Mertens Martijn

Martijn M. Mertens is a Belgian brand identity designer and typographer. He was born and raised in Brasschaat, Belgium. He interned at Today Agency and Base Design, and worked as a graphic designer at Duval Branding. Martijn founded Antwerp-based graphic design studio MMCreated in 2016 while he was studying at Sint Lucas Antwerpen. This is where he creates or updates brand strategy and visual identity, and deals with plenty of other graphic design related inquiries.

Tumtu Market

What am I looking at? You may find yourself asking this when navigating these shelves. Perchance the better question is; Do you know what you’re looking for?

We’re better off than we have ever been, right? We get to live longer, with each new generation having more stable lives than the preceding. The world’s a vibrant place with ever peaking welfare and a seemingly ever-growing population. In fact, we’re doing so good; the bigger portion of the population in our society has enough money to consistently ensure and meet basic needs. What else can one wish for?

Something, it seems like. Never has the world been so filled. Filled with ads, products. Ideas. Every moment of our days is filled with some type of content. Take a glance at your surroundings and count the number of stimuli subconsciously conversing with you. The street scene is designed to distract us from what we’re doing at any point in time. Our world, both digital and physical, is a continuously evolving arms race for our decreasing attention. It’s designed to play on this human tendency to seek to offset this lack of something with things of no inherent value. Things which we assume will fill this void, only to then realise they don't and to ultimately move on to the next must-have, ad infinitum. The streets, shops, your computer, phone — they tease to scratch your ever-lasting itch of desire, leaving you with seemingly no other option than to give in to this game of consumption.

Welcome to Tumtu Market, a place designed to capitalize on this need-filling nullity. These products contain the idea of happiness, enjoyment, welfare. Excitement? Fancy one? It may be exactly what you’re looking for. Don’t be mistaken though, none of these boxes make any logical sense. They’re natively digital embodiments of intermixed supermarket product categories, there to keep you from both discovering and reaching your actual longings by drowning you in meaningless information and empty, irrelevant promises. The filtration of exactly those rules and conventions designed to distract and grab your attention.

But don’t mind logic. By all means; this pseudo-satisfying feeling? You deserve it. Please visit www.tumtu.market to secure your very own jabber-filled dream. All purchases are final.

We hope you enjoy your visit.