Design is never neutral
Michael Robinson NYC is an independent creative studio working with the brands, artists, and institutions shaping culture.
We create identities, campaigns, experiences, and visual systems grounded in a simple idea: Everything we design enters an existing system and changes it.
Our work connects strategic thinking with an artist's investigation of symbols, meaning, identity, and power.
HOW WE THINK: TRIMTAB
TRIMTAB: FIND THE POINT OF INTERVENTION
Buckminster Fuller used the trimtab as a metaphor for the ability of a small, strategically positioned action to redirect a much larger system. We bring that thinking to creative practice.
Rather than beginning with deliverables, we look for the idea, symbol, story, or experience that can create the greatest movement.
Where can design make a difference?
UNIVERSUS
Understand the field of meaning.
Universus is an ongoing investigation into how visual meaning is created and transformed, how marks become icons, icons become symbols, and symbols become emblems carrying memory, identity, authority, and power.
It asks:
Who creates meaning?
How does meaning change?
Who has the authority to define a symbol?
How do visual systems influence behavior and identity?
We approach brands, artists, and institutions as interconnected systems of signs, people, histories, rituals, and experiences through which meaning is continually made and remade.
ONTOLOGICAL DESIGN
What we design shapes us in return.
Design doesn't end when something is made.
The identities, interfaces, environments, objects, and systems we create influence how people perceive, behave, connect, and imagine what is possible.
We design the world. Then the world we design acts back upon us.
from thinking to making
strategy + creative direction
Positioning
Creative Direction
Cultural Strategy
Campaign Strategy
Launch Strategy
Brand Evolution
IDENTITY + VISUAL SYSTEMS
Identity
Symbols + Iconography
Typography
Campaign Systems
Digital Design
Brand Guidelines
experiences + cultural worlds
Artist + Entertainment Identity
Experiential Design
Spatial + Environmental Design
Events
Digital Experiences
Objects + Artifacts
CREATIVE LEADERSHIP
Fractional Creative Direction
Senior Creative Leadership
Team Building
Creative Partnerships
Brand Transformation
HOW WE WORK
PROJECT PARTNERSHIPS
For organizations, artists, and brands facing a specific creative opportunity or moment of change.
Identity
Launches
Campaigns
Experiences
Cultural Initiatives
CREATIVE LEADERSHIP
Senior creative direction is embedded within an organization or project.
Vision
Strategy
Creative Systems
Teams
Execution
Objects + Artifacts