Martin Hopkins Design

Transforming Swansea’s unique charm into a beautiful map ⁠🗺️ ⁠
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We're proud to partner with Swansea University to create this bespoke illustrated map that celebrates the city’s unique spirit and vibrant community. ⁠
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Prospective students can now explore the heart of Swansea like never before! 🏙️ 🌊⁠
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Look out for more details on this soon!

📦 From concept to creation, this was a labour of love.

Every detail is crafted to make your product pop on the shelf. 🌟

🚨 New work! 🚨

We were approached by Tim Vaughan for a brand for his estate in Cowbridge, which offers stables, offices, lakes, forests, a play park and holiday lodges. We really wanted to encapsulate the rolling hills and bodies of water on the grounds within the logo ⛰️

In our discussions with him, Tim shared that he wanted the brand to feel high-end, hence why we went for a classic serif with gold accents, but also have organic application with things like wood signage.

We developed icons for the different areas on the estate and have got wayfinding signage coming soon!

Keep your eyes peeled for a case study coming soon 👀

Did you know we’ve moved?!

That’s right, Martin Hopkins has found a new home with DESG and we couldn’t be more in love! Not only do we love the communal spaces and booths for some quiet working time, we have a bright, sunny office which is fantastic for collaborative working and meetings with our clients.

Will you be coming and visiting us in our new Pontcanna office? 🌿

We're taking things back to the 80's for the 12th Day of our 12 Days of Type!

This retro-inspired 12 was created by our Junior Designer Chance, known for her playful illustrations, this one was no different!

"Maybe I've just watched too much Stranger Things, but I'm a big lover of the current nostalgia trend within graphic design, so I wanted to create something that played on those decade-defining neons and grainy VHS style of the 80's but I also wanted to combine that with something more futuristic, that's where using the Gridpaint Beta tool by came in!"

And that concludes our 12 Days of Type, our designers have certainly learnt some new skills, had some fun and most importantly, were able to flex their creative muscles in new ways! What would you love to see them try next? Let us know in the comments 👇

You all loved her number 6, so we asked our Senior Designer, Stili to tell us about what inspired her to create her number 10!

“A homage to the trending bubble type which we saw rising to power last year! It reminds me of the old cartoons I grew up with and I think the colour purple adds that magic and sweetness! ”

And on this bubbly and nostalgic note, we are reminding you that there are 2 days left of our and only 3 days 'til Christmas! 🎄

Our hearts grew three sizes bigger when we saw this one 💚
Can you guess who the inspiration was?

This fluffy digit was created by one of our Junior Designers, Chance - you might remember her feline three from last week! 🐈

"It was fun to try a new technique using tools I was already familiar with! After I saw a tutorial by using the blend tool on Illustrator to create a faux fur effect, I knew immediately I wanted to do create a number inspired by everyones favourite Christmas thief as a subtle nod to the festive season!"

Hands up who thinks this has been an incredibly cold and crisp December?! 🥶 Although we did love seeing Wales in the snow!

Our Junior Designer Dylan believes "the beauty of design is that we can create and replicate so much from the real world through digital creation." Inspired by the frosty mornings, he wanted to capture that chilly, fresh feeling when you step out of the warm and into the cold morning air ❄️

Shine on you crazy diamond 💎

Our Senior Designer Stili says that she didn't know what she wanted to do when she picked out the number 6: "I just opened Photoshop and started putting things together at random and before I knew it the idea created itself! There is nothing deep about this one - I just wanted to make something pretty for the sake of making something pretty - and that's okay!"

We love making things pretty for the sake of making something pretty - it can often get lost behind briefs and guidelines, which is why it's so important to us as a design agency to give our designers space to be creative!

It's Day 5 of our 12 Days of Type! Our Senior Designer, Ceri, was inspired by the beautiful aesthetics of the game Monument Valley. She wanted to create a graphic which has atmosphere and texture, with a "hint of a story."

Pulling from a rich source of inspiration, Ceri explored isometric illustration within Illustrator. We love that every time you look at it, you notice a little something more each time.

And we're into Day 4 of our 12 Days of Type, and we've even gotten Sarah, our co-director, involved!
"I absolutely love creating the feeling of movement in type, and how it's possible to manipulate the graphic to create an optical illusion and make a previously flat and unexciting letterform feel like it's in a 3D space. It also gave me a chance to use the distort map, which isn't a tool I get to use often, so it was great to have a play!"

Is this paw-ssibly the cutest 3 you've ever seen? 🐾 🐈

Inspired by the crazy shapes cats get themselves into, our Junior Designer, Chance, illustrated this curvy kitty for Day 3 of our 12 Days of Type campaign!

A trip to the art gallery inspired this one! 🖼

As we continue with 12 Days of Type, we have the number 2, from Junior Designer, Dylan who joined us earlier this year! Inspired by the minimal art movement and geometric abstraction and using simple geometric shapes to construct the number.

Does the composition and colours look familiar? Can you guess where the inspiration has come from? 👀 Let us know in the comments 👇

Today we are starting our version of challenge - the Martin Hopkins 12 Days of Type!

This creative challenge was an early Christmas present for our design team! Throughout October and November, we secured all our Thursday afternoons for playtime and gave our designers complete freedom to create a number in any style they want! We've discussed the benefits of creating for creativity's sake before, and this was no different! It gave everyone a chance to decompress after a tiring week, try out that tutorial they have been eyeing or simply go back in touch with what they love the most - playing with design. And lo and behold - our design-led version of 12 Days of Christmas - 12 Days of Type 🎄

Starting off with number 1 from our Senior Designer Stili. Here is what she says:

"We rarely get an opportunity to go this bold and wacky when working with clients. This number 1 feels merely like a warm up for what's to come next but I like it, perhaps for its simplicity and attitude. I finally got to try the ink bleed tutorial from ✨"

It’s no secret a mobile-first approach to UX and UI design is vital in modern website designs – which is exactly how we approached the Melo rebrand. It was a challenge to design for such a small screen, whilst also ensuring a large amount of information was accessible for all users.

What we loved about this was that we were creating a space where you can access incredible mental wellbeing resources, free courses and local opportunities from anywhere, remotely, all from your phone.

🚨 Mental wellbeing resources are hard to find in one place.
That's where Melo Wales came in.

Earlier this year we proposed a brand new upgrade to their website structure and UX. We made big improvements, including a brand new topics module with clear tagging systems for content types like resources, courses, helplines and blogs. Included in this revamp we improved the search function and allowed for users to use the new topic and tagging system to find exactly what they needed to look after themselves and those around them.

We want to make mental wellbeing more accessible for everyone, that's why we ensured the new site had a focus on representation, inclusivity and built in accessibility tools and colour choices. Every person matters - Melo strives for all and is constantly evolving and improving.

Have you used Melo yet? If not what are you waiting for? Visit it here: https://bit.ly/3OABRxZ

Check out 👉 on Instagram to check out the social media marketing we craft for them too

We are proud to have officially signed the Design Declares initiative! Design Declares brings the voices of the design community together to harness our power as communicators, strategists and creators. As designers working within an industry that relies on production and powers global consumption, we must acknowledge that we have had a role in bringing us to where we are now, and that we have an important role in what comes next.

We can’t wait to continue learning (and unlearning!) and to have some much-needed conversation within our industry and clients. In the meantime, we encourage you to check out https://designdeclares.com/ and their phenomenal collection of resources on how to take action!

Thank you 🖤

Do you prefer the vivid green or the warm terracotta? The blush pink or the tangerine of dreams? Run, don't walk, to the comment section to let us know your favourite 🏃‍♂️

Us trying to cheer ourselves up whilst working in the heat 🤝 Writing a brief that includes looking at cute pet pictures.

What could you create if you had no restrictions?

That’s what we asked our design team, when we tasked them to create something to advertise a hypothetical dog 🐶 or cats 🐱 home.

This is because every month we let our designers loose on the playground. We give them a brief with lots of wiggle room and then let them run wild.

Not only is this a great opportunity for the talented team to test new ideas, skills and concepts, it’s also a break from client work, where strict brand guidelines don’t exist, and creativity feels unstoppable.