Mike Thomas Email & Phone Number

Austin, Texas Area

Founder of the Branding + Design company. Starting up branding services for the Austin area. Working with agencies and corporate clients.

Austin, Texas, United States

Oversee the creation and implementation process of design and art pieces for the company. Evaluate Schwab’s goals and expectations, then create and direct teams as needed to create visually appealing pieces that tell the story of Schwab’s brand. Pitching and implementing design ideas to our internal clients. Oversee a team of graphic designers and other design employees producing all branding elements from video, web, email, print and social media.

Kansas City, Missouri Area

Inspired and coached Art Directors, Writers and Designers and their teams toward creating breakthrough brand experiences for clients. Played a strong leadership role in business development, senior client relationships, and agency management relationships. The team consisted of 15 plus creative professionals.Managed and lead Creative Teams to improve their work and developed continu- ous thought leadership for their teams and clients.Ensured team managed client expectations, effectively mentoring and managing their respective teams.Developed and implemented processes for deliverables that assured maximum collaboration and creative excellence. Upheld quality standards of all creative deliverables through a self-developed systematic evaluation process.Established and maintained lasting and supportive senior level relationships with clients.Worked with Creative Teams to stage meetings and events to promote a robust and exciting exchange of ideas and opinions about the industry and our agen- cy's environment and products.Shared responsibility for new business efforts, collaborated with Business Development, and Creatives in crafting pitches for new business, and to grow existing client relationships.Fostered an environment of multidisciplinary collaboration and creative problem-solving. Ensuring our internal processes, training and knowledge sharing reinforce this perspective.Presented and sold creative work to clients with confidence and passion.

Madison, Wisconsin Area

Art Director. Supported Creative Director in executing creative strategies fora host of clients.Consulted with creative and account team members to ensure projects were executed at the highest level, in a timely matter and met objectives.Formulated concepts, executed designs, and presented creative for Web, Print, Collateral and other mediums as needed.Attended and lead meetings to develop creative strategies and implemented all creative requirements including copy, layouts, illustrations, photography and broadcast.Provided art direction on Print, Broadcast and Digital production including photo shoots, film shoots, including pre- and post- production meetings.Adhered to client graphic standards when needed, ensuring that brand standards are being upheld.Direct and collaborate with a multidisciplinary team to produce projects, including photographers, directors, producers, printers and freelancers.Presented and sold creative work to clients with confidence and passion.

Greater Milwaukee Area

Associate Creative Director. Worked with ACD copy partner to mentor and manage a full creative team of 10+ people, included designers, writers, content mangers, art directors and production artists.Guided them to generate a wide range of concepts, high-level copy writing and content strategy, providing evaluation, mentorship, counsel and determination of assignments, promotions and incentives as needed.Qualified, prioritized and delegated workloads for the team, while working on creative assignments with copy partner.Worked on development of each team member's confidence, leadership and presentation skills, monitoring performance and progress and managing up to the leadership team.Fostered positive relationships among the internal brand teams, the creative department, other agency partners and clients.Lead the development and delivery of creative solutions from content work to larger campaign initiatives for a variety of clients and industries. This included execution of work on my own as well as approving the work of the teams.Constantly improved on ability to understand, articulate and strategically apply the latest platform/industry/creative trends and digital best practices, knowing social inside out and always sought the next opportunity in this new space.Helped streamline creative processes to improve team structure at a wider level, providing input on wider operational systems as needed.Actively lead and participated in new business projects.Co-leading/leading brainstorms and actively participated during inter- agency ideation sessions as the face of our brands.

Portland, Oregon Area

Associate Creative Director. Worked closely alongside Creative Director to guide the creative development and execution across channel marketing and above the line branding work, tirelessly for our base of clients.Responsible for developing in meetings with agency staff a creative brief articulating the key elements of the creative direction and strategy.Supervised the execution of copy, content, art and design throughout all phasesof project development. Delegated or shared tasks/responsibilities to improve work-flow.Taught, coached and mentored others in design fundamentals including color theory, typography and composition as well as strategy, market, competition and customer insights and how all those things work together to make compelling messages that drive people to be loyal customers.Identified and addressed technical problems as the related to visual design in integrated campaigns from digital to point of purchase to print ads and televi- sion commercials.Designed in a variety of styles working on multiple projects.Assisted with the monitoring of all assigned production and follow through on all phases of production.Remained current on all industry standards, trends and technology.Developed and supported development of new business, making presentations and was instrumental in helping to win new business.

Greater Seattle Area

Senior Art Director. Generated ideas and concepts in large team setting. Produced sketches, storyboards, roughs to visualize ideas.Understood marketing initiatives, strategic positioning and target audience. Cooperated with the rest of the creative team across different types of media. Took work from concept to final execution within tight deadlines.Managed and delegated responsibilities to other designers and provided direction. Presented completed ideas to clients and team members.

San Francisco Bay Area

Art Director. Presented pitch work to new clients and won key pieces of businessincluding being the first agency of record for Yahoo! and WIRED Magazine.Prolific in producing work for these early clients helping to cement the agency as an all-star creative powerhouse winning a number of international awards.

New York City Area

Art Director. Worked on creative concepts for the agency roster at the time that included branding work primarily for Sun Microsystems, Diet Coke, Eddie Bauer and Charles Schwab Corporation.Worked with Creative Directors who taught us the ropes in branding and advertising a mere generation removed from the people who formed it directly during the creative revolution of ad agencies during the 1960's in New York City.