Michael is the designer, writer and thinker who set up Johnson Banks in 1992. His company is known for how they define, then design, brands that make a difference.
They work with people who want to do big things: fight for an open internet; tackle hunger; address child poverty; raise billions for innovation and education; bring culture and enlightenment to the world; create products that question the norm; shift paradigms and change lives.
Their projects are as varied as world famous museums such as the Science Museum, art centres in Philadelphia and Paris and not-for-profits across the world. They rebranded the pioneers of venture philanthropy, Acumen Fund, and worked with Mozilla, producers of the Firefox browser, in the world’s first truly ‘open’ rebrand. Globally they have re-branded Action Against Hunger, in Europe they are working with the Gates Foundation and in the UK their project for the University of Cambridge is raising billions of pounds.
Johnson has won most of the world’s most prestigious design awards, including 7 yellow, one black and most recently a gold lifetime achievement award from D&AD. His definitive guide to the branding process, Branding: In Five and Half Steps (Thames and Hudson 2016) is a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic and will soon come out in Chinese, following on from his first book, Problem Solved (Phaidon Press 2002, 2012). His third, Now Try Something Weirder (Laurence King) will come out in English and Spanish languages in May 2019.
In his spare moments he wields old-fashioned yet wonderful cameras, and wonders why, after 47 years of trying, he isn’t a better guitar player.
