In an era where speed often triumphs over strategy, Michelle Mattar, founder of the creative studio Practice, is challenging the status quo with a brand philosophy rooted in intention, depth, and sustainability. Her studio thrives not on scaling rapidly or taking on endless clients, but rather by embracing a mindful, detail-oriented process reminiscent of the “Slow Food” ethos—only this time, in the world of design and branding.
What sets Practice apart is not just the calibre of its visual storytelling or its strategic frameworks but its unwavering commitment to values. Central to their operations is a unique initiative: dedicating every Friday to meaningful, non-commercial work. This practice, internally dubbed Dev Day, has become a cornerstone of their identity, fueling creativity while allowing the team to donate their skills to causes that might otherwise never afford such professional services.
A Studio Born Out of Depth and Experience
Founded at a time of global uncertainty in March 2020, Practice emerged not just as a response to a changing world but as a proactive vision of what a modern creative studio could and should be. Its inception during the height of the pandemic was no coincidence—it reflected the seismic shift in how businesses, creatives, and entrepreneurs began reevaluating their priorities. For Michelle Mattar, the founder of Practice, this period of disruption was the catalyst for finally formalizing years of immersive experience into a structured offering.
Michelle brought with her over five years of deep involvement in brand building—from early ideation to brand launches and subsequent growth phases. She wasn't merely a designer working on visuals; she embedded herself in the DNA of the companies she helped grow, understanding operations, investor conversations, and user engagement on a strategic level. That multifaceted exposure became the backbone of Practice's philosophy: branding should be integrative, intentional, and aligned with business goals.
Today, Practice collaborates with a curated list of clients across global innovation hotspots such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Melbourne. But rather than chase a high client count, Michelle and her team intentionally limit their project load to a few partnerships per year. This model ensures every client receives individualized attention, strategic alignment, and the kind of immersion that’s typically only found in in-house teams. It’s a rare, high-touch approach that values quality, depth, and creative integrity.
The foundation of Practice is a belief in branding as a long-term journey, not a fast-paced sprint to market. It’s about building something sustainable, resonant, and rooted in values—something that can adapt and thrive as markets shift and businesses evolve.
The Waste Not Project: Championing Ethical Design Practices
Among Practice’s most acclaimed initiatives is Waste Not—an open-source, web-based platform created to simplify the discovery of eco-conscious suppliers. It represents not just a side project but a key manifestation of Michelle’s commitment to sustainability and accountability in design. The concept began when she encountered the wasteful aftermath of a seemingly successful packaging project. Despite its commercial triumph, witnessing the sheer volume of materials being used led her to ask a difficult question: What is the environmental cost of beauty?
Determined to avoid repeating the same oversight, Michelle began compiling a spreadsheet of sustainable vendors and eco-material sources. This personal research tool gradually evolved into a robust platform accessible to others navigating the often opaque world of ethical sourcing. Waste Not now houses carefully vetted data, vendor information, and transparent guidance on topics like biodegradability, lifecycle analysis, and green certifications. What was once a reactive moment of regret became a proactive instrument of change.
True to Practice’s ethos, Waste Not was developed during the studio’s designated Dev Days—Fridays reserved exclusively for non-client work that contributes to broader causes. With a vibrant and whimsical visual identity illustrated by Johnny Dombroski, Waste Not avoids the typical gloom associated with sustainability discussions. Instead, it offers a warm and user-friendly interface that invites participation rather than guilt. This accessibility is critical. It transforms sustainability from a niche concern into an inclusive standard, embedding eco-consciousness into the design process from the ground up.
Designing Through a Post-Pandemic Lens
The global pandemic didn't just disrupt routines—it fundamentally altered how individuals and companies think about work, creativity, and purpose. For Michelle, this disruption offered clarity. She began to observe a pronounced shift in the creative world: clients and collaborators alike were becoming more introspective. The questions they brought to the table became deeper. Rather than just “What should our brand look like?”, they asked, “What does our brand stand for?” and “How can we exist more responsibly?”
In this shifting environment, Practice found its place not as a vendor but as a partner—helping founders and leaders articulate visions that extended far beyond aesthetics. With more people choosing to launch mission-driven ventures, the need for strategic creative support that respects nuance and integrity has only grown. Michelle’s early and ongoing involvement with clients means she’s often helping shape the very soul of a business before it goes public.
This new climate has also allowed her to create partnerships with clients who are increasingly aligned in values, prioritizing sustainability, inclusivity, and community engagement. These aren’t fleeting buzzwords at Practice; they’re guiding principles that influence everything from design direction to operational recommendations.
A Measured Approach in a High-Speed World
In a digital landscape dominated by virality, rapid launches, and attention economics, Practice operates more like a fine craftsman’s workshop than a production agency. Each engagement is methodically scoped, thoughtfully executed, and given the time it needs to grow organically. It’s a business model that many might consider counterintuitive in an industry obsessed with scale and churn, but one that Michelle champions unapologetically.
This philosophy is not simply about working slower; it’s about working smarter and deeper. By limiting the number of active projects at any given time—usually no more than three to five—Practice ensures every client receives genuine partnership. Clients are not just hiring designers or strategists; they’re bringing on long-term collaborators who become extensions of their internal teams.
Every detail, from typography to tone of voice, is treated with the same care as business strategy and customer engagement. For Michelle, brand building is not a linear checklist—it’s an evolving relationship that requires empathy, clarity, and consistent alignment. This intimate process fosters trust, resulting in work that not only looks good but lives well within the brand’s ecosystem.
Reimagining the Role of a Design Studio
Practice challenges the traditional perception of what a design studio should be. It’s not a place driven by external validation or award culture. It’s a platform for experimentation, collaboration, and service. A standout feature is Dev Day—an institutionalized weekly practice where the team redirects its energy toward internal exploration or societal contribution. These Fridays have become the birthplace of the studio’s most impactful projects, including Waste Not and the Outer Work newspaper.
The Outer Work project, created in collaboration with community leader Lenea Sims, focused on anti-racism through the lens of joy, community, and continuity. What started as a digital platform became a physical newspaper distributed across the U.S., designed to help individuals engage in racial justice in a more sustainable, less performative way. Featuring reflection exercises, community spotlights, and visual storytelling, the project exemplified how design can serve a collective mission without diluting its message or relying on aesthetics alone.
These kinds of projects highlight the deeper utility of creative studios beyond marketing or commerce. They affirm Michelle’s belief that designers hold the unique power to not just reflect the culture but actively shape it.
Community-Centered Creativity in a Fragmented Digital Age
Michelle’s creative journey, rooted in New York, was deeply influenced by the breakdown of traditional networking during the pandemic. Without access to the city’s vibrant face-to-face creative scene, she sought out digital spaces that offered deeper, more focused interactions. Slack channels, online forums, and curated meet-ups became lifelines of connection—spaces where authenticity replaced small talk and genuine support took precedence over transactional exchanges.
This experience redefined her understanding of community. Rather than passively belonging to industry networks, Michelle now actively cultivates micro-communities around shared values, mutual aid, and creative support. These digital enclaves often yield more meaningful collaboration and innovation than large-scale industry events ever did.
For Practice, these smaller circles are more than professional safety nets—they’re sources of inspiration and strategic insight. The design industry, once reliant on centralized structures and gatekeeping, is becoming more distributed, decentralized, and diverse. And it’s this shift that Michelle believes will drive the next wave of authentic, value-led branding.
Future-Forward Branding Rooted in Ethics and Empathy
Looking ahead, Practice isn’t concerned with being the biggest studio—it’s focused on being the most principled. That future includes continuing to invest in projects that merge creativity with conscientiousness, scaling not in size but in depth and impact. Whether it’s guiding early-stage founders through ethical decision-making or launching tools that support sustainability at scale, Practice is committed to ensuring that every pixel and every word carries intentional weight.
Michelle Mattar has created a blueprint for studios looking to recalibrate. Her model invites others to reconsider what success looks like in the creative field. Is it rapid client acquisition, flashy portfolios, and industry awards? Or is it about showing up with integrity, being radically thoughtful, and using design as a tool to empower rather than impress?
In the end, Practice reminds us that in branding—as in life—depth will always matter more than speed. The real value lies not in how quickly something is created, but in how long it resonates.
he acceleration of technological advancement has undeniably catalyzed creativity, accessibility, and interconnectedness in the creative industries. Yet, Michelle Mattar, founder of Practice, is acutely aware of the toll that digital saturation can take on the human psyche. In an environment where devices constantly demand attention, boundaries between productive interaction and digital fatigue have become alarmingly blurred. She refers to the current state as lacking a "recommended serving size"—a metaphor underscoring the overconsumption of screen time without balance.
Instead of pushing for a total disconnection from technology, Michelle champions the creation of more intentional digital practices. She recognizes that the issue isn’t the tools themselves but the absence of thoughtful frameworks guiding their use. In a branding ecosystem where engagement is currency, the mindful application of technology becomes a revolutionary act.
Michelle finds promise in decentralized systems such as open-source platforms that prioritize inclusivity, transparency, and collaboration. These tools reflect her studio’s commitment to democratizing information and shifting the narrative from isolated individualism to co-creation. Practice’s culture aligns closely with this philosophy, fostering shared knowledge, collective growth, and interdependent thinking—essential for a more humane digital future.
Moreover, by engaging with platforms that celebrate idea-sharing rather than ownership, Practice aims to nurture a design ecosystem rooted in trust and accessibility. This digital philosophy becomes a seamless extension of the studio’s ethos: one where thoughtful application of technology enhances rather than detracts from human connection.
The Emergence of Value-Led Branding After Crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic served as a magnifying glass for systemic weaknesses and personal misalignments across industries. In the branding and design world, it sparked a reckoning. Suddenly, companies could no longer rely on superficial messaging or trendy visuals. Audiences, more aware and cautious than ever, began demanding transparency, accountability, and purpose from the brands they interacted with.
Michelle observed that founders and organizations were no longer content with surface-level branding. Increasingly, they sought to align their ventures with deeper personal and societal values. Questions of identity, intention, and long-term relevance became central to every conversation.
This shift dovetailed perfectly with Practice’s guiding principles. From its inception, the studio avoided performative aesthetics in favor of branding that reflects core beliefs and business ethics. As the market tilted toward more conscious consumerism, Practice found itself uniquely positioned to serve these evolving needs. Their branding approach became more than a service—it became a shared exploration of purpose and presence.
Additionally, job seekers began to pivot. The Great Resignation saw many professionals leaving roles that no longer aligned with their values. This migration brought about a desire for workplaces that offered more than compensation—a craving for autonomy, connection, and impact. Practice’s small, mission-aligned structure made it appealing not just to clients but to collaborators who valued creative freedom and integrity.
Michelle believes that the post-pandemic climate has fostered a renaissance in thoughtful business practices. People are no longer just building to scale—they’re building to last. And in this cultural rebirth, branding studios must act not as decorators, but as stewards of integrity.
A Return to Intimacy in a Fragmented Urban Landscape
In a city like New York—long revered for its creative collisions and organic collaboration—Michelle experienced firsthand how social distancing and remote work changed the shape of professional community. The once vibrant network of impromptu events, gallery openings, and sidewalk conversations dissipated almost overnight, replaced by virtual meetings and digital gatherings.
However, this disruption became fertile ground for reimagining what connection looks like. As traditional touchpoints vanished, smaller, more focused communities began to thrive. Slack channels tailored to niche industries, private group chats, and curated online forums became the new village square. Far from the noisy crowds of large-scale networking events, these spaces offered a more personal and reciprocal form of connection.
Michelle embraced these quieter, more intentional forms of community. She found herself part of circles where empathy replaced posturing and collaboration took precedence over competition. These digital sanctuaries were not simply stopgaps—they were revelations. They demonstrated that intimacy and support could flourish even in disembodied spaces, so long as intention guided their creation.
The implications for branding are significant. As digital landscapes become noisier, users are gravitating toward environments that feel curated, compassionate, and human. Brands, therefore, must rethink how they show up. Rather than aiming for mass appeal, they must create smaller, more resonant ecosystems—environments where their audience feels seen, heard, and understood. Practice continues to embed this principle into its client work, helping brands foster connection not through louder messaging, but through deeper alignment.
Shifting from Output to Outcome in Brand Engagement
Traditional branding models often reward volume: more deliverables, faster turnarounds, higher visibility. But Michelle and the team at Practice advocate for a different measure of success—one that prioritizes depth over breadth. For them, output is only meaningful if it leads to sustainable outcomes, not just temporary spikes in engagement.
This outlook has reshaped the way Practice collaborates with clients. Rather than offering predefined packages or superficial solutions, they commit to long-term, bespoke partnerships. Each engagement is approached like a living ecosystem, where design, storytelling, strategy, and values converge to shape not just how a brand looks—but how it operates and evolves.
This depth-oriented approach has allowed Practice to remain agile, relevant, and truly integrative. Their work touches every layer of a business—from internal culture and hiring philosophy to sustainability practices and product development. The team isn’t just building identities; they’re shaping infrastructures.
And because each client is treated as a co-creator rather than a customer, the work becomes inherently more meaningful. The results are not just metrics but movements—brands that are capable of growing with grace and integrity.
Why Authenticity Will Always Outlast Aesthetic Trends
In an industry often swept away by what’s next—be it minimalist typography or bold color palettes—Practice holds firm in the belief that authenticity never goes out of style. Aesthetics might capture attention, but only authenticity earns loyalty. This belief is especially relevant today, as audiences become more discerning, aware, and skeptical of polished façades.
Michelle encourages brands to start from within. Before diving into color theory or visual language, she and her team ask clients deeper questions: What do you care about? Who do you want to serve? Why does your work matter? The answers to these questions then inform every visual and verbal decision, ensuring that the end result isn’t just trendy but truthful.
This philosophy is evident in Practice’s entire portfolio. Each project reflects a balance of aesthetics and ethos, a harmony between craft and conscience. Their work doesn’t scream for attention—it invites it. Through subtle sophistication and strategic depth, their designs resonate on an emotional level, fostering trust, community, and advocacy.
In a branding ecosystem filled with noise, Practice’s quiet confidence stands out. Their focus isn’t on fleeting trends, but on cultivating brand identities that withstand the test of time and culture.
Fridays for the Future: The Dev Day Model
One of the most innovative aspects of Practice’s operational structure is its weekly Dev Day. Every Friday, the studio pauses client work to engage in passion projects, internal development, or nonprofit initiatives. This ritual isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity, built into the DNA of the studio.
Dev Day serves multiple functions: it keeps the team creatively nourished, allows for continued learning, and creates space to contribute to the world beyond commercial goals. It has already birthed impactful projects like Waste Not, a sustainability tool, and the Outer Work newspaper, which supports anti-racism education and community building.
What makes Dev Day revolutionary is not just the work it produces, but the principle it represents. It acknowledges that creative capital doesn’t have to be transactional. It can be restorative, altruistic, and regenerative. By setting aside regular time for this kind of work, Practice ensures that its values are not just aspirational—they’re actionable.
Michelle believes that every studio, regardless of size, can benefit from a similar practice. Whether it's an afternoon per week or a full day per month, setting time aside for value-aligned projects leads to sharper thinking, stronger teams, and deeper impact. It’s a small shift that can catalyze enormous transformation.
The Future of Design is Ethical, Empathetic, and Expansive
Looking ahead, Michelle Mattar envisions a creative industry that no longer separates profitability from responsibility. In this emerging paradigm, success is measured not by scale but by integrity—how closely a brand’s public persona aligns with its internal operations and societal footprint.
Practice will continue to serve as a blueprint for studios that want to do business differently. Whether through their open-source initiatives, their radical partnership models, or their empathetic design frameworks, they prove that values and commerce can coexist harmoniously.
In a time when attention is fragmented and trust is scarce, the need for brands to operate with authenticity, humility, and vision has never been greater. And as Michelle and her team at Practice continue to build, they offer a quiet yet powerful reminder: design isn’t just what we see—it’s how we show up in the world.
Holistic Branding: Building Beyond the Logo
At Practice, branding isn’t confined to the visual realm of logos, fonts, and color palettes—it is an immersive and systemic process that integrates strategy, storytelling, business development, and human-centered values. For founder Michelle Mattar, the act of building a brand means cultivating a framework that is both operationally functional and emotionally resonant. A brand is not simply what it looks like, but how it behaves, how it communicates, and how it evolves over time.
This philosophy stems from Michelle’s years of experience guiding startups through the unpredictable early stages of growth. By being embedded in the lifecycle of several young companies—from conception through to scale—she developed a multidimensional understanding of what makes brands truly sustainable. It’s not only the quality of the identity system, but how deeply it's interwoven with the company’s mission, internal processes, and relationships with its audience.
Practice has translated this experience into a consultative and collaborative approach. Each project begins by unearthing the brand's core truths: what drives it, what it values, and where it wants to go. From there, the studio builds layered systems that can support expansion without sacrificing coherence. Whether it's advising on pricing models, internal culture language, or long-term storytelling arcs, Practice approaches branding as a dynamic infrastructure—not just a one-time deliverable.
By designing with both precision and adaptability, the studio helps businesses create identities that feel authentic today and are resilient enough to remain meaningful tomorrow. This is branding that operates across time, not just platforms.
A Focused Team for Focused Impact
While many creative studios scale rapidly to increase capacity and client reach, Practice has consciously chosen to remain small. For Michelle, size is not a measure of success; depth of engagement is. Her compact team of interdisciplinary collaborators works closely on every facet of a project, ensuring that no detail is overlooked and no challenge is met with a one-size-fits-all solution.
This lean structure allows for a type of clarity and trust that larger agencies often struggle to maintain. Everyone in the studio understands not only the aesthetic direction of a project but the business logic, market dynamics, and emotional tone that underpin it. Every decision, from brand language to UX recommendations, emerges from shared understanding and mutual respect.
Practice avoids short-term, piecemeal work—such as standalone landing pages or logo refreshes that aren't tied to broader strategy. Instead, they focus on a limited number of long-term collaborations each year. Projects often span 12 to 18 months, giving the team time to immerse themselves, iterate meaningfully, and co-create solutions that are sustainable and effective.
This structure not only benefits clients—who enjoy rare access and deep involvement—but also empowers the studio itself. It allows time for research, reflection, and rigor, fostering an environment where thoughtful creativity thrives. In an industry prone to burnout and constant churn, Practice offers a counter-model: deliberate, balanced, and fully invested.
Turning Regret into Responsibility: The Origin of Waste Not
One of the most pivotal moments in Michelle’s career came when she visited a client site shortly after launching a successful product. She was met with an unsettling sight: crates of packaging being loaded out for distribution, an overwhelming physical manifestation of the design decisions she had made. Though the branding had won acclaim, Michelle couldn’t shake the realization that she had prioritized beauty over sustainability. It was a moment of clarity that led to a long-term commitment.
That reckoning gave birth to Waste Not—an open-source platform designed to help creatives and business owners make more environmentally responsible production choices. Initially a personal research spreadsheet, Waste Not evolved into a user-friendly tool populated with vetted vendors, educational resources, and material comparison guides. It was built not just to inform, but to inspire better practices across the design ecosystem.
True to Practice’s design ethos, the platform doesn’t shame or lecture. Instead, it invites exploration through whimsical illustrations, approachable language, and digestible content. The goal was to demystify sustainable sourcing and make eco-conscious decision-making feel empowering rather than burdensome.
Waste Not reflects a broader truth about Practice: that design can be both excellent and ethical. That aesthetics and accountability can co-exist. And that missteps, when addressed with humility and purpose, can become the catalysts for genuine innovation.
Storytelling for Justice: The Outer Work Newspaper
Another powerful manifestation of Practice’s value-driven design philosophy is the Outer Work newspaper. Developed in partnership with Lenea Sims, a visionary leader in anti-racism education, the newspaper transformed a digital platform into a tactile experience meant to foster joy, healing, and long-term commitment to social equity.
The publication was created during the studio’s weekly Dev Day—a time reserved for non-commercial, mission-aligned work. It includes personal essays, action-oriented guides, reflective worksheets, and a resource-rich directory of anti-racist media. Each element was crafted with care, not only to inform but to invite continuous, community-supported practice.
From a design perspective, the team made several deliberate decisions that reinforced the newspaper’s message. Fonts were sourced from Black type designers to celebrate underrepresented voices. The palette drew from nature—earth browns, leaf greens, and soft florals—anchoring the project in the metaphor of a garden: a place of labor, growth, and beauty. Even the logo, a blooming flower formed from the letters “O” and “W,” spoke to flourishing through collective effort.
What made this project especially significant was its balance of seriousness and hope. Rather than echo the fatigue of performative activism, it encouraged joyful participation and sustainable change. It offered an alternative path—one where creativity amplifies justice not through spectacle but through sincerity.
The Role of Dev Day in Shaping Practice’s Culture
Every Friday at Practice is Dev Day—a space held open for exploration, contribution, and curiosity. Initially conceived as a day to work on internal tools and platforms, it quickly grew into something more expansive. It became the studio’s laboratory for values-in-action, allowing the team to support causes, prototype ideas, and feed their creative spirits without client constraints.
Dev Day has led to the development of transformative tools like Waste Not and collaborative publications like Outer Work. But beyond its tangible outputs, it has become a cultural keystone. It encourages team members to lead initiatives, take creative risks, and deepen their skills in areas they may not engage with in day-to-day client work.
This rhythm of pausing commercial momentum to reconnect with purpose creates a unique studio atmosphere—one where burnout is mitigated, empathy is prioritized, and innovation is continually nurtured. It’s not just about doing good; it’s about doing better work because the team feels grounded in something bigger than deadlines or deliverables.
Dev Day proves that consistency in intention can be just as impactful as grand gestures. It’s a quiet revolution within the studio structure, one that other companies would do well to emulate if they hope to create lasting cultural change.
Encouraging a New Creative Ethic
Michelle Mattar’s work at Practice isn’t just about producing stellar design—it’s about redefining what creative labor looks like in the 21st century. She advocates for a model where design studios act not only as service providers but as agents of equity, education, and environmental responsibility.
This means sharing knowledge freely, supporting under-resourced communities, and reframing what it means to be “valuable” in a capitalist creative economy. While monetary donations remain important, Michelle argues that donating time and skill can be even more transformative—especially for grassroots organizers and visionaries who lack access to traditional creative infrastructures.
By creating a studio culture rooted in generosity, Michelle has attracted collaborators and clients who share those ideals. And through high-profile, mission-driven projects, she has demonstrated that ethics and aesthetics can and should coexist.
She hopes more studios will follow suit—not just for moral reasons, but because the world is changing. Audiences, clients, and communities are increasingly drawn to brands and agencies that take a stand. Authenticity, purpose, and accountability are no longer nice-to-haves—they are business imperatives. Studios that ignore this shift risk becoming irrelevant, while those that embrace it are poised to lead the next era of impactful creativity.
Final Thoughts:
As the branding and design landscape continues to evolve, the story of Practice and Michelle Mattar offers more than just a glimpse into an alternative way of working—it presents a compelling model for the future of creative studios. In a world that often values immediacy, scale, and aesthetics over substance, Practice exemplifies what it means to slow down, engage deeply, and create with purpose.
What sets Practice apart is its radical intentionality. From only taking on a handful of clients each year to embedding sustainability and social responsibility into every project, the studio’s structure is designed to cultivate quality over quantity. This approach is not just refreshing; it’s necessary. In a saturated digital era, where countless brands are vying for attention, only those built on real values and human connection will stand the test of time.
Michelle’s leadership has also introduced a vital cultural shift in the creative industry—redefining success not by profits or prestige, but by impact and fulfillment. Her belief that design can and should serve the greater good challenges the conventional agency model. By reserving Fridays for what the team calls Dev Day, Practice has institutionalized the act of giving back. These days are not just reserved for internal development but are seen as opportunities to make real-world change—whether through projects like Waste Not or Outer Work.
Perhaps the most powerful takeaway from Practice’s philosophy is that values and business aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, when integrated thoughtfully, values become a competitive advantage. Clients increasingly seek agencies that not only understand branding but embody the ideals they promote. In this sense, Practice doesn’t just build brands—it builds belief systems that resonate on a deeper level with audiences.
Michelle Mattar has created more than a design studio; she has created a blueprint for a more equitable, sustainable, and meaningful creative industry. For other studios, creatives, and entrepreneurs watching from the sidelines, Practice is a reminder that success doesn’t have to look like hustle or hypergrowth. Sometimes, it looks like clarity, community, and choosing to spend your Fridays building a better world.
