I'm Charlie ☀
My influences come from a broad range of experiences playing bass in a post punk disco band,
producing & mixing electronic music,
and selling coffee at my neighborhood farmers market.
Please reach out if you're interested in working together ☮
about
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My name's Charlie Michael, welcome to my site. I'm a graphic designer with a unique perspective on culture, generalizing in visual identity systems, illustration, type design, sound design, writing & recording music, 3D design and expressive coding for the web. Reach out so we can work together ☮
COACHELLA 2022
ART DIRECTION
VISUAL IDENTITY SYSTEM
I designed the visual identity system for the Coachella 2022 social media presence, under the creative direction of David Badounts at XX Artists. I created a system based on feeling & tone, and intentionally tried to limit a reflexive "rules-oriented" design approach to instead emphasize bold character and authenticity, while maintaining cohesion and distinction.
DYNAMIC VISUAL SYSTEM
For a client like Coachella it's crucial to construct a system that allows for flexibility. I designed
the rules for this system in such a way that I could create the requested assets, but would
also be ready to create assets on the fly responding to new asset requests during and reacting to the events
on stage and amongst the crowd. To that end, what I limited was "limits", using any combination of colors
and organic shapes made by tearing pieces of paper I could make an infinite variety of compositions.
The only real rule I used was "don't let shapes bleed off the canvas". This simple rule I found was enough to contain
what otherwise might seem like chaos, but this "gentle gathering of chaos" combined with following instincts
for color, form and composition was enough to create a distinct identity while also preventing the "rules"
I create from getting in my own way.
FOR BILLIE EILISH'S IG
Some Coachella artists used our assets to promote their performances on their own IG accounts.
YOUTUBE MUSIC
ART DIRECTION
VISUAL IDENTITY SYSTEM
I directed a team of 9 designers from London, NY & LA over a 4 month development process with YouTube Music to develop a new identity that speaks to Gen Z, under the Creative Direction of Bobby Solomon at XX Artists. 25 "moving posters" were developed, each with several dimensional formats and color variations, as a comprehensive system through which they present their coverage of the global music industry, while visually establishing themselves amongst their competitors as a leading brand in terms of cultural relevance and authenticity.
BLUR SHAPES
To create a graphic system that's recognizable without distracting from the music videos themselves,
I developed a system that uses simple shapes and blurs to temporarily obscure the type in ways that suggest different
kinds of "fantastic machines" that perform the job of introducing type and then shuffling it away in ways that
are easily understood by the eye and create individual narrative moments for each asset.
EXPRESSION WITH RESTRAINT
To create a system that is sophisticated yet bears no lack of character I relied on simple shapes
like squares and circles, and a restrained color palette. I used Google Roboto which is quite flexible
and allowed a variety of scale changes to create dynamic typographic moments.
THE INTERMET
THE MET ON THE INTERNET
CODED WITH REACT JS, THREE JS/R3F
I built a website that accesses the Met's Open Access collection of art and displays it in a 3D space. You can search the database by name, country or culture, and it will display all the items the Met has tagged with those terms. It's a way to discover new art, and it's fun to fly around the space looking around.
THE ADVENTURES OF GLORP
MICA GD—MFA THESIS
My Graphic Design MFA thesis at MICA establishes a connection between Susan Sontag’s
Notes on Camp and meta– modernism, a sensibility described in Luke Turner’s Notes on
Meta Modernism as “informed naivety”. Using the vehicles of type design, image–making,
visual identity and poetry, I explored how this sensibility describes my passion for
campy fantasy novels from the 1960s, in the role of my Dungeons & Dragons character, GLORP.
The sensibility of informed naivety precisely describes my relationship with campy fantasy,
a genre that I’ve loved since I was young, despite my awareness that conventional culture
doesn’t consider these books, nor the art that accompanied them, “good”. Yet to me they
are glorious in their lack of self-awareness, a charm that comes from a bold disregard for
conventional taste. This is conveniently summarized in my observation that heroes on fantasy
book covers never wear pants.
“What does the pants–less fantasy hero do, when not posing heroically?”, is the question
I explored as GLORP, my character who I played for a year during the quarantine. Downtime
GLORP acts as a muse that I invoke throughout my thesis book, to read poetry and guide the
reader through all of the territories I roamed in my seach for my own interpretation of
radical authenticity.
INFORMED NAIVETY
The sensibility of informed naivety precisely describes my relationship with campy fantasy,
a genre that I’ve loved since I was young, despite my awareness that conventional culture doesn’t consider these books,
nor the art that accompanied them, “good”. Yet to me they are glorious in their lack of self-awareness,
a charm that comes from a bold disregard for conventional taste. This is conveniently summarized in my observation that
heroes on fantasy book covers never wear pants.
GLORP'S DOWNTIME
“What does the pants–less fantasy hero do, when not posing heroically?”, is the question I explored as GLORP, my character who I played for a year during the quarantine. Downtime GLORP acts as a muse that I invoke throughout my thesis book, to read poetry and guide the reader through all of the territories I roamed in my seach for my own interpretation of radical authenticity.
TYPE DESIGN / 3D MODELING
I like to consider graphic design as commercial art and myself as a commercial artist—commercials are hilarious, they provide so much insight into cultural assumptions, and serve as a familiar format that jumpstarts a viewer into your introduction of a fresh and nuanced perspective. Here, the arcane aesthetics of an imaginary occult book series contrast against a neighborhood grocery store, creating tension and dimension between elements both fantastic and mundane.
FAKE COMMERCIALS
Here I designed an imaginary commercial that feels like a conventional commercial, contrasting sharply against the established visual language of my thesis book. The product plays on the similarities between perscription drug names and space monsters of the 1960s. Zirtec, Zoloft and Zorak are similar phonetically, yet two are pills and one is an anthropomorphic mantis villain from Space Ghost (1966). I chose the name Zardoz for its poetic value, and for its association with the Sean Connery movie from 1974.
CULTURAL RESEARCH / COMMENTARY
This section, called Riddim, ends with GLORP in his role as muse, providing a transition into “sponsored content”—a long form commercial break that continues the exploration of advertisements and their role in creating culture.
BRASS TACKS
SOCIAL CAMPAIGN
Brass Tacks is a clothing and lifetstyle brand based around a sensitivity to "living room culture"—a casual vibe experienced through lighting, music, clothing, incense and an appreciation for cultural detail. The brand's aesthetic is flexible, interpreted in different ways for each piece but always capturing the same tone of playful expression. Influences are drawn from a wide variety of cultures reflecting the diveristy of the team, representing the Caribbean, Hawaii, Philippines and the US.
THE JOHN WATERS MUSEUM OF ART & PUBLIC RESTROOM
MICA GRAD VISUAL IDENTITY PROJECT
To create a narrative for a hypothetical museum curated by John Waters, I watched his movies, listened to interviews, and read his writing to glean what his values are, and what he appreciates in art. He credits his interest in art to a Miro print he bought as a child and its power to anger people.
In an Artnet News interview, John Waters explained, “The thing is, all the stuff that people hate about the art world, I love. I embrace all the elitism. I think it’s hilarious. I love impenetrable art writing.”
He goes on to describe his appreciation for Karen Sanders work, “She just took a blank canvas and left it outside until it got mold and everything, it’s really ugly. The problem with buying it is that the mold will spread in your house, and it’s toxic. So to me this is the best art piece I’ve seen all year. I’m still trying to figure out how I can own it without poisoning myself.”
ART THAT'S HARD TO LIKE / BATHROOMS
In this scene from Female Trouble, girl delinquents smoke in the bathroom. In his interview with Big Think, John Waters laments the loss of “pervert” bathroom culture to the seedy corners of the internet, where they now reside. Public bathrooms clearly have a cultural value that he appreciates and represents in his work. When showing his own art at the Baltimore Museum of Art, John Waters requested the museum’s bathrooms be named after him.
VISUAL IDENTITY PROPOSAL
My concept for a museum curated by John Waters is, “The John”, where the gallery is in the bathroom. The visual identity takes inspiration from default signage found in bathrooms. I also developed an illustration style that connotes installation manuals for hardware. Placing the art gallery in a public restroom creates a delightful contrast between the worlds of high brow art and random people who just need to use the bathroom—a setting ripe for unexpected collisions that I am sure John Waters would appreciate.
SUB-BRAND FOR EXHIBITION
Exhibitions at The John function with their own visual identities under the umbrella of the main identity,
with room to establish a unique experience to keep things fresh, while complimenting and remaining cohesive with the main identity's tone.