About

Michael Cina’s work exists at the intersection of design, typography, branding, strategy, and art. This uncommon mix allows him to see differently and direct ideas with purpose. Decades of moving fluidly between disciplines have shaped an approach that blends instinct with strategy, intuition with clarity, and expression with systems thinking.

An internationally recognized Creative Director and Artist, Michael leads the multi-disciplinary studio Cina Associates. His work spans global brands including Disney, Apple, American Express, ESPN, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft. Across his career, he has synthesized typography, branding, illustration, motion, web, music, photography, and type design into cohesive systems that perform across platforms and cultures. His work has been widely published, recognized with Emmy and Grammy honors, and he is a frequent speaker at global design conferences, sharing a point of view rooted in authorship, clarity, and long-term brand thinking.

Karl is a typographer and teacher who shares his zeal for type with the next generation of designers at the University of Minnesota’s College of Design. His impact on students is best summed up in this excerpt from a course review: “…I now dream in typography. Everywhere I look all I see is type now. I tried to eat alphabet soup the other day but by the time I was ready to eat it, it was cold because I couldn’t stop testing typographic systems with the letters. It’s almost a curse. I’m scared.”

Karl presents his speculative ideas on typography and design instruction internationally. His technical and digital expertise allow him to weave digitally produced content into engaging, and often hand-produced, physical forms. He has received design recognition through various outlets—most notably a cover win in the AIGA 50 Books | 50 Covers competition.

Shiva Nallaperumal is a Graphic Designer, Typeface Designer and Creative Director and co-founder (with Juhi Vishnani) of the plural design practice November. November has worked with a wide range of clients on Identity Systems, Printed matter, Interactive media, Installations and custom typefaces. As a typeface designer he has published with Commercial Type, Typotheque, Grilli Type, Bold Monday, Lost Type and now Public Type. In 2017 he became the first graphic designer to be included in Forbes India’s 30 Under 30 and in 2019 was inducted into the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI). He holds an MFA in Graphic Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

Lauren Graycar is a graphic designer and publisher. She has collaborated with a range of creative concerns in Los Angeles—where she lives and works—on projects across traditional and new media. A guiding interest in her work is how craft crosses physical and abstract boundaries. Working as a commissioned designer, she believes that a meaningful design process examines where our individual visual biographies intersect.

Since 2013 she has run the publishing imprint Kima. Select editions from Kima are archived in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Thomas J. Watson Library special collections (New York), and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Library (Williamstown, MA).

Harsh Patel (born Nairobi, living and working in Los Angeles) is a graphic designer, design educator, and publisher. His work circuits acceptance and collaboration within graphic design and fine arts, and overground and underground operations. He has collaborated with galleries, artist studios, fashion designers, non-profit organizations, musicians, and cultural institutions. He has lectured extensively on how design history is continually reshaped by issues of equality and representation.