Blake Bäkken is a Creative Director specializing in Brand Identity and Marketing. With his rare blend of alchemy, instinct and diligence along with decades of experience at top-tier firms, Bäkken passionately crafts impactful brands and award winning campaigns for Fortune 500 clients in the Technology, Finance, Tourism, CPG, B2B, SaaS, Pharmaceutical and Automotive sectors.
Most recently as an independent consultant, Bäkken has rebranded a major investment banking enterprise, an acclaimed restaurant group, an innovative personal training franchise and created a distinctive visual language for a global tourism campaign. Career highlights include spearheading brand and product campaigns for Google, defining brand values for Apple, crafting niche advertising for Target, driving advertising, rebranding, and internal cultural transformation at Audi, delivering experiential brand innovations for Wells Fargo, and overseeing expansive strategic rebrands for Intercontinental Exchange, NYSE, SAP, Hyperice, Reebok and Neuberger.
Additionally, Bäkken has established, led, and cultivated award-winning design teams at esteemed firms including mono, Siegel Gale NY and SF, Turner Duckworth, vbporange, and Venables Bell and Partners. He consistently grows accounts organically by partnering with clients and their internal teams while also vision-setting, hands on designing, managing teams and pitching new business.
He has a vast and diverse range of work: strategy, web and digital design, UI design, social media campaigns, print, environments, wearables and products, direct marketing, collateral, packaging, branding, illustration, iconography, custom typography, storyboarding for animation, photography art direction and creative writing. Bäkken has built a strong reputation for his creative excellence through craftsmanship, collaborative spirit and pragmatic approach.
Bäkken is currently seeking projects or contract to hire opportunities.
Q&A
WHERE WERE YOU BORN AND WHERE DO YOU LIVE NOW?
Minnesota / California
A DESIGN HERO?
Ettore Sottsass. A man who is able to gracefully shift between the most elegant and practical design of, say, a butter dish or a typewriter to founding one of the wildest, wittiest and most colorful art movements - Memphis, can teach us all a little something. And his drawings are some of the most charming I have ever seen.
FAVORITE SOCIAL MEDIA?
A walk by the ocean.
FAVORITE TELEVISION BINGE WATCH?
Currently revisiting Mad Men. The OC, is a real treat.
FAVORITE PODCAST?
Meditative Story
FAVORITE BOOK?
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
FAVORITE MOVIE?
The Last Picture Show by Peter Bogdanovich
FAVORITE FINE ARTIST?
Donald Judd
FAVORITE BEVERAGE?
Coffee – brewed by Aeropress, with a dash of cream.
FAVORITE FREE TIME ACTIVITY?
Reading, cooking, road trips, massages and sipping a Poppi.
IF YOU WERE NOT A DESIGNER?
Architect
TWO GOOD THINGS?
1. It's your job to be yourself.
2. Hold onto the good.
