Mike Gustafson

Interactive Art Direction & Graphic Design

Welcome

I'm a senior interactive art director specializing in branding, print & digital advertising, and social media initiatives. A few of the brands I've worked on are Duracell, Tide, Bank of America, Friendly's, Merrill Lynch, US Trust, Olay, Cisco Systems, Bacardi, and Deans Foods. Select samples of my work are shown below. Thanks for visiting!

Work

Rockland Trust - 2015 TV Campaign

Otherwise successful people are embarrassed to admit when they have financial questions. Rockland Trust asked us to extend its "You have questions. We have answers." campaign with four TV spots and a shoestring budget. Targeting large business owners looking to expand, individuals looking for home equity loans, small business owners concerned about employee benefits, and first-time homebuyers, we were able to knock out four spots in one day of shooting and keep the company logo on screen for the full 30 seconds.

Friendly's Ice Cream & Restaurant

Friendly’s is a beloved ice cream and restaurant brand that was in serious need of a facelift and some good buzz. We focused on establishing an always-on social media presence that was heavy on the humor and loose with the coupons. We developed the logo and branding for a new “Friendly’s Fiver” menu deal campaign that was very successful, put some design and typography love into their quarterly Free Standing Inserts, and kicked-off the spring and summer seasons with some mouth-watering ice-cream Out of Home.

Herb Chambers - Seasonal Billboard Campaigns

When everybody already knows your name and what you do, giving them a quick chuckle on their dreary commute can work better than a hard sell. For local car mogul Herb Chambers, we blanketed Boston in quickly identifiable billboards containing witty lines and seasonal imagery. After a few months we were able to leverage these designs in other, more serious messaging while maintaining brand recognition.

Harvey Building Products - Website Overhaul

Local leader in building products manufacturing, Harvey, came to us for a complete website overhaul. As a resource for professional contractors as well as homeowner newbies, we needed to showcase Harvey’s own door and window selection while also showing the extensive list of other products they resell. With some heavy initial UX work and a modular site structure, we were able to design a content-heavy site that still felt intuitive, airy, and on-brand.

US Trust - Heritage Meets Innovation

This was an opportunity for us to do something completely out of the ordinary for a financial institution. US Trust's clients and prospects are interested in the arts, cuisine and golf so we created a landing page featuring videos of visionaries in these fields. With a theme of heritage meets innovation, we were able to seamlessly segue to US Trust's impressive history and innovative solutions.

Duracell - Olympics 2012

What's the best way to power our Olympians while they're competing in London? Our answer was to gather inspirational messages submitted by friends, family and fans to be showcased on Duracell's Facebook and YouTube pages on the months leading up to the 2012 Olympics. In London, our athletes were able to view these messages on a giant gesture-based interactive display in the Olympic Village.

Merrill Lynch - Site Redesign Concept

Tasked with doing a complete overhaul of the Merrill Lynch homepage, we thought first-time users would benefit from a timeline-based video introduction to the company, hosted by John Thiel, Head of U.S. Wealth Management. Modern typographic treatments and illustrations were juxtaposed against a walkthrough of ML's founding, key milestones, client stories and awards received, giving ML the touch of humanity they desired.

Duracell - March Madness 2012

Is there anything more exciting than a March Madness game that's on the brink of overtime? Maybe if you've got a chance to win a VIP sports weekend package in NYC too. We ran a "Power Through Overtime Challenge" on Duracell's Facebook page, supported by OLA, pre-roll, and a rich media page takeover on ESPN's bracket pages during the tournament. Duracell gained just about 8.5K fans, with 2.5K taking part in the contest.

Duracell - Power Those Who Protect Us

Our goal was to hero local volunteer firefighters and provide consumers with a forum to thank them, direct a battery donation to their local department, and share personal stories. The campaign was a huge success, helping 3,600 volunteer fire departments. Cee Lo Green was so touched by the program he rewrote his hit song "Forget You" into "Thank You", resulting in over 12.8K song downloads.

Drambuie Touchscreen Quiz

Before Tough Mudder and Spartan Race was the Drambuie Pursuit, a grueling adventure race across the Scottish highlands. To promote this event at various Drambuie club nights, we installed a 42-inch touchscreen personality quiz which matched you with a suitable Drambuie-based cocktail. See the quiz (and a fellow hitting on the Drambuie girl) in action here.