As long as handheld devices have existed, I‘ve needed to include them in illustrations — whether to showcase a product UI or advertise a digital magazine subscription. Using stock imagery leads to inconsistent graphics, but the biggest problem is that these devices inevitably look dated as soon as a new version is released.

I wanted a device that was familiar yet manufacturer-agnostic and future-proof, so I created the Mollie Phone (MoPho). The shape and all the dimensions of the MoPho and its bezel sits midway between the iPhone 13 and the Samsung Galaxy S22. We removed all telltale notches (and “dynamic islands”) and gave the phone a semi-opaque frosted glass aesthetic.

We had clear acrylic models made and shot these with Dutch photographer David in den Bosch with more artistic composition than you would typically find in stock imagery of “a hand holding a phone”. The result is something truly unique.

Creative Direction: Owen Fegan

Photography: David in Den Bosch via underpromise

In the summer of 2022, we partnered with The Truth Works to create Mollie’s first employer branding campaign — Driven by Love.

Building on Mollie’s mission to become Europe’s most-loved Financial Services Provider, the campaign and its core component — a video spot directed by Kenn MacRae — highlights how love as a concept is at the heart of Mollie’s employer branding messaging.

Creative Direction for Mollie: Owen Fegan

Creative Direction for The Truth Works: Kenn MacRae & Emily Firth

In early 2019, Yext brought the legendary Andy Cunningham (she helped launch the Apple Macintosh in 1984 as well as NeXT Computers and Pixar) onboard to help reposition the company from a listings management provider to a search company. The transformation required a new logo and branding system. Something that spoke to "official answers."

I designed the Yext Seal to be reminiscent of a stamp of authenticity — a seal of approval. It is the central element of the Yext visual communications system and the primary way to represent the brand visually.

The circle is a universal symbol of perfection and is traditionally associated with the concept of protection. The Seal reinforces the idea of "Official Answers" and of confidence in search.

The arrangement of the letters emphasizes the "y" and "e" on the horizontal axis to create a subliminal association with the word "yes." The vertical placement of "y" above "x" represents the notion of positive over negative.

The "e" is rotated 45º to visually extend the "x" stroke and forms the handle of a magnifying glass — the traditional symbol for search — when animated.

The lines are all a uniform width, representing precision, and the black and white palette evokes the concept of truth.

The protective circle is inextricably connected to the company name, and the elements of the logo are never isolated.

Note: For the geometrical purists out there — the off-metric 50º angle of the "y" is a deliberate optical refinement.

Creative Direction & Logo Design: Owen Fegan
Video Production: Jay Sheets

One of my favorite moments was seeing a logo I created — The Yext Seal — becoming part of New York City's skyline. In September of 2020, we installed 28' (10m) tall logos on the north and west facades of The Yext Building — the new company headquarters at 61 Ninth Avenue in NYC, bringing to life the renderings created by Interior Architects.

Creative Direction: Owen Fegan
Interior Design & Project Management: Interior Architects

Throughout 2019 I had the privilege of working closely with Interior Architects (IA) on infusing the DNA of the fledgling Yext branding into the raw spaces of our new offices in San Francisco, Washington DC, Miami, Tokyo, London, Paris, and our HQ in New York City.

Following my CEO Howard Lerman’s directive to “make it feel like a fucking spaceship”, we utilized our primary Black and White colors, accented with colors from our secondary palette, ensuring that no more than one accent color was visible from any vantage point.

Without overt branding at every turn, each global and regional office maintains its own identity while still clearly conveying the impression of being within a Yext space.

Creative Direction: Owen Fegan
Interior Design & Project Management: Interior Architects

Over two years, our in-house team completely redeveloped and redesigned Yext.com from the ground up, creating an entirely custom design and illustration system. We built the entire site upon Yext's revolutionary AI search technology — utilizing our Knowledge Graph as a CMS to enable a faster, more responsive, and more accessible user experience.

The site won the 2021 WebAward for Outstanding Website. Evaluated on criteria including design, innovation, content, technology, and ease of use, Yext.com was praised by WebAward judges as "clean, elegant, easy to navigate, and beautifully designed," with "a wealth of information, logical structure, and innovative solutions."

Creative Direction: Owen Fegan
Art Direction & UI: Christos Xidias
Design & Illustration: Tyler Lee
Development: Paige Ponzeka

In the summer of 2019, we enlisted the help of TBWA\Chiat\Day to create the first-ever commercial for Yext. The result was the character of Todd Munion — a personification of the problem of misinformation online.

The campaign — The Man Without The Answers — won Shorty Awards in three categories — Best in Business to Business, Best Use of LinkedIn, and Best Use of LinkedIn Video — and was a finalist in the Best Use of Humor category. The Shorty Awards, now in their 12th year, recognize the most influential, popular, and culturally relevant brands, organizations, agencies, campaigns, and influencers across social media.

Creative Direction for Yext:
Owen Fegan

Creative Direction for TBWA\Chiat\Day:
Chris Beresford-Hill

In November 2019, Yext hosted its third annual ONWARD user conference at the Marriott Marquis in New York’s Times Square. Being the first major event since the rebrand, we recreated the overall branding for the entire conference in a bold black and white palette which was then applied to every element of the conference.

We reimagined every visual aspect of the conference from mainstage design for keynote speakers including Magic Johnson, Seth Meyers, and Seth Godin, to virtual talk show and gameshow sets, to environmental graphics, booths, Times Square Billboards, apparel, signage, and much more.

Creative Direction & Stage Design: Owen Fegan
Environmental Graphics: Colleen Kelly
Video Production: Jay Sheets

When Yext decided to launch a new Administrator / Developer training portal in 2019, not only did it need to be branded — it needed an entire Learning Management System (LMS) to be designed and built.

And so "Hitchhikers" was born. Named as an homage to Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, it is the standard repository for all knowledge and wisdom regarding the Yext platform.

This project was a true collaboration between the Creative Studio and the Product Team. This standalone brand and world-class LMS was conceived, written, designed, and build completely in-house.

Creative Direction: Owen Fegan
Art Direction & Design: Alex Felsenstein
Additional Design: Tyler Lee
Video Production & Direction: Jay Sheets

Originally designed by Milton Glaser in 1967, the classic New York Magazine logo has seen some minor refinement over the years, but no significant changes.

In 2012 — it became necessary to create an alternate version of the logo for digital applications such as social media profile images and app icons in order to retain the logo’s presence in a smaller area.

Maintaining the graceful curves of Glazer’s original logo, this reworking ties the words together by finding relationships between the individual letters based on their new relative positions.

Creative Direction / Logo Design / Branding / New York Magazine

We launched The Cut's "Life Is A Runway" campaign during New York Fashion Week in 2012. This creative — featuring a photo by Pari Dukovik — ran in New York Magazine, on billboards and kiosks throughout Manhattan, and a fleet of luxury SUV shuttles.

Creative Direction / Design / New York Fashion Week

In the summer of 2008, Showtime came to us with the idea to put Dexter on the cover of Rolling Stone to promote the show’s third season. While they had worked with many major publications to produce faux Dexter covers — at Rolling Stone, we took it one step further — creating a full Dexter Magazine on the flip side of that month's issue.

This never-done-before advertorial execution won the 2009 MIN Integrated Marketing Award and featured a portrait of Dexter by Shepard Fairey on the interior pages.

It was also nice to see it 14-stories tall on the Hyatt West Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard (formerly the Riot House, now the Andaz West Hollywood).

Art Direction / Design

To celebrate the release of his retrospective Hit Parade, SPIN and Adidas presented Paul Weller playing "3 Historic Nights" at NYC's Irving Plaza in January 2007. Each night he performed music from a different stage of his incredible career with The Jam, The Style Council, and as a solo artist. I produced this series of three promotional ads using archival photography, highlighting each of those three phases.

Creative Direction / Design

The McEvoy Group / Hartle Media purchased SPIN in 2006 and quickly put it through a rebrand and relaunch in 2007. This campaign supporting the new "Music For Life" tagline featured some incredible images of influential artists of the time captured by photographers such as Autumn De Wilde, Steven Sebring, and myself.

Creative Direction / Design / Photography / Brand Campaign

SPIN celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2005. To honor the occasion, we threw a party at New York City's Webster Hall hosted by Juliette Lewis and featuring Run-D.M.C., LCD Soundsystem, Public Enemy, Death Cab For Cutie, and more. We teamed up with Shepard Fairey and Obey Giant to create a pair of posters to advertise and commemorate the event. We screen-printed a limited-edition, signed-and-numbered batch to auction off for local charities.

A selection of work for The Cut — New York Magazine’s Fashion site which I helped to launch in 2012.

To promote the launch of New York Magazine's new fashion property — The Cut — in August 2012, we created a series of magnetic "Paper Dolls" around the five pillars of Couture, Red Carpet, Beauty, Accessories, and of course — The Boyfriend. We commissioned fashion illustrator Danielle Meder we had them printed onto a magnetic material that had to be die-cut on special demagnetized machines.

In 2006, US Weekly was experiencing issues with media outlets removing logos from our step-and-repeat walls. To combat this, and make it extremely difficult on the retouchers working in Photoshop, we introduced floor-to-ceiling gradients in our step-and-repeats. This seemed to work well at dissuading logo removers… at least until Adobe introduced “Content Aware Fill” in 2010.