MANTA BLU.

What I did: Branding, Illustration, Websites, Graphic Design, Print
Industry: E-Commerce · Apparel
Year: 2026
Live: Visit site ↗

01The brief

A Maltese brand of hand-drawn ocean tees, built from zero: identity, illustration, packaging, apparel, and now a flagship store that looks as considered as the product.

02The work

From the first sketch

I've worked with MANTA BLU since its first sketch. I created the identity and the manta mark, and drew every back print in the Marine Series: the manta ray, the spotted eagle ray, the painted wrasse (għarusa, the Maltese local) and the spiny lobster. I also did the packaging and directed the photography.

Every detail of the tee

The product got the same attention as the brand. I thought through every single detail of each tee and wrote it into a tech pack: the type of stitching, the weight of the fabric, the collar and the sleeves, the embroidered logo and the neck label, down to the final wash of the fabric and the type of ink used for the prints. The tees are heavyweight 240 gsm organic combed cotton. Everything was sourced in Portugal, so the tees are sustainable from the fabric up.

Tideline, a design system

For the new mantablu.com I designed Tideline, a design system built on one idea: bone above the waterline, the sea below it. The hero line, Above the line, the ocean below it, sits on bone while an animated tide moves underneath, and the logo's manta draws itself and breaks the surface. The type is Unbounded for display, Instrument Serif italics for the Latin species names, and JetBrains Mono for labels, with one signal orange used sparingly.

Built to buy in a tap

The shop is built to buy in a tap. Pick a size on any tee and it goes straight into the bag. The bag slides in with a free-delivery bar that fills as you shop. First-time visitors get a 10% code, MANTA10, which appears in place and arrives by email, one use per customer. Checkout is Shopify's, on the brand's own domain: checkout.mantablu.com.

A community, ready to switch on

The brand's next chapter already has a home. community.mantablu.com is taking sign-ups for what's coming: log beach clean-ups to earn shop points, join clean-up dives, and vote on which Maltese marine cause receives the €1,000 donation pot.

Under the hood

It's a headless Shopify store on Next.js 15, hosted on Fly.io in Frankfurt, and every push to main goes live. Consent comes first: GA4 and Microsoft Clarity load only after a visitor says yes. Structured product and organisation data and a clean sitemap help Google understand the shop. Every old URL from the previous WordPress site redirects in a single hop, so old links still land somewhere useful. Site emails and the hello@ inbox run on Resend. Legal pages, VAT-inclusive pricing, and Malta delivery and pickup were all set up for launch.

Building a brand from scratch? See how I approach branding in Malta, or read what makes an e-commerce website sell.

03The result

One brand, end to end, from the first sketch of the manta to the checkout domain. Packaging, apparel and the web all speak the same language, and the store is ready for the community to switch on.

See it live ↗

The identity and the manta mark.

Three MANTA BLU tees on display, showing hand-drawn back prints — Hand-drawn back prints from the Marine Series.

A folded navy MANTA BLU tee in its branded paper band — Packaging: every tee folded into its own paper band.

A tech pack for every tee: fabric, stitching, collar, label, embroidery and print.

Two more MANTA BLU tech packs for Marine Series tees — Specified down to the Pantone colour of the label.

A white MANTA BLU tee with a hand-drawn fish back print, hanging on a rail — Hand-drawn prints on heavyweight organic cotton.

The whole story in a square cut.

The mantablu.com homepage: Above the line, the ocean below it, with the manta breaking the waterline — Tideline: bone above the waterline, the sea below it.

The mantablu.com homepage on a phone — Built for the phone.

Quick add, the bag and the 10% welcome code on mobile.

The Marine Series vol. 01 shop page on a phone — The Marine Series, vol. 01.

The Manta Ray Tee product page on mantablu.com, with size buttons and the story of the species — Every tee has its own page. Pick a size and it’s in the bag.

community.mantablu.com: Clean the coast. Earn rewards. Choose where we donate. — community.mantablu.com, taking sign-ups for clean-ups, dives and the donation vote.