained a full time staff of seven in a Dallas based studio. We have completed projects for foreign heads of state, billionaires and major corprations – worldwide. Today we conduct select projects via a core staff of three using a model similar to the film industry. On reviewing a design brief and ultimately accepting the project, we assemble an “A” team of core resources – talented, highly skilled colleagues with whom we have worked with over the decades. We conduct the project from opening concepts to finally delivery of the aircraft. When the project is done, we celebrate as old friends and then disband, going our separate ways until the next project.

My rich history and experiences as a designer of large privately owned aircraft has been incredibly rewarding and has also led to several yacht and residential projects including a palace in Mumbai.

How would you describe your design ethos?
Our approach to each new design project fundamentally embraces FOUR paramount aspects. First and foremost is the clear understanding and disciplined adherence to the customer design brief. This must be the underlying framework of each project, thereby ensuring the customer’s desires – not our own. Second, is the creation of a stunning overall passenger cabin in terms of aesthetic. In this regard, we again lean heavily on the brief and try to ‘become’ the passenger and his guests – creating the look, feel and thereby the flight experience he or she is seeking. And lastly is functionality, which also embodies ergonomomics. A stunningly beautiful cabin never stands alone. Without keen well-thought-out functionalty, no cabin design is complete or ready for it’s owners. More than any other single aspect on in terms of flight experience is a seamless, intuitive functionality all the way through the cabin. And finally is perhaps our most coveted internal ethos – the creation of little “layers of discovery” throughout the cabin. In every project, we joyfully undertake the task of finding and creating ways for our customers to be surprised and delighted over things that go above and beyond – little details and bits of functionality that both owners and guests only discover on further inspection – that reveal themselves during a long flight – little things to delight the senses and elevate the overall flight experience.

Where does your design inspiration come from?
EVERYWHERE! For any good designer, inspiration can come from anywhere – like having your morning coffee and watching the morning sun rake across the fruit bowl. It can be as subtle as that or as overt as the page out of a magazine picturing a villa overhanging the Adriatic. And almost always, it embraces nature in some form or fashion. Inspiration is all around and inexhaustible. The fun is honing it down to whatever best fits our customer’s design brief and then unfurling it like a thread throughout the design.

Richard Roseman Airborne Design
Richard Roseman Airborne Design
Richard Roseman Airborne Design
Richard Roseman Airborne Design

In what direction do you feel that design is moving towards in a general sense?
Gleefully, design these days is continually moving to a less fussy, more minimalist look. Gone are the days of overly busy, gaudy, and overdesigned interiors. In an intrinsic sense, the tube of an aircraft cabin simply won’t support that kind of aesthetic. It can be done of course, but it can never be called a ‘successful’ design – and the biggest reason why is that a jet interior’s biggest function is to create a quiet, restful environment while transporting its paggengers from point A to point B. And so, in today’s world…simple and clean is the trend and is likely to remain for most buyers.

Name five key themes to consider when approaching design in the future.
UNIQUENESS, SIMPLICITY, a highly refined AESTHETIC, FRESHNESS and FUNCTIONALITY.

If you could offer one piece of advice when it comes to designing, what would it be?
Get in your customers head – and then use everything you’ve learned as a designer.

How important are The International Yacht & Aviation Awards?
It’s always nice to be recognized by your contemporaries. IYAA offers a wonderful program in this regard.

What projects are you currently working on?
We are currently working on a high-end commercial carrier project – primarily for the branding design of L-2 entry and cabin division bulkheads for Business and First cabins. Our customer cannot be revealed at this juncture.

What was your favourite project to work on and why?
Probably my favorite project was an early BBJ for a Swiss client, Thomas Tobias Bachmann. Bachmann split his time between Zurich and LA and was a unique and delightful character. He had a refined sense of aesthetics but was also “fun” like no other client. He wanted whimsical areas and fixtures integrated into an otherwise traditionally modern cabin design. He and his wife both were enormously fun to work for (and with). Ultimately, the project was a huge success and still (even though the design is somewhat dated at this point) reigns as one of our proudest works. I remain friends with the family.

What was your most challenging project to work on and why?
Actually, our most challenging project was not an aircraft at all – but a palace in Mumbai for the Ambani family. The scale and expansiveness of the project was way beyond even that of a wide-body head-of-state aircraft. The varios facions involved were numerous and often overlapping in ways that were difficult to naviagate. Ultimately, it’s a project we are proud of but to say it was a challenging one – is an understatement. Yet in the end, it lead to TWO aircraft projects for family – a Global Express and an A-319 CJ.

Which products/services could you not live without when designing? E.g. Lighting companies, furniture companies
Good, sound, highly experienced engineering and certification groups are indispensable in ensuring the succes of any VIP aircraft project. We are in the business of creating “one-off” interiors – things that have often never been certified onto an aircraft before. In that regard, a great engineering body is essential. And the same is true for DERs who govern the regulatory aspects. All three working together in seamless fashion is, more than any other single component, the path to a succesful, snag-free project.

Richard Roseman Airborne Design
Richard Roseman Airborne Design
Richard Roseman Airborne Design
Richard Roseman Airborne Design

What are your aims and goals for the next twelve months?
To continue working. To continue attracting exciting new projects. To continue exploring new ground.

Final Thoughts:
Your most treasured possession?
My home. I designed every square inch of it and is the culmination of a lifetime as a designer.

Your favourite holiday destination?
Many places, including San Miguel (Mexico), Aspen, Marbella, Southern Italy and Greece. But London is probably my favorite place to revisit again and again.

Your favourite hotel, restaurant & bar?
Hotel: Covent Garden Hotel – Monmouth St. / London
Restaurant: Geronimo – Santa Fe, NM
Bar: King Cole Bar – St. Regis / NYC

Your favourite book, film & song?
Film: My Cousin Vinny
Song: Little Wing – Stevie Ray Vaughn OR Hendrix
Book: Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry

Your favourite food and drink?
Food: Margarita Pizza w/ local Napoli cheese & fresh basil
Drink: Black Manhattan

Your favourite way to spend an afternoon?
Summer / Telluride or Aspen

If you weren’t in this sector, what would you alternative profession be?
Architect

Anything else interesting?
The simple things always win out over the big stuff.

Designer: Richard (Rick) Roseman

3D Visualisation: JP Magnano

Richard Roseman Airborne Design have been shortlisted for Private Jet Design – Concept Award in The International Yacht & Aviation Awards 2025.

Richard Roseman Airborne Design
Richard Roseman Airborne Design

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