Spunk Design Machine

CONTACT INFORMATION

COMPANY PROFILE

Jeff Johnson was born in rural North Dakota.
Most of the time, this fact is pretty self-evident.

After spending his ?rst two decades as a farm kid and heavy equipment operator on the high plains, Jeff attended art school in Moorhead, Minnesota. Just a riverbank away from Fargo, North Dakota. Moorhead is a quirky art town in the middle of nowhere, with art organizations funded by charitable black jack and old ladies compulsively playing bingo. Graduating with honors and living out of his 1983 Buick Skylark, Jeff began working for Duffy Design and Fallon Worldwide in June of 1992. In six years Jeff worked from Intern to Designer, from Designer to Senior Designer, and Senior Designer to Design Director of a large staff. While at Duffy, Jeff designed such pop icons as Frutopia™, Diet Coke™ and Miller Time™. He has some of this work in the Permanent Collection of 20th Century American Design in the Smithsonian Institute. Following his time at Duffy, Jeff served as Senior Designer for Designworks™ in New Zealand and Australia for one year.

Jeff can also dance a mean polka.

In 1998 Jeff founded Spunk Design Machine™ in his adopted hometown of Minneapolis. Jeff has traveled the world trying to promote new design techniques and new models for pushing pop culture to the next level. In its short life, Spunk has manufactured and sold two educational products for kids (Talking Tools™ and Puf?lines™). Spunk has also won local, national, and international design awards for its creative solutions for clients such as Target Stores™, General Mills™, Best Buy™, Medtronic™, and CNN Worldwide™. Spunk also designs fonts, does outstanding custom product design and often drinks a ridiculous amount of coffee.

Jeff currently employs a small staff at Spunk, and enjoys working within
the vibrant design community of Minneapolis, MN. He also shows his art
work annually.

Jeff lives with his wife and two sons in Minneapolis, canoes a lot and savors red wine with his hotdish.

DESIGN AWARDS : WE WIN A LOT OF THESE.
MOST OF THESE ARE REPEAT OFFENDERS.
AMERICAN CENTER OF DESIGN. 100 SHOW :
1996 TOP 100 DESIGNERS IN AMERICA
I.D. MAGAZINE
HOW MAGAZINE
PRINT MAGAZINE
GRAPHIS DESIGN ANNUAL
GRAPHIS POSTER ANNUAL
TIME MAGAZINE - BEST PRODUCTS OF 1994
AIGA DESIGN SHOW : MINNESOTA CHAPTER
AIGA DESIGN SHOW : NATIONAL CHAPTER
COMMUNICATION ARTS MAGAZINE
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE :
COOPER-HEWITT PERMANENT COLLECTION OF 20TH CENTURY DESIGN
NEW ZEALAND DESIGN INSTITUTE : BEST AWARD
THE ONE SHOW

FOCUS AREAS

CLIENTS