Michael Mason is a Canadian-born, interdisciplinary Designer and Creative Director based in London, with a focus on brand identity and communication design. His career has spanned through some of the world's most influential creative environments to create focused, meaningful, and concept-driven work across branding, art direction, and graphic design. In the past, he has held roles within Pentagram, Mother, Winkreative, Apple, Google Creative Lab, Man vs Machine, KOTO, and Character SF, with clients including Nike, Aesop, AIGA, Apple, BBC and Squarespace. He is currently Creative Director at Bold Scandinavia.

SS. Your portfolio moves fluidly between branding, art direction, and graphic design, always with a clear conceptual core. How do you usually begin building that foundation for a new project?

MM. I think that what’s most important in creating work that resonates is understanding the contexts that the work will live in. And reaching that understanding is a different journey with every project. Clarity is often subjective, and communication styles are always contextual—so to create work that’s clear and engaging you need to really know your subject and your audience. If I know the subject and the audience well, building that conceptual foundation can be a quick and intuitive process. When I don’t, there’s a steeper learning curve to climb. In which case, building that foundation can take a lot of research, discussions, or otherwise to make sure I have what I need to create work that’s interesting and authentic.

Having collaborated with both small businesses and global brands like Nike, BBC, and Squarespace, do you find yourself approaching scale differently depending on the client?

In some ways it’s the same, in other ways it’s different. The goal is always to create work that answers the brief, connects with the right people, and pushes the culture forward. But context matters; designing an identity for a small café and leading a global rebrand are worlds apart in terms of process and what ‘success’ looks like. With a smaller brand you can often lean into character and immediacy more, as you’re working with less and speaking to fewer people. With something like a global rebrand, you’re usually speaking to a much broader audience, with a much larger set of decision-makers, so that usually means a lot more perspectives and priorities to balance. Personally, I find that they can both be really rewarding, but in different ways.

You’ve worked in settings where both precision and big ideas are valued. How has that shaped the way you define your own design language today?

Honestly, I find it hard to draw a circle around my own design language. With brand designers especially, I find there’s often this inherent tension with how we think about our work. On one hand, we try hard to steer clear from having a ‘specific style’ to let the conceptual challenge of a project guide the aesthetic. On the other hand, we tend to have very strong opinions on what differentiates good work from great work. Which, often comes down to taste. Context, culture, craft—they’re always changing.

That said, one thing that I do always look to balance is a sense of character and clarity. For me, great visual design is distinct enough, and simple enough, to easily capture and recall. If it’s too complicated, it risks being misinterpreted. If there’s no character to it, it risks not being engaged with at all.

Another inherent tension that I try to instil in much of the work that I do is balance the familiar with the unfamiliar. Work that really resonates needs something about it that is a little bit abrasive—but also not so foreign that it feels impossible to embrace. Something that feels both familiar, and contextually surprising.

Are there particular industries or kinds of projects that feel especially rewarding for you at this stage, or areas you’re hoping to explore further?

At this stage, the most rewarding projects are less about industry and more about the people involved. More than anything, I just want to be working with nice, ambitious people who care about the work as much as they do each other.

What helps you stay sharp and organised in your practice? Are there specific tools, systems, or personal rituals you rely on?

I find that probably the most crucial creative ritual I have is making sure that I have time to sit alone with my own thoughts. Going out for a run, having a walk in the city with nothing but a notebook, etc.

If I’m working on a project by myself, I’ll usually get the most difficult or conceptual parts of the work done while out on a run, or in long transit. Prioritising those moments in my everyday—whether that means walking to work, running a few times a week, etc.—is very important to me both creatively and generally.

I also keep a lot of lists. Of everything, really—from people I’d love to collaborate with, to topics I’d like to sit down and research, to movies I’d like to watch.

 Finally, if you could take on a dream brief—no constraints, no client approvals—what would you create?

Ouf. I would absolutely love to work on basically anything in public infrastructure—something like an identity for a rail network, a public library, or a parks service. Something that’s woven into the basic operations of a city’s day–to–day would be incredible. A lot of the work that I’ve done over the course of my career so far has been fairly temporary. So, taking on some more work with traditional, longstanding institutions sounds like it would be a refreshing and rewarding challenge.