Michael Ian Kaye is a designer, a teacher of design and a creative director in New York City. His focus is treating design as storyteller, problem solver, form, function and ideally substance that drives style. His work has been seen on the covers of books, in magazines, on billboards in Times Square and everywhere you look.
Kaye is the creative director (and founder) of Mother Design, a multi disciplinary design studio born out of Mother New York. Mother Design’s clients include Dell, Johnson and Johnson, New Balance and Target. Prior to Mother Design, Michael was sr. creative director at AR New York where he developed iconic campaigns for Brioni, a typeface for Beyonce and a new Identity system for the historic St. Regis Hotels and Resorts. He worked as a creative director in Ogilvy and Mather’s Brand integration group creating groundbreaking advertising that launched British Petroleum as a pioneer in “green communication”. Independently, Kaye created the logo and several signature patterns for Kate Spade and also designed a neighborhood coffee shop, The Victory, in Brooklyn (the first caffeine on State Street). His designs for Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and Chuck Palenhuik’s Fight Club have become cultural icons.
Michael Ian Kaye’s work has garnered hundreds of awards and honors, has appeared in every major design periodical, in numerous design books and is part of the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. He has served as a board member for the American Institute of Graphic Arts New York chapter and has taught design at the School of Visual Arts for almost 20 years. Kaye divides his time between 25th street and the Catskills.
