Erik Spooner

Erik Spooner is a creative director and designer who leads brand identity and campaign programs. Most recently, he was the Marketing Creative Director at Quad, the global marketing experience company, where he led the brand identity system for the company, its products and subsidiaries, as well as a creative team that managed dozens of campaigns, events and content efforts each year. Leading a year-long brand evolution and repositioning with partners at Champions Design, Erik helped transform the organization from an industrial vendor to a consultative partner for the entire marketing ecosystem.

As an entrepreneurial creative leader with more than 15 years of experience in the media, entertainment and technology industries, he directs creative strategy and high-performance brand, design and multimedia teams to make award-winning products, experiences, content and images that grow businesses, support strategic pivots, engage audiences and earn critical acclaim. Prior to joining Quad, Erik was creative director for Ad Age, where he oversaw its 2017 redesign and rebranding effort, which helped grow the business more than 20% year-over-year, reinvigorating a nearly-century-old newspaper into a vital, provocative, insightful and influential platform for the world’s most important commercial culture makers. For more than two decades, he had worked in newsrooms and magazines as a designer and art director, including: Rolling Stone, Us Weekly, The New York Observer, Discover, InTouch, Life&Style, Closer, Elmore Magazine and many others.

Formerly a member of the board committee for students with the Society of Publication Designers and trustee of the CBYX Alumni Association; currently a trustee or director on the boards of: Art W Global and City Limits News. Other clients have included Teachers College at Columbia University, Time Warner Book Group (now Hachette), RoundGlass, Capstone, and Hammock Inc. From 2012–2015, he was the creative director for Nomad, a mobile content startup that built mobile-first content and campaigns for brands from Shire Pharmaceuticals to Jaguar, building a seven-figure creative business with the founders from the ground up in little more than a year.

Since 2014, Erik has taught classes in the undergraduate Communications Design department at Pratt including Typographic Design I & II, Graphic Design Intensive, Brand & Messaging, Integrated Visual Communications: Cross-Platform Design and Product, Environment & Materials. At Quad, he’s also taught in the company’s Trainee University apprenticeship program and led workshops in design thinking and problem-seeking.

BFA, Pratt Institute; MBA, Berlin School for Creative Leadership, Steinbeis University Berlin (in progress, all but thesis).