By Invitation Only Jeff Johnson, ’92, founder of Spunk Design Machine, is leading designer for mission-oriented clients
> Spunk redesigned and helped develop a new aesthetic that embodies and honors Galactic Pizza’s sensibilities and maintains an earth-friendly system of production.
A 2010 article in The Line, an online Twin Cities magazine, showcases Spunk Design Machine’s niche of attracting “mission-oriented” clients, resulting in a 30 percent increase in work. “I feel incredibly excited and bullish about this trend,” Johnson said. “Clients that are doing mission-oriented branding are succeeding.”
Photo by Chris Bonhoff
> The exterior of the revitalized Seward Co-op was to convey the exuberance and freshness of the co-op and the new Seward Co-op brand. The challenge was to give the store a more contemporary, urban image, while celebrating the actual farmers and artisans whose work is integral to the cooperative community.
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eff Johnson is North Dakotan through and through. His hard work ethic, self-deprecating humor, and genuine modesty have elevated his award-winning company, Spunk Design Machine (SDM), to one of the region’s most sought-after graphic design boutiques, with offices in Minneapolis (5 designers) and New York (2 designers). Despite an anemic economy, Spunk has blossomed where others have withered.
His client list is akin to Madison Avenue’s big dogs—American Express, Chrysler, Coca-Cola Company, KIA Motors, Kraft Foods, Microsoft, Nikon and Subaru. He is equally inspired, and successful, with small companies and nonprofits. “Good work attracts clients,” Johnson said. “This week, for instance, we’re working with World Bank and Best Buy. It’s crushingly difficult, but we try very hard to treat every project with our absolute best work.”
Emerging literature touts businesses of the future competing on smarter design, not lower price points or energy costs.
For Johnson, design excellence means no go-between.
“A wonderful wave of business leaders and policy planners are embracing design because they see it as a way of competing in a hard market, and thriving,” Johnson said.
“Our designers have direct, and often daily, contact with clients. It’s critical to provide direct mind share between clients and designers. That gives us great results.”
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Alumnews Summer 2011
These organizations, like Spunk, pay attention to a triple bottom line that looks at financial, environmental and community factors. Johnson believes that companies selling good products with a clear message are “rocking it.” Seward Co-op is a great example, he explained. “When we started working with them in 2005, they were a $7.9 million organization. In 2010 they posted revenue of $21 million—a 43 percent increase— charging 30 percent over Cub, paying 100 percent living wages, self-funding a LEED-certified building, powering their building with solar energy, and selling the highest quality food in the metro. People vote with their dollars to do great things.” Other mission-oriented clients: Equal Exchange Coffee sources excellent coffees from small-scale farmers around the world; Share Save Spend teaches how sharing impacts family, community and the world; Davis Food Co-op in California has succeeded where other co-ops simply failed; Equal Exchange Fair Trade Co-op keeps small farmers an active part of the world marketplace; and Galactic Pizza’s sustainable mission is unmatched.