The Made Shop® is an independent, shape-shifting design studio based in Denver working with creative clients around the world.

We make art, create brands, and build spaces.


We are what we make.


And, mostly, we just make-believe.

The just-right words can cast spells, and the perfect aesthetic transforms. Like magic.

The world is made of all the tiny stories that we get to tell each other. We are all what we make, together.


Shop® Services



Art
Brand
Space
 
 
 
Glass Slipper

Brand Work

See Our Brand Work

Creative Direction
Positioning & Strategy
Naming
Visual Identity
Copywriting
Print Collateral
Packaging
Website & Social Media
Campaigns




See Our Brand Work

Space Work

See Our Space Work

Architecture
Interiors
Residential
Restaurants & Bars
Retail
Custom Furniture
Signage
Wayfinding
Touchpoints




See Our Space Work

Art Work

See Our Art Work

Art Direction
Photography
Illustration
Animation & Video
Album Art
Book Design
Film & Television
Installation & Interactive
Object Design




See Our Art Work

Placemaking


Our artwork, brandwork, and spacework come together as a multi-faceted practice.


Placemaking is more than the sum of its parts. Not just good design, good architecture, and good art; it’s the deep alchemy of all three interacting to create substantial places that people love and remember.

The places we keep going back to.



See Our Placemaking Work







Makers & Shakers



The Made Shop was founded 20 years ago by life-long partners Marke and Kim Johnson along with design partner Adam Blake. Davis Scruggs is our irreplaceable project designer and photographer, and Adrien Schless-Meier is our studio assistant and magic sourcer-er.

That’s it. We all do it all.

Shop® Process



Listen


First we listen. To you. To your vision and values. And to your audience. To learn their needs (and wants). We research and listen to your industry and competition. Then we take what we heard and build a solid foundation for the next phase...



Make


Then we design. Starting from our foundation, we explore a wide (often wild) variety of conceptual routes and visual “recipes” to form a sort of creative crossroads to consider. Once we all agree on the right route, we develop a single design system into a complete creative world.



Launch


Last we launch. All the work we’ve done together is carefully and collaboratively launched into the world. Doing it right matters. So we don’t just drop it in your lap. It’s more like a relay race: we run awhile alongside each other, passing the baton so you can take it home.
“There's nothing worse than a
sharp image of a fuzzy concept

— Ansel Adams
Shop® Recognition


Talks & Awards


Restaurant & Bar Design Awards

Best Restaurant Visual Identity, 2021

Primetime Emmy® Award(s)
Hit Record on TV, 2014 & 2016

SxSW
Featured Speaker, 2015

Adobe Max
Featured Speaker, 2016, 2014, 2013

Harvard Design School
Harvard X Conference, 2020

Creative Mornings
Risk, 2016


.





Press
The Brand Identity
Communication Arts

Rolling Stone
Dwell
Food & Wine
Creative Review
Harvard StudioWorks




Select Clients


Patagonia
Levi’s
Netflix
The NFL
Stranahan’s Whiskey
Adobe
Knives Out
Hotel Indigo
The Plaza
Sweet Bloom Coffee
Peacock
Sony Pictures
Epic Records
The MoMA
Yoko Ono
The Lennon Estate
Son Lux
The Fray

“Seeing is forgetting the
name of the thing one sees


—Robert Irwin





Our shop is located in Denver’s historic Highland Square neighborhood.

We designed and built a shape-shifting creative space that lets us work together on a wide range of interesting projects. Art, Brands, and Spaces... and together, Placemaking.

We work slowly and carefully and try to avoid hustle, hurry, and busy-ness. We keep reasonable hours on a four-day work week (M-Th) with very few fire drills or emergencies. Over the years, we’ve created very predictable systems that reliably lead to very unpredictable work.

We keep our team small (historically just 4-8 people) because we value our freedom and ability to say ‘no’ more than ‘growth.’  This restraint lets us give all our attention and creativity to a few substantial projects per year. Creative projects where we know we can contribute meaningfully to substantial things.

We’ve found that ‘breathing out’ goes best with ‘breathing in’ (literally inspiration). We maintain a “double bottom-line” that considers both the financial and creative payoff of projects to help avoid the burnout that can come from the hustle and churn of “rinse and repeat” style work.

Walt Disney once said, “We don’t make pictures just to make money; we make money so we can make more pictures!” We’ve always felt the same way.

We don’t rely on large-language model A.I. in our creative work because we enjoy doing what we do as much as having done it. It’s why we do it. Also, we don’t want to limit our imagination or our world to what has already been said about it. Our reality and our imagination are both much larger and stranger than what has been captured in words (even very “large” numbers of them).

We partner internationally with creative clients big and small, but we always make time for creative startups and substantial local projects in and around Denver.

The Mile-High Queen City





Marke Johnson
Founder & Partner
Kim Johnson
Co-Founder & Partner
Adam Blake
Co-Founder & Design Partner
Davis Scruggs
Designer & Photographer
Adrien Schless-Meier
Studio Assistant
“Salago-doola. Menchika boola.
Bibidi-bobidi-boo!

— The Magic Song, Cinderella