In 1990, Michael founded Pantuso Design on the premise that design and the visual arts should be approached with this same passion and that every project should be better than the next. “I love design. Design communicates, inspires and motivates,” he says. “Design touches people in a way that can build trust. Design at its best captures the essence of a product, a service or an organization. Design matters.” Michael fervently believes that a brilliantly designed and well-conceived brand provides a client with a long-term competitive advantage. “People trust things that are familiar to them,” he says, “so it’s important to have that integration and consistency for a brand. Whether it’s an email campaign, or a billboard, or the website, or the collateral materials or the CEO’s speech, or the widgets given out at trade shows... a consistent message needs to be expressed.
“It can be frustrating when clients don’t feel the same passion or fail to give marketing and branding its due importance. Or, when it’s approached as a necessary evil. Creating a company’s image and identity is often a lot of work and doing it properly requires an organization to ask itself some tough questions and possibly make some difficult changes. But if you think about it, any company that cares and is passionate about its image in all probability also cares, and is passionate about its products and services and customers and employees.”
Michael’s consultancy offers comprehensive branding, corporate identity, web design and interactive media, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing and collateral development. He strives to develop hard-working and effective creative concepts that define, re-stage or extend brands across multiple supporting media. His design guidance and branding expertise strengthen marketing strategies and provide a framework for results-oriented projects. The combined strength of his process, experience and creativity allows him to solve design challenges quickly and effectively.
Once Michael set aside his thoughts of tennis stardom, he studied graphic design, commercial art and marketing communications on his way to a bachelor’s degree from Flagler. After graduating in 1986, he moved to and began his career in Chicago. You can learn more about Michael at www.pantusodesign.com.
Michael Pantuso Design and Qdesign are dedicated to these five principles: 1) Differentiate: Be Different. Stand-out.
2) Focus: Who are you? What do you do? Why does it matter?
3) Collaborate: Integrate.
4) Innovate: Think creatively. Use the right side of the brain.
5) Cultivate: Business is a process. A living brand is a pattern of behavior, not a stylistic veneer
