About Victoria

Director of VIKA

Victoria Forrest

Victoria Forrest is a celebrated graphic designer with an international reputation, renowned for her innovative, inclusive designs and distinctive simple, and elegant style.

She collaborates with award-winning photographers, artists, curators, and editors to design a wide range of portfolio pieces, from monographs and promotional pieces to immersive publications for publishing houses, museums, galleries to international charities, and organizations.

Victoria has a First Class BA (Hons) in Graphic Design from the University of the Arts and an MA in Communication Art & Design from the Royal College of Art, London. Her print designs and publications have earned international acclaim, and have been featured by the BBC, The Bookseller, The British Journal of Photography, and D&AD.

As director of VIKA Books, the UK’s first XR publisher, Victoria pushes the boundaries of book design creating captivating, immersive award-winning publications. VIKA is uniquely able to combine the conceptual rigor of Book Arts with the production values of fine art publishing and integrate them with the dynamism and connectivity of creative technologies. VIKA showcases the work of artists and organizations of the future.

Victoria is supported by prestigious industry networks and partners, InnovateUK, CreativeUK, and holds titles like Women in Innovation Ambassador, Creative Industry Council’s ‘Ones to Watch,’ Winner of the National Business and National Technology Awards for Best AR/VR Product, D&AD Future Impact, TechWomen 100, and is Great British Entrepreneur of the Year for the Creative Industries.

Victoria Forrest, a woman with redhair standing next to the control panel for a commerical lithographic printing press, on which you can see a B2 sheet printed with the words VIKA. Victoria is holding small child in her arms, he is facing away and wearing a blue jacket.

  • ‘Victoria is disrupting the market in many ways. She pushes the boundaries of a traditional market creating a niche that is specialised, innovative, and needed. Victoria demonstrates the enormous value women can bring to the economy, whilst bringing up children, working from home, and balancing everyone’s needs.’

    Woman Who Achieves ‘Solopreneur’ Home Business Award

  • ‘Victoria is an incredibly talented designer, whose typography and creative skills are unquestionable.’

    Woman Who Achieves ‘Solopreneur’ Creative World Award


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Environmental Considerations. Design VIKA are one of few designers to reverse engineer book design from the production line. Page size, pagination and realistic print runs optimise and reduce wastage (see opposite). The choice of inks used was also minimised. Photographs were printed as duotones, and colour was used sparingly to enhance the texture of the recycled papers. Printer Printed using vegetable inks at Taylor Brothers, a carbon balanced printers certified by both the FSC and the World Land Trust. Chosen for close proximity to VIKA negating international shipping, couriers, and press-passing. Paper Printed on Fedrigoni’s Recycled Materica Viva: FSC certified, ECF free, Acid free, Heavy metal absent, selected secondary fibres. Paper is further carbon balanced through The World Land Trust, an international conservation charity endorsed by Sir David Attenborough. Papers used are: Woodstock: a pulp coloured, recycled, uncoated paper with 80% recycled fibres and 20% ECF virgin fibres, FSC certified, smooth finishing. Symbol Freelife Matt: an environment-friendly ECF paper, FSC certified. High content of recycled material with a 40% minimum recycled guarantee. Triple blade coated on both sides with matt finish. This material was challenging to use with the ink denisities for such dark images. We found that the recycled fibres are shorter and flakier than pristine fibres, meaning that small white dots appeared in some books. To negate this, dots were hand spotted by the printer and the artist. Such imperfections are the cost of sustainable materials. We must stop holding recycled stocks to the same bar of quality as pristene materials. We must learn wabi sabi and embrace what these imperfections represent. Cloth Bound using Winter & Company’s Toile Ocean, the first book cover material made from recycled polyester yarn derived 100% from ocean bound plastic and coated with water-based acrylic. For every metre sold, 1% of turnover goes to clean water projects. This material was challenging to use as it does not adhere easily to recycled board. We are using the cloth’s reverse side as we wanted the bright red colour and so were not using it as designed. We needed to test several glues to get the fabric to adhere well. Foils The cover is blocked using Foilco vegan, recyclable biodegradeable, compostable foils supported by the Zero Foil 2 Landfill scheme.

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A free VIKA Book of Books

We have FREE exquisitely manufactured, hand-stitched and lithographically printed, Book of Books for potential future clients to experience the production quality of VIKA books.