GenericBanner2

Craighton Berman

Photo of 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.