The Martin Agency Taps Award-Winning Designer Henrique Santiago as Head of Design
The Martin Agency announced today that design director Henrique 'Rique' Santiago has been named head of design, as the agency continues to expand its ever-evolving design practice, Martin Design.
Born and raised in Brazil, Henrique began his career in 2007, working across global brands at both digital and traditional agencies before joining Martin in 2015. For the last decade, he has been a driving force behind some of the agency’s most culturally impactful, award-winning campaigns: OREO’s collaborations with Wiz Khalifa, Lady Gaga, and most recently Coca-Cola with the “Besties” campaign; and UPS’s “Be Unstoppable” platform and Fashion Week x Bodega Baque partnerships. His design leadership for UPS’s “Proudly Unstoppable” won the coveted ADC Fusion Cube, which recognizes outstanding diversity and minority representation.
“Over the past few years we’ve worked to fully integrate design into the creative process and today we’re taking it one step further. I’m so proud and excited to announce Rique Santiago as the new head of martin design,” said CCO Jerry Hoak. “Rique is a unique talent who has spent his career oscillating between design and art direction. He gets both sides of the equation which leads to unignorable results for our clients.”
Under Santiago’s leadership as a design director for the last two years, Martin has seen a 750% increase in client investment, with 80% of clients commissioning design-led projects. Design has become a core business driver with clients looking for agency partners to bring design-forward thinking from the start of the relationship.
“Design has always been in Martin’s DNA, but lately we’ve been cranking up the excellence—turning it into a driving force from branding to campaigns and beyond,” said Henrique. “I’m excited to keep pushing this thinking, helping our clients not just create great work today, but shape who their brands will be tomorrow.”
From designing cookies to rebranding 100-year-old institutions, Henrique is a visual strategist redefining how brands communicate. His award-winning work goes beyond breaking through the noise; it shapes culture, turning design into a strategic driver of brand success with an unmatched ability to distil complexity into powerful storytelling.
ECD Alberto Orte said it best, “You know that moment when you realize all your favourite childhood soundtracks were composed by the same person—John Williams? Rique is the John Williams of brand design, except instead of music, he’s the creative force behind an entire section of the grocery store. You might call it aisle #11, but really, it’s the Rique aisle—a space filled with the kinds of iconic designs that, years from now, people will remember not just for how they looked, but for how they made them feel.”
For more information on Martin Design, visit designatmartin.com or https://www.instagram.com/designatmartin.
