a little about us

Hot Mustard thrives on designing, launching, building, extending, refreshing and transforming brands. Our goal is to always create lasting and meaningful relationships between our clients’ brands and their customers and stakeholders through smart thinking and thoughtful design.

We take on projects large and small – from major customer experience and brand design programs, through to basic marketing outputs like websites and publications.

We work across all channels – from digital spaces that switch on audiences, through to print pieces that turn the page on convention.

We believe in the strength of design to inform, inspire, engage and drive behaviour.

We are inquisitive, invigorated by ideas and provoked by possibility.

We choose clients with whom we enjoy working and we focus on being easy to work with ourselves.

We are commercial and responsive, we operate with integrity, we take pride in our work and we make sure we deliver.

Nearly all our work comes through referral, which we interpret as positive feedback.

Mahsa Hashemi
Creative Director

Mahsa is a passionate branding and visual identity designer who combines creativity with commercial insight. She believes that great design comes from taking a strategic and open-minded approach in order to turn a client’s vision into a distinctive and effective result. She has built her industry-leading reputation on finding elegant yet simple design solutions to complex issues, being easy to work with, and always delivering consistently high quality outputs on time and within budget.

Mahsa founded Hot Mustard in 2003 and she leads the creative direction of projects. In addition to the case studies outlined, her experience includes working on brands and products for high profile organisations such as IMG, Lion Nathan, MasterCard, MasterFoods, Nestle, Pharmacare, Thomson Reuters and Virgin Mobile. She has also completed design and branding projects for launches, cultural festivals and major international sporting events and tournaments in Australia and around the world.

Connect with Mahsa on LinkedIn

Sean Grant
Strategy Director

Sean’s background spans marketing, business development, communications and experience design. He is a strong believer in the adage ‘sales without marketing is hard, and marketing without sales is pointless’. While he loves to develop innovative and creative marketing solutions, he also brings a strong commercial perspective to every project, focusing on bottom line return on investment and the objectives of key stakeholders.

Sean is a former President of the Australian Marketing Institute (AMI) and the current National Chair of Judging for the Institute’s annual Marketing Excellence Awards program. He has worked on brand strategy and experience design projects for FOXTEL, iiNet, Toyota and Westpac. He has also spent over 15 years in-house in marketing and business development leadership roles with Ernst & Young, hospital group Healthe Care, law firm Allens, insurance broker Aon and the Commonwealth Bank.  He has managed large teams and held responsibility for brand, digital marketing, corporate affairs and media relations, customer/client development strategy, market intelligence and sales.

Connect with Sean on LinkedIn

"Branding is not just about being seen as different from your competitors.
It’s about being seen as the best solution to your customer’s problem."

− John Morgan

"Design must seduce, shape, and most importantly,
evoke an emotional response."

− April Greiman

"Good marketing makes the company look smart.
Great marketing makes the customer feel smart."

− Joe Chernov

We specialise in a diverse range of services. These include but are not limited to:

Brand development
Brand & marketing strategy
Logo design
Corporate identityRebrand or brand refresh
Packaging
Business cards & stationery

Information design
Annual reports
Brochures
Publications
Newsletters
Proposals & submissions
Word & PPT templates

Digital design
Web design
eNewsletters & eDMs
Blog sites
Online tools

Environmental design
Launch & media events
Exhibitions & trade shows
Posters & banners
Signage
Retail displays

Advertising & media
Campaign advice & design
Online & print advertisements
Direct marketing
Point-of-sale
Ad placements

Project management
Print production
Illustration
Photography
Copy writing
Animation
Multimedia