About Us

Our Story

We’re an independent, family-owned branding agency founded in 2013 by husband-and-wife team Michelle Marin and Michael Bassolino. What began as a two-person studio is now a trusted partner to founders, fast-growing teams, and global brands.

We build brands with clarity and edge—strategy, identity, packaging, and digital experiences that move people and markets. Every project is hands-on, led by the people who built the agency and still do the work. We work with clients in every industry and sector.

We specialize in brand strategy and positioning, naming and messaging, logo and identity systems, packaging and product branding, websites and digital experiences, brand activation, and long-term brand management.

We work with businesses at every stage—startups ready to launch, small teams looking to grow, and established brands ready to evolve. What they all share: the need for a partner who can make sense of the chaos, align the vision, and deliver creative that actually works.

We stay intentionally small to stay sharp. No layers. No handoffs. No wasted time.

Go bigger. Stay smaller.
That’s how we work—and why it works.

Michelle Marin
**Director of Design | Co-founder**

Michael Bassolino
**Brand Strategist | Co-founder**

Mary Anne — Mary Delosa
**Team Support**

Melissa Gagnon
Brand Designer

Jessica Sanders
**Copywriter & Brand Strategist**

Jessica Sanders

Jessica Sanders
Copywriter & Brand Strategist

Jessica is a versatile, adaptable, highly creative writer with 8 years of professional experience. She’s been writing since she was six. She’s almost as good now as she was then! Her background in screenwriting gives her a unique perspective on storytelling, which she believes can be utilized to make any brand story exceptional.

Expertise
Brand Strategy
Copywriting

Off the Record:

When she’s not writing, she’s probably reading, watching films, eating cheese, or arguing with her cat, Richie Tenenpaw. Her initials spell my name (JES). She lived in Hollywood (right under the Hollywood sign!) for 7 years, and met Kris Kristofferson and Jeff Bridges (at the same time!) when she was a baby.

Hannah Harder

Hannah Harder
Brand Designer

Hannah is a graphic designer who specializes in logo design and brand identity.
She creates visual systems that help brands communicate with clarity and distinction. With a background in visual storytelling and a strong typographic sensibility, her work brings precision and depth to every mark—logo, layout, or full identity system.

Expertise
Logo Design
Brand Identity Systems
Typography & Lettering
Print & Packaging Design
Visual Storytelling & Illustration

Off the Record:

If a sport ends in “board” she does it! Skateboarding, longboarding, snowboarding, skimboarding, and surfing are some ways she spends her time and enjoys nature.

llona Buitova

Ilona Buitova
Brand Designer

A master of visual storytelling, Ilona Buitova crafts bold, unforgettable brand identities that fuse strategy with style. With a keen eye for detail and a deep understanding of market trends, she transforms businesses into iconic brands. At Marin Design Agency, Ilona leads design with intention, turning vision into visual impact.

Off Script:

Her guilty pleasure? Fonts with personality and perfectly kerned headlines.

Drinks her coffee black, but her design palette is anything but.

Fluent in three languages—and color theory is one of them.

Collects vintage matchbooks for inspiration (and sometimes for fire).

Once redesigned a brand identity on a napkin—and the client loved it.

Swears her best ideas come after midnight (and maybe one glass of wine).

Thinks grids are sexy.

Richard Carman

Richard Carman
Sr. UX/UI Designer

Richard Carman is a Sr. UX/UI Designer who loves turning digital experiences into human ones. He’s responsible for monitoring user experience and ensuring that websites, software programs and products are easy to use. In addition to his UX/UX skills—he’s a Front End Developer with a background in code.

Skills:
– User Interface (UI)
– User Experience (UX)
– Sketch
– Wireframing
– Adobe InDesign
– Adobe XD
– Figma
– Interaction design
– Usability
– InVision
– Adobe Photoshop
– CSS
– Product Management

Fun Facts:
I’m a gamer and fiction writer when I’m not designing.

Melissa Gagnon

Melissa Gagnon
Brand Designer

Melissa is a brand designer with over 8 years of experience specializing in logo design, brand identity systems, and collateral across print and digital. With a background in Advertising from Temple University and a focus on Art Direction, she brings clarity, precision, and a deep understanding of how visual language shapes perception. At Marin Design Agency, she works closely with clients to develop identities that are not only visually striking but also strategically sound—designed to scale across every brand touchpoint with consistency and intention.

Off the clock:

Melissa keeps a reading goal every year and reached a new record last year of 45 books, has a goal of visiting every national park and has logged over 100+ hours of Stardew Valley.

Nathan Mantell

Nathan Mantell
Web Developer & Project Manager

Nathan is a full stack web developer and software project manager with over 11 years of experience. Nathan is primarily focused on WordPress website development, and hybrid-mobile app development. He has managed many website and mobile app builds from conception to deployment, serving as primary point of contact with clients. He has extensive experience managing cross-disciplinary teams, and performs hands on development at an expert level. Nathan earned his software development and project management chops in the NYC startup world.

Expertise
WordPress administration and development (HTML, PHP, JS, CSS, MySQL)
Custom theme and plugin development, API integration
Hybrid/Mobile full stack web development
Agile and conventional project management
Extensive experience with mainstream WordPress plugins and theme builders (Woocommerce, ACF, Elementor, Breakdance, NinjaForms, Gravity Forms, Yoast, WpAllImport, etc.)

Off Script:
Nate is a home-brewer, self-taught multi-instrumentalist, and electronic music fanatic. He played in multiple bands and did experimental performance art during his time in New York City.

Marius Panait

Marius Panait
Web Developer

I am an web developer with more than 15 years of experience in this domain. Most of the projects I worked on are related to WordPress and PHP.

Expertise
WordPress administration and development (HTML, PHP, CSS, mySQL)
Pixel-perfect conversion from layouts (PSD, Figma etc.) to WordPress (custom templates, Gutenberg, Elementor, Divi, etc.)
WordPress themes and plugins customization
WordPress web application development & 3rd part API integrations
Experienced with all popular WordPress plugins (ACF, Gravity Forms, YoastSEO, WpAllImport, etc.)

Off the clock:

I’ve been coding since DOS was a thing 90s. I’m a geek, basically. I like sword fencing, wine making, and singing opera (no joke).

Mary Delosa

Mary Delosa
UX Team Support

Analytics & Internal Communications

Mary Delosa handles data, research, and internal communication—keeping things organized and helping the entire Marin Design Agency team stay focused. She’s fluent in Japanese and spent years living in Japan (日本), where she picked up a deep appreciation for clarity, structure, and calm.

Michael Bassolino

Michael Bassolino
Brand Strategist | Co-Founder

Michael Bassolino is the co-founder and strategic lead at Marin Design Agency. With over a decade of experience in brand strategy, he helps companies define who they are, what they do, who they do it for, and how they do it better.

As co-founder, Michael oversees the agency’s strategic direction, client relationships, and growth initiatives. He works closely with executive teams to lead brand discovery, positioning, naming, messaging, and brand architecture—ensuring every creative output is anchored in insight and aligned with business goals. He has led strategy for a wide range of global brands and venture-backed startups, supporting product launches, rebrands, and acquisitions across competitive markets. Under his leadership, the agency has earned a reputation for clarity, consistency, and creative systems that scale.

Off Script:

Michael has lived in Thailand, traveled to over 20 countries, and probably made at least one questionable decision in each of them. He’s motorbiked through rainforests, gotten lost (on purpose) in waterfalls with no names, and once recorded an earthquake he was in—like a journalist, but for fun.

And oh—he makes an addictive marsala sauce from scratch.

Our Story

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