Dan Mall: A Designer You Can Learn From
Let’s face it – becoming a recognized expert in any industry, let alone graphic design, is by no means an easy task. Graphic design is a highly competitive playground, and if you want to make it as a designer, you need to be a true jack-of-all-trades ready to wear as many hats as possible. And traits such as talent, ambition, determination, inquisitiveness, innovativeness, resourcefulness, bold, creative, brave, authentic, and versatile. Dan Mall is all of that, and more.
About Dan Mall
Dan Mall is an award-winning graphic designer, creative director, podcaster, speaker, and advisor from Philadelphia. This ambitious, talented, and creative designer is also the founder and director of SuperFriendly, a design collaborative that helps companies and organizations come up with awesome design solutions.
Dan is the co-founder and advisor of SuperBooked. This is a platform that assists you in finding your next project through networking and recommendations. He also takes pride in being the co-founder of the well-known platforms and services, such as Businessology Show, Typedia, swfIR, and No Chains.
Impressed much? And that was just the beginning for Dan!
The enormous creative energy and passion towards the world of design were the driving factors behind Dan’s decision to start sharing his knowledge. Nowadays, Dan is widely recognized as a speaker who took part in numerous conferences, presentations, and podcasts; a teacher who had the honor of educating students attending some of the most remarkable graphic schools and universities; and an author famous for his guide called Pricing Design, written to help you properly price your creative services.
So far, Dan has collaborated with many key players in the industry and some of the biggest clients. He had the chance to work with are Google, Microsoft, The Mozilla Foundation, Crayola, Thomson Reuters, Lucasfilm, The Sherwin-Williams Company, and Wrigley.
S. Jason Prohaska, managing director at MediaMonks NY, once said that “Dan is a very special blend of leader, teacher, and experience with a sincere and clearly passionate interest in inventing exceptional works that inspire, engage and scale beautifully—he’s contagious. Dan is always cooking up something uniquely special, always leaving a place at the table for anyone ready and willing to join in the fun.”
About his beginnings
Dan expressed his creativity very early in his childhood, around the age of four or five. He took his faithful sketchbook everywhere he went. In it, he would draw the things he saw in his surroundings and the people he met along the way.
His dream was to become an animator or a comic book artist, due to his fascination with superheroes. That is why he didn’t think twice when the opportunity to take 3-D animation classes presented itself while he was still in high school. Later Dan enrolled at Drexel University in Philadelphia, a university renowned for its digital media program. However, he soon realised that 3-D animation was simply not the right fit for him.
However, during that time Dan discovered something that was about to change his life forever. He came across the amazing world of graphic design. It was love at first sight. The combination of graphic design and animation proved to be the winning combination for Dan that led him to his career.
First Working Experiences as a Designer
During his college years, Dan got the opportunity to become an intern at TMX Interactive. This is a small design company that housed some of the greatest graphic designers Dan has ever worked with, such as Jason Santa Maria, Chris Cashdollar, Kevin Cornell, Steve Klein, Rob Weychert and others. The internship proved to be the major stepping stone for his later career. And it was all thanks to the things he learned and the people he met.
It didn’t take long for Dan to start his first company. He joined forces with his former colleagues, Rob Weychert and Jason Santa Maria, and launched a web design company called Pixelworthy.
From there, Dan moved on to becoming the co-founder and interactive director at Happy Cog Studios. This is a full-service digital agency that focuses on branding and digital marketing. A couple of years later, Dan decided to move to New York. There he became a design director at Big Spaceship, one of the best-known digital creative agencies that specializes in providing branding solutions.
Three years later, in 2012, a dream finally came true for Dan and he launched his own company called SuperFriendly.
About Dan Mall’s later career
Launching SuperFriendly was a major step for Dan in terms of team management and coordination. Especially since he works on building creative teams that will be the right fit for each individual client. Once he gets the winning team together, Dan oversees every project from start to finish. At the same time, he does his best to educate business owners and their employees on topics such as team collaboration, design process, positioning, as well as pricing.
Apart from SuperFriendly, Dan took the role of an advisor for SuperBooked. The service is unique since, through networking, you can connect with people from your industry and land project.
Dan simply loves sharing his knowledge with others. So it’s no wonder he enjoys advising his clients and appearing as a speaker at all the major design-related conferences and podcasts, such as Artifact Conference, Hi-Res, Clarity Conference, Awwwards Conference, Roots, Smashing Conference, Design Driven and many other speaking events.
Publishing Pricing Design, in collaboration with A Book Apart, solidified Dan as a true expert in his field. The book got stellar reviews and many consider it as one of the most helpful pricing guides on the market.
Way to go, Dan!
Smart branding is the key
Dan Mall truly managed to make a name for himself in the designer’s world. His talent, skillset, determination, knowledge, ambition, and strong communication skills placed him at the top of the industry. But not without the help of proper personal branding.
As somebody who understands the importance of good branding, Dan decided to use our highly-personalized .ME domain to build a strong and unique online personal brand that tells the world exactly who he is. And he made the right choice.
We’re glad to have you in our team, Dan, and we wish you the best of luck!
