Craighton Berman
Designer, Illustrator
and Creative Strategist
Craighton Berman is a Chicago-based designer, illustrator and creative strategist interested in shaping the future. The studio’s focus is bringing ideas to life—both for clients and as self-directed projects.
Craighton’s design consulting practice is focused on the power and potential of ideas. Guided by a background of industrial design and innovation consulting, he works with clients to define new ideas & experiences, distill complex information, facilitate strategic conversations and tell visual stories with his distinct illustration style.
Craighton's industrial design practice is focused on running Manual, a home goods brand that creates products for slow living. Manual has independently launched over two dozen products, ran over 15 crowdfunding campaigns, has been featured in Wired & Businessweek, and has been sold through Crate & Barrel, CB2, MCA Chicago, The Cooper Hewitt Shop and "the internet".
Craighton has design work in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago; he was the first designer to use Kickstarter to launch a product; he has led courses on design entrepreneurship at UIC and courses on design sketching at SVA, IIT, Iowa State and SAIC, and his drawings are featured in a YouTube video with close to 50 million views (it’s big in the elementary school scene).
Past and present clients include: Microsoft, Patagonia, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Old Navy, Keurig-Dr. Pepper, Providence Hospital Network, Chicago Architecture Center, Threadless, IDEO, BMW/Designworks, The US Department of State, Mars Wrigley, Sonos, Gartner, Airbnb, MoMA, Google, Workman Publishing, Dwell, TEDx, Oxford University Press, FSG, Pearson, HP, Ebay, Steelcase, and Knoll.
Craighton’s design consulting practice is focused on the power and potential of ideas. Guided by a background of industrial design and innovation consulting, he works with clients to define new ideas & experiences, distill complex information, facilitate strategic conversations and tell visual stories with his distinct illustration style.
Craighton's industrial design practice is focused on running Manual, a home goods brand that creates products for slow living. Manual has independently launched over two dozen products, ran over 15 crowdfunding campaigns, has been featured in Wired & Businessweek, and has been sold through Crate & Barrel, CB2, MCA Chicago, The Cooper Hewitt Shop and "the internet".
Craighton has design work in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago; he was the first designer to use Kickstarter to launch a product; he has led courses on design entrepreneurship at UIC and courses on design sketching at SVA, IIT, Iowa State and SAIC, and his drawings are featured in a YouTube video with close to 50 million views (it’s big in the elementary school scene).
Past and present clients include: Microsoft, Patagonia, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Old Navy, Keurig-Dr. Pepper, Providence Hospital Network, Chicago Architecture Center, Threadless, IDEO, BMW/Designworks, The US Department of State, Mars Wrigley, Sonos, Gartner, Airbnb, MoMA, Google, Workman Publishing, Dwell, TEDx, Oxford University Press, FSG, Pearson, HP, Ebay, Steelcase, and Knoll.