Lobanov Design

From Mathematics to a Monaco Yacht Show Stand

Lobanov studied mathematics before retraining as a transport designer, earning a Master's in Automotive and Transport Design at Coventry University after a spell in Turin, and then working at the VW Design Center in Wolfsburg. None of that is yacht design, and that is the point: he arrived at boats already trained to think about surfaces and structure together, from outside the yachting world.

In 2003 he was brought on as owner's representative on the 119 metre Motor Yacht A, a three year assignment on the Philippe Starck designed Blohm and Voss build. Watching a yacht of that scale get built from the owner's side of the table, rather than the yard's or the designer's, is a specific and unusual education, and Lobanov has said it is what turned him toward design as a career rather than a sideline.

Two Concepts at One Show

Lobanov Design opened its doors in 2007, when Igor Lobanov was 35. He debuted two concept models at that year's Monaco Yacht Show, White Night and Liza, and Lurssen's Michael Bremen let him show White Night on Lurssen's own stand, a favour from a yard that had no build contract tied to it.

At the same show Lobanov pitched Oceanco and won the design tender for what became project Y708, an 85.6 metre later delivered as St Princess Olga and today named Amore Vero. That is the studio's real origin story: a concept model bought Lobanov a seat at the table, and a competitive pitch is what actually won the work.

Three years standing on the owner's side of a 119 metre build taught Igor Lobanov what a yacht costs to make difficult. He has been spending that lesson deliberately ever since.

What the Studio Actually Draws, and Who Else Is on the Job

On Amore Vero, naval architecture was by Oceanco's own team with Azure Yacht Design and Naval Architecture, and the interior was by Alberto Pinto. On Jubilee, naval architecture was again Azure, with the interior credited to Sam Sorgiovanni. On the Benetti B.Yond 57M, the interior goes to Bonetti Kozerski Architecture. On the Mangusta 165 REV series, Lobanov's exterior works alongside Overmarine's own technical and engineering department.

This is worth stating plainly because it is easy to assume a signature exterior designer carries the whole brief. Lobanov never has, on any delivered yacht found in research for this page. An owner who wants one firm responsible for the complete outcome, hull to soft furnishings, is not describing this studio.

Amore Vero, and a Name That Outlasted an Owner

Y708 became St Princess Olga on delivery in 2013 and was later renamed Amore Vero. At 85.6 metres she was, and remains, one of the larger hulls Lobanov has drawn, and the win that made the studio's early reputation.

In March 2022 French authorities seized Amore Vero at a shipyard on the Cote d'Azur under European Union sanctions connected to Igor Sechin. That is a fact about the yacht's ownership history rather than about Lobanov's design, but a reader doing diligence on the studio's portfolio should know it: it is the most publicly visible thing to have happened to the studio's first major commission.

Jubilee, and the Cost of Compound Curves

Jubilee, 110.1 metres, was delivered by Oceanco in 2017 and later renamed Kaos after resale and a refit carried out by Lurssen. Lobanov has described the design problem directly: the platform had unusually tall deck heights, so he built a visual trick of many thin layers to make the boat read as larger and less blocky than her true proportions.

Oceanco's own marketing manager, Paris Baloumis, said the superstructure was genuinely challenging to execute because of the curves the design demanded, the combination of materials, and hidden recessed lighting, and singled out paint application on the multiple curved surfaces as one of the hardest parts of the job. Ed Beckett of Burgess Technical Services, the owner's technical representative on the build, put it more bluntly: it gave everyone a few headaches, because almost every surface carried curvature in every direction at once. That is a real, named cost the design imposes on a yard, not a marketing anecdote.

The Mangusta 165 REV Family

Mangusta Group chief executive Maurizio Balducci has said the yard approached Lobanov specifically because it was impressed by his work between 80 and 110 metres, and wanted the same authority brought down to a 50 metre production platform. The brief, per Balducci, was efficiency, reduced consumption and better use of onboard space rather than a styling exercise for its own sake.

Lobanov has been candid that not every decision on the REV series was his: he has said the owner's suite placement on the main deck, on N1, was a requirement Overmarine imposed rather than his own preference. That is a useful data point for a buyer weighing how much creative control a Lobanov commission actually carries once a production yard's own requirements are in the mix.

The Smaller End of the Range

Monochrome and Gora I, both 29.34 metres for Arcadia Yachts, delivered in 2024 and 2023, sit at the compact end of the studio's work, alongside a run of 31.8 metre Mangusta GranSport-class hulls for Overmarine: Delta Victor, Offline, Ours, Ereiva, Karma, Delfina and Glida, delivered between 2021 and 2024.

That breadth across roughly 30 to 110 metres, with a consistent exterior language carried down through it, is one of the more genuinely useful things about the studio for a buyer: a smaller Arcadia owner can see, in built form, how the same design hand behaves at a tenth of Jubilee's length.

What a Commission Costs

Nothing in the studio's own materials, in yard press releases, or in trade coverage discloses what Lobanov actually charges. That is normal for the segment rather than unusual to this studio, but it means a prospective client cannot benchmark cost from public sources before the first conversation.

SuperYachtReview's 2026 cost guide, the standard industry reference, puts a designer's fee at roughly 1 to 5 per cent of build cost, with project management a separate 2 to 4 per cent, both outside the yard's own price. Looser, less authoritative ranges circulating elsewhere in the industry run as high as 10 to 20 per cent of build cost for full design services, occasionally more on highly bespoke work; treat those as general context, not as anything specific to this studio.

An Aesthetic That Divides Opinion, By Lobanov's Own Account

Lobanov and Lobanova have both spoken about the studio's more radical concepts drawing criticism from within the industry. Lobanov's own words: other designers kept telling them the work was too artsy, and that was the point, because it is sometimes good to hear bad things said about your work.

That is a self acknowledged trade-off rather than a hostile third party review, and it should be read as one: no independent yacht-design critic's assessment of Lobanov's portfolio was found in researching this page, which is itself worth stating rather than glossing over. Every substantive critical remark traced back either to Lobanov himself or to people who had just finished building one of his boats.

Who Should Commission This Studio

The consistent thread across Amore Vero, Jubilee, Platinum and the Mangusta REV series is a willingness to accept real fabrication difficulty, curved surfaces, complex paint work, layered decks, in exchange for a hull that does not read like anything else on the water. Yards that have built for Lobanov describe the work as genuinely harder than most exteriors they take on, not as marketing language.

That is not the right fit for an owner who wants a single point of contact carrying the whole design brief, or who wants the lowest-risk build a yard can offer. It is the right fit for an owner who has already accepted that a striking exterior costs something in construction complexity, and wants the studio with the clearest record of delivering that trade at more than one size of hull.

Для кого: Owners who want a distinctive, sculptural exterior from 30 to 110 metres and are already planning to appoint naval architecture and interiors separately.