Popgaze Design & Social

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Popgaze Design & Social

Your partners in design & social 🤝
Content that captures the gaze 👁️
Making your brand unmissable ⚡
Midlands based 📍

14/10/2026

We loved helping Nina launch Sawasdee Matcha Café at The Parade Shops recently.

Launching a new independent business is all about getting people talking, and across just two posts to support the launch, the response has been brilliant:

🍵 55,000+ views

🍵 Nearly 350 likes (and still climbing!)

🍵 Loads of comments from people planning their first visit - and plenty who’ve already been and loved it!

Reach is great, but what really matters is getting people through the door and helping a new local independent find its feet. Seeing queues forming and matcha selling out is the best proof that online buzz is translating into real-world momentum.

If you haven’t popped in to say hello to Nina and grab a matcha yet, you’ll find Sawasdee Matcha on the lower ground floor at The Parade - drop by next time you’re in Shrewsbury town centre.

07/10/2026

When we started working with The Parade Shops, Shrewsbury, we wanted to do more than just create content.

We wanted to get to know the people behind the businesses, understand what makes The Parade special, and bring that to life through social-first storytelling.

Eighteen months on, the results speak for themselves — over a million organic views, thousands of likes and over 2,500 new followers.

You can read more about our work and impact on our website 👁️

30/09/2026

Thousands of new followers. Sold-out weekends. A doubled floorplan. All through 100% organic reach.

A quick look at how targeted, social-first storytelling helped turn 67 Lates into one of Shrewsbury’s standout destinations.

Want to make more of your social? Get in touch, our winter diary is now open.

24/09/2026

Supporting new music start-up Future Roots Collective to develop their visual identity 🎶

We've been working with Future Roots Collective to develop a logo, colour palette and set of unique patterns as the basis for their visual identity. This exciting programme plans to bring together young people from across Birmingham's Afro and South Asian diasporic communities to collaborate and develop their musical identities. So we wanted to create a dynamic and youthful feel for the project whilst referencing the rich heritage of these communities and their approach to music making.

The logo is inspired by the interplay of new sounds forming, with the overlapping ‘OO’ in ROOTS creating a visual rhythm, like notes blending together in harmony. This shape represents the connections formed when young people from different backgrounds create music together.

Inspired by both sound and the circular geometry seen across Birmingham’s architecture, the identity feels rooted in place while looking confidently to the future. Rounded forms and an energetic colour palette of vibrant red, vivid blue, earthy khaki and cool mint colours work together to create a brand that feels expressive, welcoming and full of momentum.

Rhythmic patterns will feature heavily in the wider identity, drawing inspiration from the musical traditions of African and South Asian cultures, where rhythm, layering and collective performance play a central role.

We're excited to see how the programme develops and looking forward to building the brand with the team!

Head on over to https://www.popgaze.co.uk/ to see more of our design and branding work.

17/09/2026

Music culture and a sharp eye for design is in our Popgaze DNA 👁️

Today we're celebrating 6 Music’s with a fraction of our combined wardrobe archive.

If these tees could talk 😆

16/09/2026

Earlier this year we were commissioned by Black Country Touring to create a logo for their new artistic programme Smethwick Folk, which takes inspiration from the folklore traditions of costume, street performance and storytelling, exploring what modern-day myths look like in a town shaped by an extraordinary mix of cultures, industries and communities.

Smethwick is a remarkable place. It's a town built by generations of migration, industry and reinvention, with a richness of culture that few places in the country can match. So we wanted to draw on that wealth of inspiration to create a logo which would announce the programme and feel distinctively Smethwick.

A bold bevelled typeface takes inspiration from Punjabi truck art along with referencing a lost signwriting style. Adorned with hand rendered flourishes and icons which tell Smethwick’s story, the logo feels inviting and bright with a palette of warm yellows, pinks and corals balanced with a bright turquoise.

It was a small brief with a big impact, and we were really pleased with the results. Looking forward to seeing how the programme develops over the next 2 years!

11/09/2026

Welcome to Popgaze 👁

It’s been a little quiet on our socials lately…

The last eight weeks have been our busiest yet. Between family life, school holidays, and being fully immersed in client work, our own feed took a bit of a back seat.

But we’re back, and there’s plenty to share.

If you’re new here, hi. If you’ve been around for a while, thanks for sticking with us.

Swipe through for a quick reset on what we do…

Got an autumn or winter project in mind? Drop us a DM.

07/08/2026

Last week we had the pleasure of spending the afternoon creating content with Joanne Roughton-Arnold, CEO & Creative Director of formidability, an accomplished opera singer and passionate advocate for making opera and classical music more inclusive.

Earlier this year, we created formidability's new brand identity, and we're delighted to now continue that journey as their digital marketing partner, working across both the charity's and Joanne's own channels.

It's already becoming one of the most rewarding and inspiring projects we've had the opportunity to work on.

You can follow the journey over at FormidAbility and Joanne Roughton-Arnold: Soprano / CEO / Disability Advocate.

03/08/2026

A fun filled identity to help tell the adventurous tale of lighthouse lens fitter Orlando Stokes 💦

We've been working with Black Country Touring this summer to design an identity for their new show Cape Custard, a thrilling tale inspired by the production of lighthouses at Chance Brothers Glassworks in the heart of Smethwick. The factory pioneered the development of lenses that continue to save lives on treacherous seas the world over.

BCT were looking for a fun and quirky identity appealing to families with young children, and that drew on a playful comic aesthetic. Taking inspiration from the high energy and chaotic illustration style of graphic comics, the identity features a title device which marries a classic cartoon font with oozing and dripping liquid custard letters. Globular, fluid shapes float around in the background and set the scene for a lighthouse marooned on jagged rocks in the middle of a swirling sea.

This route features a vibrant, fun colour palette and a bold, handdrawn font for headings which has a charming, imperfect aesthetic. Custard splat shapes can hold text and a set of handrawn stars, swirls, squiggles and lightning bolts nod to a classic comic adventure.

The identity extended across print, social media assets, interpretive boards and playful activity sheets.

Catch the immersive show inspired by our local history at venues across the Black Country this summer!

Animation: Louis Hudson

Address

Smethwick

Website

http://www.popgaze.co.uk/

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