Mike Make logo

Design director making products, experiences, and stories.  Info

Verse Chorus Bridge

Verse Chorus Bridge cover

Art direction and animation for 30 interviews with musicians, visualizing the musical layers and songwriting process.

Society for News Design Award of Excellence (2017)

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TruSat

Splice Sounds screenshots

Creative direction and product design for TruSat, the independent catalog of satellites—a volunteer-led project to promote space sustainability.

Landing page explainer vid illustrated/animated by Louis Wes

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Beautiful News

Beautful News cover

Various visual data stories for Beautiful News, highlighting positive trends across our planet.

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Vice News

I served as Design Director at Vice News through the conception and launch of Vice News Tonight on HBO, the rebuilding of ViceNews.com, and the design of two years of daily graphic content for TV and web.

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Pinterest Branding

Pinterest logo

Brand identity for Pinterest, designed in collaboration with Juan Carlos Pagan.

  • HOW Magazine Best Logotype (2011)
  • Type Directors Club Certification of Excellence (2011)
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Splice

Splice Sounds screenshots

I designed Splice Sounds from concept to launch—a Spotify-like platform for musicians to distribute and collect audio samples. The product has been the central engine for Splice's growth and 9-figure valuation.

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Whale song explained

Whale song glyphs

A graphic notation system for transcribing humpback whale songs to reveal their musical structure.

  • Huge thanks to David Rothenberg—author, musician, and animal call expert—who advised on this project
  • Published in the The New York Times and The Wire magazine
  • Exhibited at Aquarium Tropical, Paris, Baleinopolis
  • Featured on German TV, UFA Show & Factual
  • Presented at SciViz Conference, Creative Tech Week, the Explorers Club, and Art & Science of Whales at Icahn School of Medicine
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    Rapmatics

    Rapmatic for Jay Z
    Rapmatic for ODB
    Rapmatics for Tribe Called Quest

    A series of lyrical diagrams

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    Pollen

    Pollen book cover
    Selected collage elements from Pollen book

    Design and illustration for a book of essays, poetry, and short fiction. All illustrations are collages cut from photos of the dioramas in the American Museum of Natural History.

    Featured in the Tate Modern bookstore, London.

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    Obama's Legacy

    Screenshots from Obama animation

    This three-part series of animations discusses Obama's long-term impact in the categories of energy, military strategy, and criminal justice. It aired on HBO over three nights during his final week in office.

    Society for News Design Award of Excellence (2017)

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    Statlas

    In 2013 I quit my day job to build a baseball news app with live infographic coverage of every MLB game. A stripped down version still exists here.

    • Built with Dan Chaparian, Chris Ring, and Geoff Beck.
    • Y-Combinator nominee, 2014
    • "The prettiest MLB box scores you can find." ~Deadspin
    • "Statlas reveals the statistical beauty that orchestrates every baseball game, all through the power of design." ~Fast Company
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    Charting the Beatles

    Beatles infographics cover

    A study of the Beatles through data visualization.

    • Published in National Geographic, Newsweek, Understanding the World (Taschen), Atlas of Knowledge (MIT Press), Data Visualisation: A Handbook for Data-Driven Design, and others.
    • Featured on Gawker, Brain Pickings, The Guardian, Kottke, and others.
    • Posters available for purchase.
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    Billboard charts redesign

    Photo of Billboard Magazine

    An updated design system for the authoritative resource on the music business. Designed w/ Michael Bierut's team at Pentagram.

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    Umbro

    Selection from Umbro graphic elements

    A visual language for soccer highlights. Umbro covered the World Cup with post-game recaps, pairing this graphic system with their commentary.

    • "The Best Visualization of the World Cup" ~Fast Company
    • Record-setter for Umbro's most trafficked blog post
    • Published in the books Data Visualization: Convey, Clarify, Construct, and Data Visualization: A Successful Design Process.
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    Google Creative Lab

    Google Creative Lab cover

    I spent a year at Google working on product design R&D, and campaigns for projects like Loon—Alphabet's internet balloon moonshot.

    Businessweek

    Businessweek graphics

    I led the research and execution of a suite of graphic stories for a Businessweek special issue, exploring the lingering ripple effects of the 2008 financial collapse.