CREATIVE DIRECTOR, HUSH
BROOKLYN NY
Garrett Johnston has an illustrious career of leveraging his passion for film to help create immersive and content-driven narrative experiences. Formerly a Creative Director at experiential agency Fake Love, he champions physical and digital spaces that go beyond pure functionality and leave enduring, strategic impacts. Johnston’s background as a filmmaker helps him understand how to rally artists around big concepts, distill ideas down to their component parts, and pressure test ideas in a nimble and iterative creative process.
Along with a spotlight in Gestalten’s Visual Storytelling: Inspiring a New Visual Language, Johnston’s work has been featured at the Tribeca Film Festival, Doc NYC, and SXSW. Most recently, he partnered with Google and Japanese cosmetics brand SK-II to bring to life Wonderland, an experiential, AR-integrated pop-up shop situated in Harajuku, Tokyo. Staying true to his cinematic roots, Johnston always approaches every design experience by cracking the story first, then developing aesthetically rich spaces and digital interactions.
FUTURE OF THE GRAPHIC DESIGN BUSINESS?
I’m genuinely excited about closing the gap between designers and technologists. It’ll take a fundamental shift in thinking and practice which always moves at a glacial pace. But the two are beginning to merge and it’s VERY exciting. I’m seeing design trends start in the creative tech world and make their way into print and motion. On the flip side I’m seeing more creative technologists coming out of schools like ITP and The School for Poetic Computation that have a design background. They’re bringing systems thinking to our world, and it’s some of the most exciting work I’ve seen in a while.
WHERE WERE YOU BORN AND WHERE DO YOU LIVE NOW?
Miami TX (pop. 602) / Brooklyn NY (pop. 2.5 million)
DID YOU GO TO DESIGN SCHOOL?
No
FAVORITE SOCIAL MEDIA?
FAVORITE TV BINGE WATCH?
Friday Night Lights
FAVORITE PODCAST?
Dolly Parton’s America
FAVORITE BOOK?
Kafka On The Shore, Haruki Murakami
FAVORITE MOVIE?
Boogie Nights
FAVORITE FINE ARTIST?
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
FAVORITE CAUSE/CHARITY?
Environmental Defense Fund, HAAM (has saved a few of my friends’ lives)
FAVORITE FREE TIME ACTIVITY?
Aimlessly wandering around NYC
IF YOU WERE NOT A DESIGNER?
Journalism
