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Design is never the finished product. It’s thousands of little decisions made consciously and subconsciously, cued by the world around us. Here we share our design, identify our approach, comment on the industry, and highlight thought-provoking ephemeral that requires our opinion.

Sometimes you just have to show up.

An Italian adventure.

Fun

Event

A whole new way of thinking and experimenting.

Generative Liquid Alchemy

Brand

Developing an identity around a script doodle.

Super So Good Script Exploration

Illustration

Brand

Animation

Process

Art, design, and meaning converge.

Allora Necklace

Brand

Fun

We’ve gathered over 40 to 50 Wookiee roars.

Moar Wookiee

Animation

Fun

Venice Studio Render + Animation

Animation

Fun

Brand

When you incorporate creativity with good company, a certain alchemy happens.

Chat Portrait Session

Photo

Node to a classic 8-bit style for an advertising platform focused on the individual

Aidem Pixel Art

Illustration

Brand

Process

A simple yet effective outdoor set on the back patio.

Fostering Chester and Murphy: A Studio Session

Photo

Fun

A fun spin on a classic animation.

Andrewstein Avatar

Animation

Palm Booch’s new watermelon hard kombucha features a vibrant label with toucans, flowers, and palm trees.

Palm Booch Can Rendering

Product

Brand

A unique backyard dining experience.

Willow on Grayson

Brand

An immersive environment.

Allora Stage Design

Brand

Event

A nice piece of swag.

Venice Surfing Association Hat

Brand

A ski patch inspired by Brent Lynch's Saudan Couloir poster for a friend’s 40th.

40th Birthday Ski Patch

Fun

Illustration

Where roars transform into captivating animations.

$100 Wookiee Roar Challenge

Fun

Animation

A subtle but properly branded small water bottle you can easily put in your backpack or briefcase.

TM's own water bottle.

Brand

Product

The women surfers of Venice.

Event

Fun

Photo

Masseria Meets Mount Etna

Brand

Photo

We were excited to join the Venice Surfing Association for their International Women's Day Paddle out!

Celebrating Strength and Unity: Women's Paddle Out

Brand

Event

Fun

Look at the cuteness!

Phoebe, our foster, was adopted!

Photo

A classic Orsen-Welles-inspired brand

Branding the Wonder Conference

Illustration

Brand

Animation

Using poems to drive a user experience.

Inspiration from Haikus

Brand

UI

UX

Tying nostalgia of retro video games to a modern, calm approach to technology.

Calm Ninja Pixel Art for Neomind

Illustration

Brand

Animated Icon idea to indicate the status of a connected server.

Prospective Agent Indicator

Animation

Brand

UI

Using a simple shape and animation to convey the features of Prospective

Prospective Feature Illustrations & Animations

Brand

Illustration

Animation

Midjourney is a fun tool to use every day.

AI Style Extrapolation

Illustration

A lively photoshoot with homemade pizza sets the brand's tone.

Masseria Olive Oil Brand Photos

Brand

Photo

Product

We get to have some fun in West Hollywood taking photos of the scene!

The Fifth at Britely

Fun

Photo

Bringing life to key attributes of a brand.

Animating the Four Pillars of Complement

Animation

Brand

Illustration

A future-forward brand looking to democratize software.

Complement Brand Guidelines

Brand

Let’s have some fun blending together illustration with prompts.

Using AI to create robots from avatars.

Illustration

Fun

Brand

A fun brand for a hard kombucha company in Georgia.

Palm Booch Branding

Brand

Illustration

One of the best parts of working with a physical retail location is creating swag for the brand!

Kingston Bread + Bar Swag

Brand

Creating a brand that rethinks computation.

Branding behind the scenes: Complement

Brand

Process

Using texture-based icons to story-tell the features of Prospective.

Prospective Iconography & Illustrations

Illustration

UI

Brand

A design system for Prospective.

User Interface Organized Neatly

Brand

UI

UX

Illustrating a skull for the Venice Surf Association.

VSA Surf Skull

Illustration

Designing sticky tooltips that allow users to delve deep into different relevant terms.

Infopops, A Creative Way to Teach for the Web

UI

Product

WIP

TM Business Cards

Brand

Illustration

Photo

Expressive modern brand for a data visualization company.

Prospective Brand Guidelines

Brand

Reinventing what it looks like to surf in Venice, California.

Venice Surfing Association Brand Guidelines

Brand

Product

Creating the identity and brand for one of the most valuable crypto protocols in the world.

Chainlink Brand Guidelines

Brand

Product

Extensive brand guidelines for a layer two crypto protocol.

Trustless Finance Brand Guidelines

Brand

Illustration

Product

A journey to a donut, orbit, and ecosystem.

Trustless Finance Branding Process

Brand

Process

Brand posters for Trustless to reveal DeFi's hypocrisy.

DeFi is lying to everyone.

Brand

Illustration

Illustrating friends of Thought Merchants

Playing Card Illustrations

Illustration

Color moves your eye across the screen. Motion is even more potent.

Color in Application Design

UI

Animation

Creating unique ways to tell the Flamingo story using animation and illustration.

Augmented Storytelling for Flamingo Razors

Animation

Illustration

Brand

Morning session in Santa Monica.

Surfing Ernie

Fun

Photo

Creating fun assets for a women's brand.

Floral Kaleidoscope

Photo

Illustration

Brand

Using a friendly illustration style to bring life and cohesiveness into a visual identity.

Widget Store Illustrations

Illustration

Brand

A set of icons that illustrate the different nuances of The Loyalist's merchandising platform.

The Loyalist Iconography

Illustration

Product

UI

Dress the waves you want, not the waves you have.

Wet Ties

Brand

Illustration

Process

Photo

Taking advantage of a unique opportunity to tell more of the Trustless story using animation

The Subtle Story Telling Animations of Trustless Finance

Animation

Brand

Illustration

Checkout animation congratulating you on a successful purchase.

Thank you for shopping with us!

Animation

Illustration

Photoshoots, especially product ones, are tedious. We wanted to show this fun miniature photography set at the studio. Take a look!

Wet Tie Product Photoshoot Timelapse

Photo

Product

Process

Practical icon design to improve wayfinding.

Mega Menu Iconography

Illustration

Product

UI

Animating a favicon to keep us entertained on the team’s kanban board.

Wolfenstein Notion Icon Animation

Animation

Illustration

In less than one week, we briefly engaged in redesigning their current application!

Tailwind makes short work of a redesign.

Product

UI

UX

Using animated storytelling to explain a mobile application concept to a client and customer.

Store Activity Feed Story

Animation

Illustration

Product

Drawing and animating an informative GIF for our Monthly Design Jam Session Invites! 

Monthly Design Jam Session

Animation

Illustration

An incident at the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant released 200+mm gallons of partially treated sewer water into the Santa Monica Bay.

El Porto Potty

Illustration

Fun

Improve understanding, at a glance, how well your technology team is doing.

Contextualizing Developer Insights

Product

UI

UX

Before they left the confines of the studio, we put the pups in front of the camera.

Miso, Graham, and Chunk

Fun

A James Bond inspired blockchain software consulting company brand.

Universal Exports Applied Science

Brand

Animation

Alice Hue, the founder of Woo Woo Company, delighted us all by hosting a sound bath in the Thought Merchant's Zen Garden.

Zen Garden Sound Bath

Event

A look into our work in progress.

Work in Progress - March

WIP

One particular night the sunset provided spectacular warm gradients designed by clouds.

La Quinta's painterly sky.

Fun

A fun-themed photoshoot with our neighbors.

A night in Venice, California.

Fun

Thought Merchant's design principles animated with kinetic typography movements that mimic the principle.

Kinetic Typography

Fun

Animation

Every 20 years or so Jupiter and Saturn nestle next to each other in the night sky.

Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter

Fun

We had the opportunity to shoot the launch photos for Omura's Series X device.

Omura Series X Photos

Photo

Brandon Kleinman came to Thought Merchants through a mutual friend to help him break through his product's nebulous state.

Product Workshop @ California Design Studio

Process

Cannabis flower + Omura product imagery in the photo studio.

Omura Dark Nugget

Photo

If you throw treats in the air and time the shutter release just right - you can get some ear magic.

Ear Flip

Fun

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