Michael Reed, Mayer/Reed’s founding principal, was named SEGD Fellow during a June 11 event at the 2016 SEGD Conference in Seattle. Michael accepted the award with a presentation about his career path entitled, “Object, Symbol, Message: A Journey of Discovery & Search for Meaning.”

The SEGD Fellow award recognizes a designer for promoting the highest values in experiential graphic design and significantly contributing to the direction and growth of the field. Michael joins the ranks of just 37 others, including Massimo Vignelli, Lance Wyman, Wayne Hunt, Sue Gould, David Gibson, Donald Meeker and Henry Beer.

In a follow-up SEGD article celebrating Michael’s career, he reflects on his legacy, “I have always wanted to design beautiful things, but learned that for this activity to be meaningful it had to move beyond arbitrariness. A client doesn’t ask you to design a beautiful thing. They ask you to solve a problem. They trust you to design something of beauty. Maybe my legacy is instilling in our staff that, if you are given this privilege and trust, you have the obligation to do the right thing. You have to do things that contribute and add value.”