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Creative, Futurist, Smart Aleck
Creative director, senior designer, and photographer

Who Is This Guy?

Creative director, senior designer, and photographer Michael Hilliard proudly refuses to be confined to a single category. Trained as an industrial designer, he sees design/user interaction as an opportunity to simplify things for people, helping them think less and navigate without frustration. He believes that users should naturally understand concepts and operate smoothly without needing instructions. Combining storytelling, context, and striking imagery — especially across multiple mediums — is his preferred way to create meaningful communication.

TL;DR

Who Is This Guy?

Creative director, senior designer, and commercial photographer

Creative director, senior designer, and photographer Michael Hilliard proudly refuses to be confined to a single category. Trained as an industrial designer, he sees design/user interaction as an opportunity to simplify things for people, helping them think less and navigate without frustration. He believes that users should naturally understand concepts and operate smoothly without needing instructions. Combining storytelling, context, and striking imagery — especially across multiple mediums — is his preferred way to create meaningful communication.

TL;DR

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We're nice people, excellent listeners, and want to discuss your marketing and branding needs. Send a note, or go the old school route and pick up the phone.

Squiddley seems eager to chat.

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Squiddley, who’s actually an octopus, began as a charming sketch for an animated Ivar's commercial showcasing delicious calamari and clams. Over time, he has become our beloved mascot, now bravely marching across a ruined landscape on a heartfelt quest for something more. Could it be love he’s searching for?

We Believe

Just like the Italian Futurists a century ago, we have sturdy ideas about what truly makes exceptional art, marketing, and communications.

The core of our services comes through a deep exploration of your business goals and challenges. We begin with discovery, an idea appropriated from our legal clients; an in-depth discussion to get to know your brand, language used, targeted goals, and potential speed bumps we might expect. We believe in speaking in relatable terms and plain language, avoiding complex jargon and acronyms.

We harness visual tools such as mockups, mood boards, and real-world examples to bring ideas to life. This approach eliminates ambiguity, allowing us to convey concepts clearly without sterilizing the process through analytics and creative briefs. We believe in the power of storytelling, and every design decision requires that creative strategy aligns with brand and marketing objectives, but too often, rigid processes trap the soul of the project.

We believe in communicating clearly.

Clients know their products and clientele, and everything must align with business plans to succeed. We believe there is tremendous value in collaboration. Engaging visual and written narrative involves summoning the dark arts, and we believe the best work comes from stirring that pot directly with our clients. 

Roadmaps outline our processes, deliverables, and timelines, and along the way, we schedule checkpoints to encourage feedback and actively listen. We believe in establishing clear expectations. Occasionally, we’ll push back with sound logic behind design decisions, but always with the goal of refining our approach and ensuring the outcome exceeds expectations.

We believe in fun. Let's have some.

Our Futurist Manifesto

Why Futurism?

A century-old art movement informs modern communications

Our design and narrative sensibilities (and name) owe a sharp nod to great art and writing from the 20th century. The Italian Futurists were a noisy collective of painters/writers/sculptors caught up in the dynamism of emerging technology and industry. They embraced the science, politics, and communications of a rapidly changing society. They expressed ideas through depictions of motion, publishing manifestos and graphic poetry, and invented multimedia shows (often ending in riots) that laid the foundation for Cubists and Dadaists to follow.

Similarities to the contemporary futurists at Futurist Juice stop with inciting riots or hanging out with the likes of Benito Mussolini.

Nowadays, our technology and services clients have business collateral printed on century-old letterpress machines, while telling their stories using bleeding-edge web applications. We embrace the fusion of the old and new, creating clever ways to make messages seen, heard, and understood, and depicting complex ideas through capturing dynamic moments.

Learn More About the Italian Futurists
Integrating Tradition with the Future
Italian Futurist wise guys, Aldo Palazzeschi, Carlo Carrà, Giovanni Papini, Umberto Boccioni, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, 1914