Profile: Kiki Hartmann
Creation & Art direction
Owner of Kiki Hartmann Studio and with BR-ND People since 2009. Brings stories and identities to life with visual finesse and strategic depth.
Kiki Hartmann
Design with a soul
Kiki Hartmann is a creative brand designer and art director (Kiki Hartmann Studio) and has been with BR-ND People since the BR-ND Mountain Design days (financial crisis, ~2009). With Swedish-Finnish-German roots and a British design education, she translates brand strategy into visual identities for purpose-driven organisations.
Most art directors hide behind moodboards. Kiki picks up a pencil, draws a single line, and that line says more than an entire brand book. She's been with BR-ND People since the days it was still called BR-ND Mountain Design; a Swedish design diva who took the leap during the financial crisis and never looked back. Ever since, she's been shaping everything the agency touches.
- Visuals that bite – Kiki translates strategy into visual identities that don't just look good, but do something. Not decoration; communication.
- Making stories visible – From brand narratives to campaign expressions: she makes sure that what organizations feel on the inside, shows on the outside.
- An eye for what's real – She brings conceptual depth and visual finesse together in a way that makes others think it happened effortlessly. It didn't.
Fun fact: she once directed the design competition where employees' children drew the BR-ND logo. The winning sketch; a red line ending in a beating heart; came from a seven-year-old. Kiki saw it instantly. That's her superpower: recognizing what's real before anyone else does.
