This is: In-house
Meet Magento UK 2024.
Meet Magento UK is the world’s biggest conference (with over 750 delegates) for the Adobe Commerce and Magento ecosystem, bringing together merchants, developers and marketers for a day of talks, networking and community.
Much like Ron Burgundy, It’s a pretty big deal.

2024’s event was a return to the Mermaid conference centre in London, and the 7th time JH has been in charge of organising the event. With a long history of distinctive brandings for each of the previous iterations, the pressure was on to deliver something truly memorable.
So I did what I do best in these situations, and ignored what had been done before.
Well, mostly.
In my 25+ years of design experience conference brandings are a mixture of random shapes and and funky (jazzy, or even dare I say snazzy) font choices; edgy and cool, but ultimately safe.

What I aimed to produce was something clean and minimalistic (as is my design style), but also strong and bold. A design that was immersive for attendees on the day, clearly understood and with versatility. Unafraid to be its own thing.
Simplistic doesn’t always mean simple.
That being said, design isn’t all about the visuals. That’s art. Design is about creating systems for the benefit of the user, and so in order to do that, I needed to understand who was going to be attending MMUK and what they would want from it.
It’s a big event, attendees from all levels of business come from all over the world, and when you introduce that international element, it’s vital that every element does its job properly and clearly, transcending any language barrier.
While it's a Magento event, the principles and ideas in the talks can be applied to any eCommerce store or business.
It literally has Magento at its core, layered with an amazing community around it.
💡 Lightbulb.
The design
The hexagon has been at the core of Magento’s brand since its inception and while this has been utilised in previous conference brandings, I wanted to do something different with it this year. It would become the central motif of the brand, but the intent was to get as much and varied use out of it as possible.
Colour was another crucial component. I couldn’t wander too far from the established colourways for the brand as some continuity with previous events is desirable, but rather than orange and purple, which appear to be the default choices for many Magento events, I moved towards a bright pink-red and a deep, inky indigo, knowing they would work perfectly with the technique I had in mind.
And that technique? It’s all about blending.
By default, Adobe Illustrator’s blend tool creates a smooth transition between two shapes and their colours, but another option is to create a stepped transition, and this creates a very different effect.
It tricks your eyes into thinking each layer is stacked on top of another. Creating a 3D quality to what is just a collection of hexagons with mathematically derived colours. Too many steps and the colours begin to merge, not enough steps and the illusion is lost.
As I said, simplistic, not simple.
Colours and shaped decided, it was time for the typeface. I tend to favour sans-serif (without twiddly bits), Swiss type and my concept for MMUK was no different - I chose the clean, humanist lines of Inter (from Google Fonts). This was for 2 main reasons.
- It looks like Helvetica, which is the absolute GOAT of sans-serif typefaces.
- It comes in so many weights that there is something for everyone.
So we have colours, shapes and words. Let’s put them together and make some magic.
One system, many applications.
The MMUK branding has 4 major touchpoints.
- Venue graphics
- Website
- Social media
- Merch/Swag
Venue graphics
From sponsors lists and door plates for the talk tracks to signs telling you where to get food, there were dozens of individual graphics all over the Mermaid, ready to direct and inform when the doors opened at 8.30am.






Website
The design adapted the MMUK brand into something which pushed a few envelopes in terms of the standard approach to conference site design, but why settle for a strip header with some text underneath on a white background?
You can see the pre-event website on the Wayback Machine Internet Archive.

Social media
With new posts going out weekly (sometimes more frequently), the design had to adapt in multiple ways to meet the needs of a dozen different types of posts - Speakers, sponsors, after and pre-parties, testimonials - you name it, it was covered.
The templates were created in Figma and ported over to Canva, so the marketing team could quickly output what they needed.



Swag
Possibly the most important element of the whole conference. MMUK t-shirts have always been top-tier, and the socks have become collector’s items over the years. This year we would be taking things up a level, though. If you zoom in close, you may be able to discern a familiar pattern to the socks. A pattern that's always been there....


So, was it difficult?
Yes. Meet Magento is a big conference. There’s at least 700 separate deliverables to keep track of, and a finite amount of time to produce them. Some are physical, and have delivery deadlines or they won’t be produced in time for the event, some are virtual, but still have a publishing schedule to meet.
The challenges inherent in planning an event like this - nothing ever happens in the order you need them to, in a nutshell - mean that you constantly have to adapt and change your approach. And with so many moving parts you need to be able to track every element with pinpoint accuracy.
It’s a lot of work, but it’s also a lot of fun.
Now, I’m no stranger to insane deadlines. I began my career in printing and publishing where you’d have hours to output artwork that should take days in a camera-ready state. 2 hours was the norm for something like a double-page spread in a newspaper.
In truth, I rather enjoy impossible deadlines. So in the middle of all this, I also overhauled JH's own branding.


And on top of all of this, consistency had to be maintained between all collateral - whether that’s a 5-metre high stage backdrop, or a 1200px wide social media post.
One of my conscious design decisions was to not produce a set of guidelines. Guidelines are fine and dandy, but can easily become a rod for your own back - constricting if overly specific or too vague and prone to deviation if too vague. This design was organic, and versatile. It benefitted from adaptation.
Pretty much all the design output was from my hands (or mouse) and so the focus was on maintaining the essence of the brand - the colours, shapes and type working together - rather than some rigid rules which are only meant to be a reference anyway.
There was some pushback from the team initially, but once everything was gathered together for reviews and approval it was clear that the system worked. I’m an advocate of breaking the grid, whether that’s on the page or in the process, and as a self-taught designer I work with what I know from experience.
Which is thankfully something I have a lot of.
So… did it work?
Yes. From the signs above reception telling you which queue to join based on your surname, to the A0 talk agendas to the double sided lanyard badges to the after party sign where the text was bigger than your head (which settled a curiosity for me about how big 480pt type actually is) - the second you were through the door, you were immersed in Meet Magento graphics, which brings me to a secondary element.
The atmosphere.
The atmosphere on the day was electric, but it was also very happy and relaxed, and in part (not all) this was down to the colour choice. I chose very strong tones, but with a warmth and comfort to them. Purposefully staying away from the cold blues and reds you often find associated with corporate events.
Meet Magento is about community, and trust, and I wanted attendees to feel enveloped, not smothered. Like a nice hug.
While the shape has hard edges, they blend out with depth. The blue is the main colour, but while it’s inky and dark it doesn’t dominate - it’s just there. The red isn’t overpowering, but you can feel it. The colours in between are still strong, but are 100% there to support the main colours and give balance.
There was an alchemy to the mixture.
You can see just how it worked on this handy Meet Magento 2024 highlight reel!
This is long. Where am I? TL;DR
To recap: Meet Magento UK is the largest conference for the Adobe Commerce and Magento ecosystem, bringing together merchants, developers, and marketers for a day of talks, networking, and community engagement.
The 2024 event was held at the Mermaid Conference Centre in London and organised by JH for the seventh time.
The design for the 2024 conference branding aimed to be clean, minimal, strong, and bold. The focus was on creating a system that was versatile, clear, and immersive for attendees, aligning with the core message of community and inclusivity.
Key design elements included:
- Hexagon motif: A central brand element, used creatively to maintain continuity with Magento’s visual language while adding something fresh.
- Colour scheme: A move away from traditional Magento colours towards a bright pink-red and deep inky indigo, creating a vibrant and warm atmosphere.
- Typography: The sans-serif typeface Inter, chosen for its clean, versatile, and humanist qualities.
In the end, this project was a great reminder of the value of adaptable, people-first design.
From immersive venue graphics to a responsive website, flexible social content, and crowd-pleasing merch, every element worked together to create a vibrant and welcoming experience.
I focused on building an organic design system rather than following rigid rules, which made it easier to respond to the needs of the event as they evolved.
There were certainly challenges along the way, with tight deadlines and a long list of deliverables, but I’m proud of what we achieved.
The final result brought people together and left a lasting impression.
In fact, the design for #MM24UK was so well received, it's being used for #MM25UK.
You can find out more (and register to attend) at meet-magento.co.uk