...at creative direction ...at graphic design ...at typography ...at systems and processes ...at user experience ...at managing people ...at art direction ...at pattern recognition ...at having ideas ...at brand strategy ...at motion graphics ...at thought leadership ...at being silly

steve “the bare maximum” gillette

is an award-winning designer, art director, creative director, and all-around neat fella.

i’ve always been dookie at keeping a record of my work because i like doing actual work—not the work to show off the work.

this is my attempt to go back and show some of the dope stuff i’ve done over the years.

↓ start with this video ↓

now here are more details about what i’ve created, designed, directed, illustrated, managed, taught, animated, written, advised on, or just thought about really, really hard.

(along with a broad category for what type of work it is)

Mark & Type

design / direction

between the years of 2017–2020 i started my own little design LLC in my house and my motion designer buddy zach moved into my extra bedroom and we did cool stuff in our spare time and made some spare cash and won some awards.

historic reel

design / direction

between 2016–2022 i worked at a agency called historic where i went from designer to art director to creative director. this reel was one of the last things i worked on before i left. which was nice because it was like a look back at my favorite work.

taskful 2.0 explainer

writing / design / direction

this was an explainer video me and my buddies zach (motion) and ryan (audio) made for version 2.0 of the app taskful—created by another friend of mine. we did this in our spare time with a total budget of zero dollars and we still beat out big agencies with real clients at the ADdy’s. lmao.

good ranchers

leadership / design / direction

i made a lot of stuff in the 2+ years i was at good ranchers. starting with a rebrand and website redesign that i did singlehandedly, while simultaneously having to keep the content machine of a dtc business going…while also being the only designer on staff (initially anyway). there is so much stuff i made that the best i can do is try to give a glimpse thru a random assortment of things i found on my computer. but it ranged from every type of media associated with marketing campaigns, systems + processes, UI design, partnerships, packaging, merch, internal culture stuff, strategy, and probably a bunch of other categories i’m forgetting.

(a few) things i’ve made

social: april fools post featuring a fake new product for budding carnivores.

campaign: what’s valentine’s day without a copious amount of meat puns?

merch: shirt design for our indycar partnership and driver scott mclaughlin.

campaign: during feb/march we created our own bracket builder contest.

campaign: new years campaign featuring custom meat lettering i’m quite proud of.

merch: hoodie featuring “violence before vegetables” in English and latin down each sleeve.

email: welcome email graphics. idk not much else to tell.

internal: i made looping backgrounds for each department. this one was my favorite.

campaign: i swear i’m not anti-vax—this was the brief. but at least that texture is hot.

internal: our own version of a hogwart’s sorting hat for employee team games. more lore below.

merch: self-explanatory. but the attention to detail is something i’m proud of here.

social: idk what else do you do when your new pork box sells out immediately?

ux: somebody asked me to make some general hold music for our phone system. i thought it would be a better idea to pretend like our hold music was actually a radio station. so i had the marketing director give me some facts and ad read fodder, thought up some characters, and turned on my mic (my favorite part starts at 2:02).

ad: this is just the result of me getting the idea to parody “swimming pools” by Kendrick for an ad one day…so then i did.

internal: the lore video that preceded the sorting hat ceremony. me and my sister wrote this and my mom made the hat from earlier.

campaign: “trick or meat” ad (budget: $2k…nbd) that earned my first cease-and-desist that i immediately made into an office poster.

thought leadership + creative operations

i’ve created a lot of processes and systems and such.

a talk i gave at good ranchers to the staff about how to identify the need for and create processes.

i hope you like being blasted with lots of info cuz this is just me yapping at my camera and unloading about some different things i’ve created and implemented over the years.

i swear all this is only scratching the surface of stuff i’ve made and done over the years.

but it should at least give you a good idea of what i can do.

hollatcha boi

i have so much more stuff that i’ve made in disparate folders on my computer and on file servers i no longer have access to. if you ever want to get on a zoom call and let me screen share and ramble, i’d be pleased as punch.

but real talk, it’d be great if this is where you tell me how much you want to work with me so we can make this official 🫶