Meet the Maker is our series spotlighting the founders, designers and thinkers shaping a more thoughtful world for dogs. This edition features mud™, the dog-first brand redefining modern pet care through minimalism, instinct... and a refusal to smell like anything at all.
Meet the Maker: mud™
A conversation with the founders behind one of the most distinctive dog-first brands of the year.
1. Background & Beginnings
We’re Karina and Angelina, two East London creatives with 20+ years of combined experience building and leading award-winning brands, from beauty and wellness to global retail. We know how to build successful brands for humans - now we’ve applied that same thinking, care, and quality to build one for dogs.
We couldn’t see a single dog brand out there that felt like it was made for dogs we know. The pet care space is crowded with fragrance-loaded, over-designed products that are filled with toxic ingredients, often created more for human preference than dog health.
We were frustrated by the lack of dog-first, natural care products - and by the way we talk about pet ownership more broadly - we created MUD™ as a response.
A dog brand for a new generation of owners. We started with one product: a scentless, plant-based wash that’s pH-balanced, soothing on skin, and smells like nothing. Because dogs have 300 million scent receptors. They don’t want to smell like a candle shop. Most washes are hell for them.
2. Design Meets Dogs
We began with a wash because it felt like the most obvious place to start. Pet care is somehow still far behind - most dog shampoos are just human formulas in cuter, pastel packaging. It’s stuck in 2015.
We wanted MUD to embrace the mess, the instinct, the real dog - and the design reflects that.
mud™ is an act of rebellion against the sanitised world of modern pet care. The brand embraces the mess. Colour palette inspired by the shades of dirt, the typography and layout have no rules or grid.
3. The Creative Process
It’s been 2 years of really hard work, in the evening, on the weekends. Unlike client projects where roles are defined, we had to handle everything ourselves. It’s just us. Chasing invoices, sorting tax returns, dealing with manufacturing delays.
But that also means you get the freedom to create something that truly reflects our vision. You get to shape every single detail.
As a perfectionist, it’s been a learning curve - accepting that we don’t know everything. but we have a clear point of view and a lot of heart behind what we do.
And then two weeks after launch, we won five D&AD Awards for design, packaging, ToV, including Best New Brand 2025. Two women and a dog, self-funded, beating massive agencies. That surreal.
4. Looking Ahead
We’re seeing a shift in how people think about their relationship with the natural world — and mud™ is part of that shift. It’s about restoring a more honest bond between humans and animals, where connection replaces control.
Commercially, success means getting mud™ into more homes, expanding the product range, and building a community.
Culturally, success means changing how people think about dogs. Moving them out of the pastel, spa-day fantasy and back into reality. Dogs aren’t dolls. They’re animals.
If mud™ can help people respect that - if we can start a new conversation in this category - then in a few years we’ll be able to look back and say: we started something new.
And if, along the way, it makes life even a little bit better for the animals we share the world with, then that’s success.
5. What’s one thing your dog has taught you about creativity or patience?
Mess is a part of the process. Enjoy it.
If you’d like to explore mud™’s dog-first wash, you can find it here.
