MullenLowe Launches New Design Studio
The most talked about rebrand at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity was not for a legacy CPG company, but for MullenLowe U.S., a challenger agency for challenger brands that believes its best work is ahead of it.
Now on the heels of its highly celebrated rebrand including three Cannes Lions, three Clios, three One Show Pencils, two Art Directors Club Cubes, a D&AD Yellow Pencil, Monotype 2024 Type Trends Report, and inclusion in Ad Age’s Top five Logo Changes of 2023 alongside iconic brands like Pepsi, Jell-O, and Max, MullenLowe is uniting its robust design practice across its three offices in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles, and launching MullenLowe Design Studio. The strategic move to create a dedicated design group underscores the agency’s commitment to crafting a holistic approach to creative solutions that capture an unfair share of attention for its clients.
“As an agency, if you can’t brand yourselves, how can clients expect you to create a brand (or rebrand) for them? While the current trend is to outsource your agency logo or rebrand, MullenLowe did it entirely in house,” said Frank Cartagena, CEO, MullenLowe U.S. “These same designers are working on our clients' business every day. Without great design, a great idea will never realise its full potential. We are an ideas agency, and by formalising our design practice, we are ensuring design is always at the core.”
Heads of design, Fabio Brigido (MullenLowe West) and João Paz (MullenLowe East), who led the award-winning agency rebrand effort, have joined forces to co-lead the practice and will provide oversight and guidance across accounts and offices, ensuring each client has the best team for the assignment. Together, Fabio and João have built an incredibly strong and diverse team of makers who have raised the bar for the level of craft MullenLowe delivers. Having spent many years as art directors, both João and Fabio think and operate as both designers and creatives. This hybrid skill set offers a unique perspective on understanding and solving the challenges brands face. But don’t take our word for it. The team’s track record speaks for itself.
For the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes, the design team turned a multichannel rebrand of a desert hockey team into a more inclusive vision of the sport’s future. For the Brooklyn Film Festival, they tackled the complex concept of censorship using a series of vibrant and provocative characters meant to inspire reactions and encourage an open mind. Last year, the team turned its attention inward, providing a 'mommy makeover' to the agency’s ground breaking Momternship program. Now, the team is partnering with Naked Juice to bring to life the brand’s much-celebrated partnership with tennis phenom, Coco Gauff, creating a visual system that blends tennis and fruit with a refreshing sense of movement.
Fabio and João have assembled an international, diverse team that includes graphic designers, motion designers, film editors, illustrators and typographers, who are united in the belief that good design should be EASY - easy to understand, easy to use, easy to adapt, easy to access, and easy to love. But it’s hard work to get to easy, and that’s what this design group does best.
