You get me.
No account-team handoff. No senior creative who disappears after the kickoff. I’m the person you talk to, and I’m the person doing the work.
Welcome
Meet Mike.
20+ years as a creative director and designer for healthcare, business, consumer brands, government, children’s media, and just about everything in between.
About me
Hi, I’m Mike
This is where I’m supposed to tell you that I have a BFA in Graphic Design, more than 20 years in agencies, and I’ve had the privilege of designing for The White House, CDC, NIH, WHO, Disney, JetBlue, PBS Kids, National Geographic, and plenty of others. My work has also earned a few ClearMark Awards along the way, including a Grand ClearMark.
There. Now we’ve got that out of the way.
But none of this tells you much about what it’s actually like to work with me.
For one thing, I like variety.
I’m an art nerd at heart, and my personal work definitely has a style of its own. But professionally, some of my favorite projects couldn’t look more different from one another.
I’ve designed for wildly different audiences and industries, from complex public health communications where clarity and trust are paramount, to corporate campaigns designed to inspire action, to playful animation that was allowed to get a little weird.
That range is one of the things I love most about being a designer. Give me a serious subject and I’ll treat it with the clarity and restraint it deserves. Give me a brand that wants to be clever, funny, whimsical, or unexpected, and I’m happy to go there, too.
After 20+ years working across different industries, audiences, and mediums, adapting comes pretty naturally. I don’t start with a particular look or style. I start with the problem, the audience, and what the work needs to accomplish. Then I figure out how to make it work.
For another thing, I’m not a “design diva.”
I care deeply about the work, but I don’t think good creative requires big egos or difficult personalities. I’m easy to talk to, I listen, and I genuinely like collaborating with people. I’ll defend a good idea when it matters, let one go when it doesn’t and do my best to make even complicated projects enjoyable to work on.
I think that’s why so much of my work has come through people I’ve worked with before, or people they’ve sent my way. Of course, they were all strangers once.
So bring me the complicated problem, the unexpected idea, or the project you can’t quite figure out yet.
I’ll take it from there.
“He brings craft, clarity, and care to everything he touches.”
“Work with Mike once and you’ll immediately understand why his teams produce such great work.”
“Mike balances strategic oversight with deep design expertise.”
Why work with me
Freelancer or agency? With me, it’s the best of both worlds.
There are projects that need a full agency. And there are plenty that don’t.
After more than 20 years working in agencies and leading creative teams, I’ve seen what makes the model work — and where all those layers can get in the way.
Today, I offer the best of both worlds: the experience and creative leadership you’d expect from an agency, with the flexibility and direct access you get from working with a freelancer.
I can take the reins.
I’ve spent years leading multidisciplinary teams, large campaigns, and complicated projects with lots of moving parts. If you need someone who can step in, set the direction, and keep things moving, I’m comfortable doing that.
I can build a team when we need one.
Over the years, I’ve built relationships with talented UX designers, developers, strategists, writers, researchers, and other specialists I know and trust. If your project needs more than design, I can bring in the right people without bringing an entire agency along with them.
Nothing gets lost in translation.
I know how strategy, content, design, and production fit together, and I stay involved from the first conversation through the final details. There’s less distance between what we talked about making and what actually gets made.
The setup can be as simple or as collaborative as the project needs. Either way, the goal is the same: bring the right people together and make something great.