From Chicago to New York and back again.
marilyn@marilynfrank.com

About

I decided on design at eleven. I learned the trade when paste-up boards and the first Macintoshes shared the same lab, and I've been carrying craft across tool changes ever since: graphic design, art direction, campaigns, brand, content strategy, research, and now conversation design for AI.

That path runs through 52mm, the New York design studio I co-founded — clients included Showtime, the NHL, and VH1 — then StudioNorth, where I was an art director building integrated campaigns for B2B technology, healthcare, and nonprofit brands, and U.S. Cellular, where I concepted and art directed a 360° VR retail experience for associates nationwide. Concept, campaign craft, and production — in-house and agency-side — are the muscle memory underneath everything I make.

Today I advocate for healthcare consumers, shaping how one of the largest health systems in the country talks to its patients. It's the same job it's always been: intention meeting material with enough skill to make something true. The material just talks back now.

Outside the day job, I write Digital Widow, where design, grief, and technology sit at the same table.

RECOGNITION

ADC Young Guns, two-time winner
Graphis
GD USA
Artwork in private & corporate collections, incl. SoHo House Chicago

DISCIPLINES

Art direction & campaign development
Conversation & AI design
Design leadership & strategy
Content strategy · UX research
Brand & editorial design

FUN FACT

My handwriting is a licensed typeface: Divine, released by [T-26] with the late Frank Heine. It still turns up in the wild: food packaging, t-shirts, signage.

The generalist thing is the point. Every discipline is another cut of the same animal.