ABOUT

Me as a kid

I was a super nerdy insecure kid that grew up in the 1960s and ‘70s but I did have amazing taste in pants!

My background

I started doing lettering and logos as a little kid, not realizing those were even things that people did as a job—I just really enjoyed drawing/stylizing words and letters.

In high school I got my first job in a screen printing shop. I got to design shirts and signage and anything else people wanted. I was getting paid to do art and that was SUPER EXCITING!

Right after college, getting a job doing design work wasn’t happening for me or my girlfriend at the time, so we started our own business, Modern Dog (see article), which we ran for nearly 30 years.

As Modern Dog, we started with a focus on the Seattle arts scene and did posters and programs for most of the live theatre companies. From there we branched out into music, recreation, advertising, fashion and more (see partial client list).

Eventually retiring Modern Dog, I found myself working in-house at the Seattle Aquarium (a former Modern Dog client) for 12 years—while also managing a small but steady stream of freelance work on the side. There are many Modern Dog and Seattle Aquarium pieces on my website. Now I’m back out on my own, excited to be designing full-time for a variety of clients again. I love design.

I did this sign for the place where I had my first design job. It looks retro now, but I did that in 1984(ish) and it was really cutting-edge then!

How I approach design

Whenever I start a design project I know that, to do a good job, I need to feel inspired. That doesn’t just mean that the project itself is inspiring. That’s easy inspiration! I like to find inspiration in projects that other designers might want to reject because they seem so humdrum.

Every design project is a problem to be solved and that’s what I love! Whether it’s helping to sell a product, get a message across, set a tone, create a feeling, provide clarity, or a myriad of other goals.

I usually begin by talking with the client to understand their ultimate goal and then how the project fits into it. That often helps me to figure out a direction to begin. And through discussion, I make sure that the client and I are on the same page.

One thing I always remember is that there is no “one right way” to do any kind of design project. Most often, the best solution is a combination of what I think it should be and what the client thinks it should be. After all, I’m not the one that will be using the design once it’s done—that’s the client. They know their business best. And I’m a strong believer that the client should feel inspired by the design that’s been created. That’s how they are best served. That will give them the more inspired energy to keep doing what they do and, therefore, give them the best chance of succeeding.

MY RÉSUMÉ 

Professional History

SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Seattle Aquarium (Oct 2012 – Jan 2025)

After many years of working with the Aquarium as a client, I joined the in-house marketing team in 2012, working on a wide variety of print and digital deliverables and taking the lead on signage/wayfinding.

• Annual reports
• Magazine
• Wayfinding
• Habitat and facility signage
• Vehicle wraps
• Posters
• Video editing
• Web design/development
• Oversee and mentor
       contract graphic designers
• Manage vendor relationships

FOUNDER
Living Fancy (Oct 2016 – 2020)

Propelled by my experience developing products with BlueQ, I launched my own endeavor, creating a line of soaps, socks, wrapping paper and more.

• Product design and development
• Coordinate manufacturing
• Web design/development
• Advertising
• Video editing
• Sales

VICE PRESIDENT, CO-FOUNDER
Modern Dog Design Co. (Jul 1987 – 2012)

Fresh out of college, I co-founded Modern Dog with Robynne Raye, eventually expanding to a studio of 5 designers and working with clients including Coca-Cola, K2, Converse, RCA Records, Uni-Qlo, Showtime and others.

• Creative direction
• Branding
• Packaging
• Illustration
• Web design/development
• Speaking engagements
• Running workshops
• Hiring, mentoring and
   supervising employees

ADJUNCT PROFESSOR
Cornish College of the Arts (2001 – 2012)

Leading workshops helped me discover a love for teaching—with several students eventually joining Modern Dog as interns and employees.

Classes taught:

• Packaging design
• Web design
• Motion design
• Photoshop and Illustrator
• Video editing
• More!

Skills

Creativity and design: Creative direction • Art direction • Branding • Graphic design • Typography • Logo design • Wayfinding • Illustration • Video editing • Packaging design • Product design and development

Software: Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Dreamweaver, Audition) • Word • Excel, Powerpoint • SketchUp • Blender 3D • Ableton Live • WordPress • HTML • CSS

Other: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu • Music • Figuring out the universal remote

Industry recognition

As a young designer, I was identified by Graphic Design magazine as one of the “People to Watch”. Since then, I have received hundreds of awards and recognition from every major U.S. design publication/organization, including Graphis, AIGA, Type Directors Club, American Center for Design 100 Show, and Communication Arts. My work is represented in the permanent archives of The Louvre (Rohan Marsan wing), Warsaw National Museum, Smithsonian Institute’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the Library of Congress, Denver Art Museum, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, Experience Music Project and the Museum Fur Kunst und Gewerbe, among others.

Personal and professional recommendations

There are two things I look for in any creative I work with – do they have talent and are they a dick. Mike has tons of talent. Mike is not a dick. This is important, so I will repeat it. Mike has tons of talent – jesus, just look at his portfolio! Look at the work for Modern Dog, for Living Fancy, for the Seattle Aquarium! If that doesn’t feel like a breath of fresh air, like the kind of stuff that others aim at and miss, like zigging in a universe of zaggers, then you need to go back to school and reconsider your career choices. And he is not a dick – he is passionate, dedicated, hardworking, smart, insightful, creative, fun, friendly and considerate. And these are extremely important qualities to have because while creativity is not a frictionless endeavor, it is not helped by tantrums, hissy fits and hysterics. It is hindered by them. They result in worse work, that takes longer and often costs more. That’s why Mike not being a dick is so important. And that’s why I love working with him, look forward to working with him in the future, and suggest you work with him right now.

Martin Bihl
Executive Creative Director at LevLane Advertising

If you didn’t already know, Mike was one of the co-founders of the hugely influential design agency MODERN DOG. Their innovative work was part of the reason I pursued a career in design. They added a unique, memorable approach to everything they touched and had fun doing it. Mike is great guy and will bring a mountain of experience and insights to any graphic design related project.

Nate Williams, Illustrator
curiosity, play, discovery

Mike and his Company, Modern Dog Design Co. is not only one of the best in graphic design industry but also the best place to work for. All the staff at Modern Dog were very talented and gave me tremendous amount of guidance and support. That made me grow a lot as a designer. It was always enjoyable
to work there.

Junichi Tsuneoka
10+ years of strong print/digital design. Partial clients include: Nike, adidas, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc.

Mike Strassburger, as co-founder and designer of Modern Dog, was one of the reasons I decided to become a professional graphic designer. I saw Mike give a talk years ago at a local design event in Dayton, Ohio. His ability to present beautiful design work and infuse his unique sense of humor was both engaging and memorable. The
work Mike has created, and the design talks he has given over the years have inspired me in my career. As a kid growing up in Ohio, the work he has created is iconic. As a young designer, his work hung on the walls of my bedroom as something to strive for. I still have the dump truck sticker he gave me the night I saw him speak. Now, 20 years later, his work continues to inspire the next  generation of graphic design students I teach every day at The Modern College of Design. Thanks, Mike for the tons
of shit you’ve delivered and continue to deliver daily.

Matthew Flick
Vice President of Program Development & Industry Relations at
The Modern College of Design

Mike has been an incredible member of our team and brings creativity, problem solving and outside-the-box thinking to every challenge. He thrives working as a team and can take a project and run if given a solo project. Prior to working at the Aquarium I worked in a creative agency environment where we worked with a diverse group of designers. I know Mike would thrive in such an environment and I feel fortunate to have been on a team with him.

Derek Baker
Sr. Director of Strategic Initiatives &
Government Affairs, Seattle Aquarium

Mike Strassburger is a magical designer and a delightful human being to work with. I’ve known Mike for decades and worked peripherally with him many times, and the degree of creativity and fresh thinking that he brings is consistently “wow”. On the practical side, he has a wealth of knowledge and experience to draw from and is adaptable to both practical problem solving and completely out there, mind blowing work. If you have the opportunity to work with this Seattle graphic design legend—do it!

Dinah Coops
UX Design and Research

More recommendations available upon request.

Naked Men in Oven Mitts

So I had this magnet idea of naked men with oven mitts covering their genitals. It seemed like the perfect mix of kinda racy and cute at the same time! Blue Q liked the idea and I was excited to put it together. THEN… I realized I had to set up a photo shoot and have a bunch of dudes pose naked with oven mitts! Wasn’t sure how to make that happen at first and felt pretty shy about the whole thing.

I wrote up a Craigslist ad spelling out what I needed. It was something like “Looking for men willing to pose nude while covering their genitals with oven mitts. These photos will be used as refrigerator magnets.  Will pay $XXX and you’ll get 5 sets of magnets.” I was really nervous to make the ad live because I had no idea if anyone would answer it, or if people would just think I’m a weirdo. Finally I knew I had to do it and I hesitated all day until about midnight when I was on my way to bed. I finally sent off the ad to go live. I went to bed and when I woke up at about 7am, I already had a couple dozen responses – many complete with nude photos! Holy crap, it worked! Quite relieved. Then later in the day when my wife got home from work she told me that when she was on her way to work she was picking up a friend and when she got in the car she handed over a polaroid of her husband naked and said that he saw the ad and wanted to do it to! So he is one of the dudes (won’t tell you which). 

I knew a retired photography professor that has a studio in his garage and he agreed to do the shoot. It turned out to be a fun, easy, happy photoshoot.

Of course, we had to follow that up with Naked Guys with Balls

Cat Butts

In the early days of Modern Dog working with Blue Q, they were big into refrigerator magnet sets and asked if we could come up with a set that featured dogs or cats. Our first thought was this kind of thing, of course:

In looking for a different direction I was thinking about cats and how they’ll stand on your lap and, when you pet them, their tail goes up and they point their butthole right at your face! So I thought it would be funny to have magnets of cats butts and identify the breeds by looking at their butts.

We had an illustrator working at Modern Dog at the time and he was tasked with illustrating cats butts. So he had his girlfriend pet any cats they saw and he would bend down and take pictures of their buttholes!

The Cat Butts magnets were very successful for Blue Q so they expanded Cat Butts into several different categories.

Holiday Favorites

While working with Warner Bros. Records, each year they wanted us to do a holiday card for them. Because it’s Warner Bros., we were envisioning that we would go through all these painful rounds of revisions and end up with a circle of multi-racial babies holding hands under a big scripty “Peace on earth”.

We definitely did NOT want to do that. So we went the opposite direction with our first concept – which they LOVED! Yet sadly declined.

But that was fine as we already had the Holiday cookbook idea rolling. We asked if they would see if any of their recording artists would be willing to volunteer any of their favorite holiday recipes and they did! We got recipes from Madonna, Los Lobos, Adam Sandler, Johnny Cash, Soul Coughing, Cheap Trick and many more! So many that we did Holiday cookbooks two years in a row.

Sound Choices

Phil Levin, a researcher at NOAA, provided close to 100 pages of research related to the inherent trade-offs associated with conservation actions in Puget Sound. It was our job to translate that into informational signage that worked to inform and educate Seattle Aquarium guests while bringing color and life to an otherwise dull hallway. The result is a graphic panel that is 6′ tall and 80′ long—and it’s gratifying to see people stop to read it as they move from one habitat to another. I was able to use a few personal pictures in the photo collage—my mom, one of my kids, the child of a friend and a favorite coworker (shoutout to Amy Z.!). 

Pt. 1
Pt. 2
Pt. 3
Pt. 4
Pt. 5

Mercer signage

Worm Is Green

CLIENT: The Crocodile Cafe
YEAR: 2004
Screenprint, 12.25” x 18.5”

Interview excerpt:

Mike: Early on when we did posters, we looked for just an initial impact. It was a one-shot deal where somebody looks at a poster and just comes away with a single idea. But now it’s always a challenge to see how many levels we can get somebody to travel. They’ll start with an initial impact from the first sighting of the poster and then, upon further inspection, have another separate thought about it. Maybe just discover something new. Even a third level and so on. So we try and control all of that. Like this poster has four levels of understanding that you can enjoy if you look at it, and it can be either funny or not.

Robynne: This is a good segue into the Adobe Kitten poster because there is no way you can see what is really in there on a computer screen.

Mike: Actually, before that, one simple version is the Worm Is Green poster.

Rick: Oh good, those are two that I really wanted to focus on.

Mike: When you first look at it, it looks like a regular indie band poster with a random industrial illustration. What I like about it is you see that there is a guy on this ladder who has all these arrows in him in all these weird places. Then there’s blood dripping out one pant leg and going down the steps onto the ground creating a puddle of blood. Then after all that there is a kitty down there licking it up that looks all cute. But when you put it all together it’s a very odd image. That was just a process where it started simple and ended up with a lot more things happening that created a story that I like.

Neko Case

CLIENT: Live Nation
YEAR: 2007
Screenprint, 18” x 24”

If Neko Case was a major corporation in 1969, this is what the cover of her standards manual might look like. The purple inside the squares was made from overlapping the blue and the red. The combination of this red and blue causes a mild visual vibration and with the patterns in the squares, you start seeing shapes if you continue to stare at it.

Telekinesis

CLIENT: House of Blues
YEAR: 2010
Screenprint, 20.5” x 30”

As I was working on this poster, I was going to lunch at a local gyro place we liked. They had posters all over one of their walls and one of the posters was a local high school basketball team poster. Telekinesis is made up of a single person and I suddenly had the idea to put his face on every single basketball player and coach in a line up. I updated all of the school logos and jerseys. I even took the “Can U feel it” phrase.

Sleigher

CLIENT: Sleigher
YEAR: 2005
Photocopy, 12” x 16.25”

I was inspired by Mexican street posters that I saw on Rene Wanner’s poster site. I just thought they looked exciting and fun—perfect for a holiday show.

Robert Pollard

CLIENT: The Crocodile Cafe
YEAR: 2006
Screenprint, 17.5” x 22”

The following interview excerpt talks about this poster:

Mike: Actually that’s funny that you put it that way because I have a couple of different ways that I start and stop. I stop for one of two reasons: One, if I have an idea about what I want a design to do or say, and the moment it does that—I feel like it’s done. The other way is, if I’m exploring a particular vernacular —like right now we’re working on a CD cover for a band called Slade from the early seventies and the idea is to approach it as though you were designing for this band during that time period. How did people approach design then? They didn’t have computers.

They had to do it . . .

Rick: Like method acting.

Mike: Like method-acting design. And then you work it to death until you’ve lived every last detail and then you’re done.

Robynne: Right. Like the Robert Pollard poster that Mike sent you as part of his selections. In some ways Mike and I are really different because when I see that poster I cringe over the type because he let things go like default punctuation. But part of who he is, that kind of stuff doesn’t bog Mike down. He’s aware that it’s happening but he takes this mindset of—“If I was just some guy and I’m a big fan of Robert Pollard, I wouldn’t care about that.” And so he lets things go that I don’t think your typical or average designer would let go and would stop him in that process or stop him in the middle of it . . .

Rick: Would be taking him out of character.

Robynne: Exactly, and pulling him away. He’s not analyzing the work as he’s creating it. Analysis only happens afterward, and the kind of stuff that comes out of him would be lost if he were to do it any other way.

Rick: That’s about, in a way, channeling, isn’t it?

Mike: Yeah, it’s kind of like that. That Robert Pollard poster, I was bummed that we had to do it the way we did it because I like Robert Pollard and Guided by Voices. And originally I just wanted to do a poster that I thought he would really appreciate and is in line with his music and his whole approach. So I was looking for images of him on the internet, and I found other guys with the same name, all Robert Pollards.

Then I had this idea about finding everybody I could that shared the name Robert Pollard, take all their pictures, and create a big collage of faces and not say anything about them. I would have every Robert Pollard on there except for Robert Pollard, the musician, and then one day somebody would eventually figure out, “Holy shit, these guys are all named Robert Pollard!” and then the poster would take on a whole new life. There would be no explanation, and I was excited about that, but . . .

Rick: The aftershock.

Robynne: But then I wouldn’t let him do it.

Mike: We called our rights expert, and it would have been a nightmare to try and make that happen. And then the poster ended up being the story of trying to do that.

Foetus

CLIENT: Tasty Shows
YEAR: 1995
Screenprint, 12” x 24”

In the original illustration the kid on the right had a skirt on but the client didn’t like the idea of violence against women, so I put shorts on instead. I just thought of the two figures as dancing so hard that one inadvertently knocked the head off the other. No real violence.

John Mayer / Counting Crows

CLIENT: House of Blues
YEAR: 2003
Screenprint, 17.5” x 24”

A friend posed for this music poster! Her name is Jeneka and she worked in a coffee shop where my business partner, Robynne, was a regular. Then, with a “posterization” effect in Photoshop, I reduced her image to three colors based on their tone, and hand-drew the main type.

Ben Harper / Jack Johnson

CLIENT: House of Blues
YEAR: 2003
Screenprint, 13” x 19”

I wanted to try and create artwork that emulated the sound of the two artists, so I drew the portraits very loosely with pencil. I followed those with inexplicable typography and a mysterious black shape right in the middle.

Jimi Hendrix Museum

CLIENT: Experience Music Project
YEAR: 1994
Screenprint, 17” x 28.25”

Before EMP (Experience Music Project) was built (and eventually renamed the Museum of Pop Culture, or MoPOP), the project was called the Jimi Hendrix Museum. In 1994 they sponsored a stage at Bumbershoot, the annual music and arts festival in Seattle. I drew this poster as a single full-size piece of art on posterboard with a marker and hand-cut all the colors on amberlith overlays. It was a very time-consuming process and made me appreciate how long poster artists from the 1960s spent on their work. I also included a hidden love note to my wife on the poster. If you look closely maybe you can find it!

Old-school amberlith mechanical, handcut with a razor.
General area of secret message!

M. Butterfly

CLIENT: Seattle Repertory Theatre
YEAR: 1991
Offset, 18” x 24”

There is a fictional story I liked to tell about this poster when we were giving lectures featuring poster work—especially to design/art students or to professional design groups. “When doing this poster we really wanted to do a nice calligraphic butterfly. We bought some fancy calligraphy brushes but since we had no experience, we couldn’t get any to look very good. Then I had an idea and we rolled out some butcher paper, put ink on our butts, and made butt prints. We chose the one that most looked like a butterfly—it was one of mine. We did have to do some Photoshop work on it because in the original print, the butterfly appeared to be emerging from a large cocoon.”

TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT

CLIENT: Seattle Repertory Theatre
YEAR: 1997
Screenprint, 20.5” x 30”

This poster was inspired by advertising illustrations from the late 1960s and early 1970s, which themselves were inspired by the psychedelic music posters from roughly the same time period. I inked all the linework and title typography by hand. And no, it doesn’t say what you think it says.

Reversible restroom signs

The Seattle Aquarium is open to the public during the day and often hosts private events after closing. Depending on the group, some prefer traditional male and female restrooms, while others prefer gender-neutral options.

To accommodate this, I designed reversible signs. They are 3D printed on both sides, include braille, and are mounted on standoffs for easy switching.

Seattle Aquarium 3D exploded map

The Seattle Aquarium expanded their footprint in 2024 by adding a third building, accessed via an outdoor, public plaza, as well as a public rooftop park—requiring updates to the visitor map and all wayfinding signage. 

The already-complex issue of how to help visitors navigate the maze of the original two buildings became even thornier with the addition of a third building and public, outdoor space.

Problem to solve

There were two major components:

  1. People want and expect a map when visiting the Aquarium.
  2. Guests need help navigating the complex spaces.

 

The issue is that no matter how accurately the map depicts the buildings, their complexity makes it difficult for a guest to navigate from point A to point D, for instance, without any additional help.

Inspiration

For inspiration, I looked to airport wayfinding. Airports are typically one-time destinations where travelers, unfamiliar with the layout, must navigate quickly through complex, maze-like spaces.

Airports excel at wayfinding by using a distinct visual style that stands out from its surroundings, with high contrast for visibility and clear readability from a distance. They also rely on symbols wherever possible to overcome language barriers.

The answer

I landed on a three-part solution.

Exploded view map: Since the map isn’t the sole wayfinding solution, it can showcase as much detail as possible, becoming highly intricate. Taking this approach turns the map into an experience in itself. Its complexity also reinforces the idea that there’s a lot to explore at the Aquarium (combating the frequent guest complaint that the experience doesn’t justify the cost).

Wayfinding signage: Using airport signage as inspiration, the wayfinding signage at the Aquarium stands out from all other signage and can be easily seen and understood from anywhere a guest might need directional help.

Online mobile interactive map: An interactive online version allows the Aquarium to present the map inmultiple languages, provide clearer navigational guidance, and display notices or alerts as needed.

The process

Knowing the new building would be open before I was able to implement the new wayfinding system, I decided to wait for about a month after opening to gain as much insight as possible about how guests were navigating the new spaces. I learned some unexpected things. 

Chief among them: Guests had a hard time understanding that the Seattle Aquarium is comprised  of three buildings. Which isn’t surprising, given that the buildings look completely different from each other—and don’t even have consistent exterior branding. (These elements were handled by outside firms with no guidance from the internal team.)

Pier 59, upper left. Pier 60, lower left. Ocean Pavilion, right

Building icons

First, I created icons based on top-view shapes of the buildings, assigning each a distinct color. These icons can be used universally to clearly indicate and reinforce that the Aquarium consists of three buildings. Additionally, signage is color-coded to help guests easily identify which building they’re in or need to find.

Wayfinding signage

This is an example of a wayfinding sign that uses color coding and icons. To stand out against the cacophony of other signage at the Aquarium, these are uniquely designed in white with black text and installed as blade signs wherever possible. All other signage is mounted flat against surfaces.

Example of a blade sign

Exploded view map

This was the final version of the exploded view map.

Online mobile map map

I mocked up a simple online version here. It has not been implemented yet. This is designed specifically for use on smartphones. Example image below.

Seattle Aquarium experience map

Until the opening of the Ocean Pavilion expansion  in 2024, the Seattle Aquarium was composed of two buildings connected by an outdoor breezeway: one a historic, turn-of-the-20th-century pier shed; the other constructed specifically for the Aquarium’s opening in 1977. Both buildings have two levels and maze-like interiors, with no clear start-to-finish path for guests. Collected cell phone data revealed that many were missing entire sections of the Aquarium while visiting, and complaints about the difficulty of finding their way around dominated exit surveys.   A strong map is the obvious solution—but that’s easier said than done.  There’s just no easy way to depict these complex buildings on a map. 

I researched wayfinding to learn what I could and included it in my presentation. Here is a portion of that component.

During my research I also came across these maps that show abstract shapes representing areas connected by pathways.

I immediately thought this approach could be a good solution for the Aquarium’s complicated buildings. Instead of trying to depict the buildings themselves, I would show a path based on people’s experiences. The following image was part of my presentation.

The two images below show the previous building-based map versus the newer experience-based map.

Map of building

Map of experiences

I also mocked up a sculptural version of the map that’s almost like an exhibit itself. I planned it fora strategic location, where guests often lose their way, to help  highlight areas that are commonly missed.

End result

The Aquarium used this map style  for four or five years—and, after it was implemented, floor staff reported that they encountered far fewer guests asking for directions.

Nike ads

As Modern Dog, we did a number of ads in this Nike campaign for Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Each ad had a way to get in touch with Nike: by phone, snail mail or fax. Some contact info was big and obvious, some was pretty well hidden. After these ads ran, Nike let us know that they’d gotten hundreds of phone calls and letters, and reams and reams of faxes. The hiding appeared to make zero difference in the response rate!

Modern Dog partial client list

Adobe Systems , Inc.

ACT Theatre

Alice B. Theatre

Amazon.com

Aquifer Software

Bathhouse Theatre

Blaze Magazine

Blue Q

Chicken Soup Brigade

City of Redmond

Coca – Cola

Converse

Eddie Bauer

Henry Art Gallery

Hollywood Records

Interscope Records

Mountain Safety Research

MTV

K2 Snowboards

K2 Japan

LA Gear

Long Wharf Theatre

Mechanics’ Institute, San Francisco

The Movie Channel

Nike

Nissan

Nordstrom

One Reel (Bumbershoot)

Planet 7 Technologies

RCA Records

Rhino Records

Seattle Fringe Theatre Festival

Seattle Group Theatre

Seattle Public Health Deapartment

Seattle Repertory Theatre

Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic

Shout! Factory

Showtime

Simon & Schuster

Sonor Drums (Germany)

Sub Pop Germany

SWATCH Watches

Tacoma Art Museum

Turner Classic Movies

Uni-Qlo, Tokyo, Japan

Warner Bros. Records

Yale Repertory Theatre

Sony Music

Modern Dogism

by Steven Heller

Apple Computer ran a national TV spot in the late eighties promoting its Macintosh, which also introduced the concept of graphic design to the general public, perhaps for the first time. As a pair of hands carefully cut and pasted type on a board, a dulcet voiceover said, “This is a graphic designer.” In the next breath it added sinisterly, “With the Macintosh you won’t need one ever again.” In less than thirty seconds Apple (arguably every graphic designer’s favorite technology company) ostensibly demystified and debunked graphic design, rendering superfluous the field and everyone in it. Good thing Apple was wrong, at least about that little detail. Good thing, too, Robynne Raye and Michael Strassburger, who were just starting out as graphic designers around the time the commercial aired, didn’t pay it any mind. In fact, they found each other and founded their graphic-design studio Modern Dog in July 1987, and the rest, as set forth in this volume, is history.

Speaking of history, as one who writes about it, I study both what is and what might have been. A devout fatalist, I obsessively invent “what if” scenarios and find myself obtusely agitated over how one infinitesimal degree of separation can alter the course of eternity. So when I was asked to write this introduction, I started thinking, What if Robynne had never met Michael? What if Robynne and Michael had never met Vito Costarella? What if they had called their company Modern Cat?

Well, for one, I would not be writing this introduction—for the obvious reasons, but also because I hate anything to do with cats. Yet more important, Robynne and Michael’s beloved Seattle—a land of punk poster plenty—would have been bereft of a critical mass of generation-defining poster design: posters that speak to both time and place, and now form an integral part of modern design history. Of course, Modern Dog was not the only poster creator in town (Art Chantry had already cut and pasted his way into the pantheon by the time the studio began), but this duo’s distinct brand of comic audacity and ribald wit—as well as their quirky marriages of kitsch and kook, their viscerally brutish lettering, craggy lines, and clashing colors, among other signature Modern Dog traits—would not have surfaced, nor influenced, nor entertained. And man, have they entertained.

Of course, this “what if” speculation is ridiculously academic. Robynne did meet Michael at Western Washington University, and Vito did arrive on the scene four years later. But origin myths are still difficult to untangle. Robynne and Michael did indeed name their studio Modern Dog, not from any particular fondness for canines, though they each have one now, but because, as Michael told me, they felt their “approach is definitely modern” and they try to “reflect what’s going on around us,” which implies a certain kind of persistence or doggedness. Hm. On the other hand, Robynne says the name came about because Robynne preferred being anonymous, rather than becoming Raye and Strassburger or Strassburger and Raye, which sounds more like a law firm than who they are—intuitive art and design makers. What’s more, Robynne admitted to me, “I didn’t think of Modern Dog as a real company.” When they started out, graphic design in Seattle was about expression, not strategic branding (as it is today), and Robynne was decidedly more influenced by the likes of Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast’s Push Pin Studios—which in the late fifties, at the height of the Cold War and cold Swiss corporate typographic style (Modernism with a capital M), combined illustration and type to make lively pictorial design. Push Pin’s blend of passe and new later influenced psychedelic posters of the sixties, which returned to the premodern days when design was characterized by hand-drawn type and image. Perhaps because Robynne and Michael preferred these eclectic approaches, embracing them as their own—that, in turn, required the eclectic Modern Dog moniker.

Eclecticism has hounded Modern Dog’s founders since their earliest days, even before they were professional designers.

Michael, born and raised in the Tri- Cities—home of Hanford, the infamous nuclear power facility and atomic-waste-leaking disposal site—has maintained a dyed-in-thewool appreciation for the absurd. Who wouldn’t, going to school at Columbia High in Richland, Washington, which had a mushroom cloud as its mascot and sports teams called “The Bombers”? How could one not be a tad daft in a town where the main cultural institution, the bowling alley, was called Atomic Lanes, and street names like Proton Lane, Electron Loop, and Fission Avenue gave a comedic twist to the idea of nuclear annihilation? All those protons and electrons in the air would have been enough to make anyone’s mind spin; thankfully Michael’s spun into graphic design. And his first real job out of high school was at a screenprinting shop called Design So Fine, where, being the only production person/designer, he had to create most of the artwork and custom lettering by hand—thereby perfecting the art of hand-cutting amberlith, which came in handy in Modern Dog’s early flat-color, collage-driven work.

Robynne was no less weirdly endowed with the strand of DNA that fosters absurdity. She was born in 1964 in Anaheim, California —home of Disneyland—to a set of firstgeneration Italian (mother) and Danish (father) immigrants—resulting in an eclectic mix of blood types that proved explosive. She moved to Seattle when she was six years old because, she confided, “my parents thought there were too many Mexicans in L.A.” As the middle child of what she called “an aboveaverage dysfunctional family,” she ran away from home at sixteen and lived out of a 1968 Volkswagen Beetle until a friend’s family invited her to live with them so she could finish high school. Then, not sure what to do next, Robynne decided to attend Western Washington University, working her way through school holding down part-time jobs. At one of these jobs—DJ at the college radio station KUGS—she met her future business partner, Michael (“who incidentally looks like a Mexican but is actually Filipino-German,” she gleefully explains). He was the first person to encourage her to pursue design as a career, so she designed program guides, band posters, and newspaper ads for KUGS and also organized station fundraisers and booked groups for gigs, including Michael’s own Acme Band.

Music is, therefore, understandably one of Modern Dog’s primary inspirations and motivations. Hailing from Seattle, the garageband headquarters of the free world, molded both of them. Moreover, Robynne claims a supernaturally strong emotional bond to music, recalling as a child how she would fixatedly stare for hours at album artwork. In addition to sound, edgy graphic design was an influence too. Michael was a fan of Neville Brody’s inventive formalism and Tibor Kalman’s irreverent wit, and embraced both of these qualities in his own interpretive way. He also admits the biggest material influence in his work has come from “the popular culture surrounding me and the design of everyday items, including such disparate detritus as tickets, furniture polish, receipts, and more”—needless to say, all the things that are found in Modern Dog’s work.

By the way, I refer to their “work” rather than style because Modern Dog is a workhorse studio with more attitude—what I call “dogism”—than a singular, consistent style, although they certainly stylize insofar as recurring conceits are visible to the naked eye. In fact, the contents of the book testifies to an overall patchwork D.I.Y. approach well represented by the collage on the cover of this book. Their neo-dada sensibility somehow finds its own formal logic in every solution. Everything here reveals resistance to and freedom from strictures. Though there’s no hiding from their D.I.Y. roots, no image is ever slavishly the same as the next, because each Modern Dog work starts as a tabula rasa—an empty vessel waiting to be filled with a concept on which they impress their graphic personas. There are no formulae or modern dogmatic directives from Modern Dog’s central committee. There are, however, ingredients, which derive from all kinds of pop culture. As Michael said when I asked him about the nature of those ingredients, “We often work tongue-incheek. Humor is a really big part of our work.” And he’s not lying. Just look at Kong, Betty the Yeti, and Ben Folds and try to hold back the laughter. This work is just too dang enjoyable to stifle the impulse.

I take comfort in labeling things, and so in my writing I used to reflexively call Modern Dog “grunge” design because it is so in-yer-face cut ’n’ paste—that is, until Robynne slapped me around and convinced me otherwise: “I cringe when I hear the word ‘grunge,’ she emphatically said. “It represents something that I personally don’t relate to at all.” But even after twenty years of working as Modern Dog she is sanguine about being labeled punk. “If punk represents the D.I.Y. attitude, I would say we are punk in our approach. We built the company from the ground up on pure instinct—and that is punk rock.” So punk it is. Yet they are more than just one label.

Paul Rand used to say that designers do their best work when they rely on pure instinct—only later do they make up smart rationalizations. Actually, I have never heard Modern Dog rationalize any of their posters, and that’s one thing I admire about them. Each work appears to grow organically from the core idea out, sometimes in rational ways, other times not. Who knows what the sheep in Tunnel Vision really means, or why the bird in Rosie Thomas is so swollen, or why a monster was introduced in the Icograda poster (a defiantly silly image for a decidedly serious design organization). The answer is, after twenty years, this intuitiveness is pure dogism, and it’s what Modern Dog has been doing so long and so well.

Steven Heller has written or coauthored a gazillion books on graphic design. He is super-smart and lives in New York City with his beautiful and talented wife, Louise Fili.

K2 Scribble Ad

In the early days of snowboarding, K2 Snowboards was battling the issue of people associating their snowboards with ski culture because they were known primarily for their skis. And the last thing snowboarders wanted was to be associated with a ski brand. On an effort to separate K2 Snowboards from K2 Skis, I created an ad that was the antithesis to K2 Ski advertising: siimply what looked like scribbling on a tabloid page by a stoned snowboarder. I also designed and wrote the tabloid page and filled it with insider jokes for snowboarders. The ad helped K2 Snowboards really separate culturally from the ski crowd and change direction not only for their advertising, but also snowboard and catalog design.

Bugs Bunny finger

When Modern Dog was working regularly with Warner Bros. Records, they wanted to create a full-page ad in a notoriously difficult industry magazine to wish them a happy birthday. Instantly I imagined Bugs Bunny’s middle finger coming out of the Looney Tunes bull’s-eye (all Warner Bros. properties!). I sent in the one and only mock-up, assuming it would get turned down. However they loved it and I got permission to draw the target as well as Bugs Bunny’s hand!

50 Cent poster

Original

Final

CLIENT: House of Blues
YEAR: 2003
Screenprint, 13” x 22”

When I designed this poster, 50 Cent was on the cover of Rolling Stone. It was a photograph by Albert Watson, a famous Scottish fashion and celebrity photographer. I liked how tough 50 Cent looked in that photo. His back was facing the camera and he was looking over his shoulder—you could see his famous bullet scars. I originally mocked up this design with the Rolling Stone cover shot and House of Blues liked the design. So I called Albert Watson, showed him the mock-up and asked for his permission to use the photo on the poster. Albert said it was fine except that Rolling Stone owned the rights to that photo for six months. So I called Rolling Stone and talked to their photo editor, who said it was fine with her but she had to confirm with the chief editor. She called later and said no. I was disappointed and used the promo shot that House of Blues sent over instead. My business partner, Robynne, showed the two versions to the students in her design class and they preferred the final image because they said it made him look more like the kid that 50 Cent is, as opposed to the man he appeared to be on the Rolling Stone cover.

Tunnel Vision poster

CLIENT: AIGA Los Angeles
YEAR: 2005
Offset, 18” x 24”

For this event, the theme was skateboarding—including live music, a skateboarding demo and an auction of custom skateboard decks decorated by famed illustrators and designers. So I approached this design with more of a typical skater mentality: I did what I wanted, specifically without regard to what the client had in mind. The quotes (following) from the AIGA Los Angeles Forum illustrate the success(?) of that approach. I even created a new logo for Art Center.

Everything was turned down initially and after much back and forth, I was able to proceed with my first concept as long as I included the “unacceptable X” over the sheep, which I thought was hilarious. I wasn’t able to use my Art Center rebrand but the poster sparked a lot of conversation.

Art Center logo

This event looks really cool, but what’s with the lamb? — frank

It must be where the hot dogs come from. — anonymous

Phew, I thought it was just me…like I missed the amputated 3 legged lamb, shag carpet and supporting our patrons connection – thanks for making me feel better. — laura

Nobody I’ve spoken to has understood the poor three legged lamb. I’m not sure now that I want to know the designer’s explanation either. But I love the carpet type, for no reason other than it looks like fun and that it would feel good. Have you seen the poster yet? — toni hollander-morse

Maybe the lamb broke his leg skateboarding. Or perhaps he was looking to skate but was unable to find a board as they are all being enhanced by artists at the moment. So being the ingenious lamb that he is, he broke his own leg off to use as a skateboard. Tragically, he did not foresee that his homemade board would be lacking wheels or that his new 3-legged existence may cause some balance problems thus preventing him from enjoying the exact activity he desired to partake in. But he seems to still be quite happy. Great attitude, little lamb. — starr merten

About that sheep…D’you think it has anything to do with that legend about — I forgot who it was…Goudy (?) who said “Anybody who’d letterspace blackletter would shag sheep.” I dunno, I see a lamb and some shag carpeting, and I think of that story. — nary

[Quoted from AIGA Los Angeles online forum, used with permission, ©AIGA 2005]