P002 → Design, A Short(ish) Story
I’m in love with Design. Graphics, objects, experiences, inks, pixels, big ideas, small embellishments and flights of gratuitous beauty (or ugly if the solution calls for it). The following is a short story about all of that. With pictures if you don’t want to read.
“Tell me about your mother.”
She was a textile designer. She kept a set of Design Markers in her workshop. I loved the smell of Xylene that off-gassed from the colored nibs as she sketched her ideas. We lived near the City. Once a month she took me to The MoMA. Pininfarina and the Bell Helicopter. Dieter Rams and Massmo Vignelli. Then, mom would take me to Sam Flax. “Get whatever you want.” Most kids wolfed down candy. My candy was graphite, paper, ink, guache and markers of my own.
First Blood
One of my first interviews was at XXXXXX . At the time it was one of the most influential design centers in the business. I had a lousy portfolio, an ill-fitting outfit, and a bad haircut. The Creative Director suggested I ask my university for my money back. I thought he was a dick about it, but I dumped my portfolio in the trash on the corner of 43rd and Broadway and started over. A couple of years later I was selected to be in the innaugural Young Guns show at the Art Director’s Club. My work was exhibited next to Stephan Sagmeister’s, James Victore’s, Emily Oberman’s, and others’. The XXXXXX Creative Director was at the opening. I thanked him for kicking my ass and for making me stronger. He didn’t remember me.
“Hi. It’s MoMA calling. Are you free?”
I had a small digital company during the Dot Com//Dot Bomb era. We had a good run. The industry burned down. We closed. Thankfully my childhood design playground called. The MoMA was rebuilding from the ground up. So was I. It was the first major cultural rebirth in the city since 9/11. My job was to tell the world through branding and advertising. I spent four years amongst my curatorial idols and some of the best designers I ever worked with. I watched the new building grow from the ground up, and helped double visitation and membership.
I had a small digital company during the Dot Com//Dot Bomb era. We had a good run. The industry burned down. We closed. Thankfully my childhood design playground called. The MoMA was rebuilding from the ground up. So was I. It was the first major cultural rebirth in the city since 9/11. My job was to tell the world through branding and advertising. I spent four years amongst my curatorial idols and some of the best designers I ever worked with. I watched the new building grow from the ground up, and helped double visitation and membership.
I Hate Packaging
The Museum re-opened on 53rd Street. The cadence and type of work returned quickly to exhibition advertising. It was time to leave home and find new challenges. I met Chris Hacker, a compelling combination of Al Gore and Murray Moss. He had a vision to create a design practice within Johnson & Johnson that blended his passions for environmental sustainability and Modernist design. Packaging wasn’t compelling. But Chris hooked me with the fact that designers have the power and responsibility to transform the things we don’t like into things worth celebrating. I signed up as his first Creative hire. We built a global studio of designers and engineers. As a Global Creative Director I ran large teams and worked on almost every brand in the Consumer Division, worldwide. I learned more about my craft in those six years than I had in my entire career. The most valuable lesson: “Don’t hate. Design.”
The Future Is Forever
After six years at J&J it was once again time to leave home and find new challenges. I pursued new experiences across new disciplines with new people and in new industries. From 2012 to 2017 I worked in agencies and for clients of all sizes and shapes, creating physical and digital brand experiences, immersive environments, visual languages, films and more with a wide selection of outstanding partners and co-creators. Paola Antonelli once said: “ Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn’t know it was missing.” During this period I believed that my role as a designer was to make the future that we want to have tomorrow become real in the present.
“You want me to brand what, now?”
Working on big company-changing projects to “make the future” was fun. But I had a growing feeling that something was missing. I wanted to find a place to call home: somewhere I could immerse myself and bring all of my previous experiences into a sustained, long-term purpose. Easy to say, hard to define, until a very wise friend friend asked: what do you love? The answer was simple: 1: Designing stories and experiences, 2: New York City, my home. Today I am Executive Creative Director for the New York City’s tourism bureau. I oversee an incredible team of creators. We get to tell the story of this city to the world and help both locals and visitors experience this town in the most mutually beneficial way. If I had the opportunity to go back in time and talk to my younger self, intercept him at the trash can outside of the offices of XXXXXX, I wouldn’t do it. I’d rather not spoil the surprise. Below is the project of a lifetime: the opportunity to brand New York City.
There Are No Epilogues IRL
So here she is. Mom. I wasn’t born yet when this picture was taken. She was a New York City designer. When she had me she turned her creative attention to feeding my head with the ideas, objects and images that pulled her to New York from Jerusalem in 1967. Because of her, there is no epilogue to this story. It’s still being written.
© 2024 Elan M Cole