Episode 62: Michelle Cruz, Senior Art Director, New York Red Bulls

Makers of Sport® Podcast

"I take a lot of pictures...I think for designers, drawing and taking photos is so, so important because you can go back to those photos and find some inspiration and find some great idea."

On this week’s episode, Michelle Cruz, Senior Art Director of the New York Red Bulls, joins the podcast to talk about her long career in sports design.

Being Puerto Rican born, yet raised as an Army brat in Germany, Michelle brings a unique perspective to sports design drawing inspiration from her time in Europe visiting art galleries and watching BBC and Spanish television.

We discuss Michelle's long tenure at ESPN as a broadcast designer, creating 1000s of broadcast graphics, some of which are still in using today and working across multiple sports such as Nascar, Cricket, Soccer, the NFL and the NBA.

Michelle gives us some insight into the difference between a motion designer and an animator, and touches on the breadth of work she worked on when she first to moved to NYC to become an art director for the New York Knicks.

Lastly, we discuss Michelle's time at Red Bull, the pressures of creating for one of the most creative brands on the planet and what it's like working for a consumer brand that owns multiple teams.

Mentions include:

• Michelle Cruz on Behance
• Alex Mount, NFL
• Alex Mount on Makers of Sport
• SCAD
• Ford F-150 spot on YouTube
• Se7en title sequence
• Wolff Olins London 2012 case study
• Tarek Awad, New York Knicks Design Director
• Jason Freeman Robinson, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
• Red Bull Creative
• Red Bulletin
• Red Bulls (pro teams)
• The Art of Flight documentary
• Doubleday & Carwright
• Chris Isenberg, D&C, Episode 4

My next guest is going to be Ben Osborne. Ben is the Editor-in-Chief of SLAM Magazine, a longstanding basketball publication that has cemented itself in basketball and hip-hop culture since the early 90s. Having been at the magazine for 9 years, Ben is in charge of overseeing each issue in regards to both content and concept, as well as overseeing the digital brand. I haven't missed an issue since the 3rd publication in 1993.

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