Mark Hurrell.

I’m a designer who loves getting hands on with materials, whether that’s code or paper. I create beautiful, functional products that are efficient, maintainable and maximise whats possible with the technologies underpinning them. I’m excited about making things that encourage people to become active creative participants in the chaos of the world.

I was pretty successful in my 20s, leading the award-winning design of national-scale technology platforms (and often coding them too), building internationally recognised design teams, and managing programmes of critical national infrastructure with tight timeframes and tighter budgets. In 2018 I worked with LLMs for the first time on some long-running information architecture and accessibility issues we had on GOV.UK, and the experience inspired me to refocus from leadership to IC work.

Since then I’ve worked with everyone from zero-to-one startups, established tech giants to artists, prioritizing collaborative fast-paced teams and rapid iteration through prototyping. At the beginning of 2025 I moved from Hackney Wick in East London to Sawtelle in West LA, and I love everything about it.

Awards

The Design Museum

  • Design of the Year, 2013 (for GOV.UK)
  • Digital Design of the Year, 2013 (for GOV.UK)

D&AD

  • Black Pencil, 2013 (for GOV.UK)
  • Yellow Pencil, 2013 (for GOV.UK)
  • Pencil, 2018 (for GOV.UK Step-by-step)

.Net Magazine

  • Team of the Year (for GDS)
  • Redesign of the Year (for BBC News)

Coverage

I've been profiled by Offscreen magazine, and contributed profiles of both GDS and the BBC design teams for Creative Review. Over last fifteen years my blog posts about web typography have been written up in Wired, A List Apart, several academic textbooks and a couple of PhDs.

I've taught post-graduate design at Goldsmiths and the Royal College of Art, and have spoken about my work at IKEA's Space10. My work has been written about in Bloomberg Businessweek, The Guardian, BBC Radio, Creative Review, The Daily Mail, Core 77, Wired, Tech Crunch, O'Reilly books, and has spawned numerous memes on Hacker News.

Quotes

It’s simple, direct, well mannered — all the things we would like to take for granted from the government but, in a sea of red tape and jargon, usually can’t.
Deyan Sudjic OBE
Remember the thing a few years ago about the lack of web masterpieces? A strong argument could be made for GOV.UK.
Frank Chimero
The design principles from the UK government are simple, beautiful and just *right*.
Tim O’Reilly
A portrait photograph of me
Me
Me speaking in front of a slidedeck
Talking at Space10
A scan of a photograph of me in a magazine
Offscreen Magazine
Me and a man in a bowler hat
GOV.UK launch day
Me sitting in a crowd, smiling
Community events