Dear Apple,

I am a brand strategist and writer with nearly 15 years of experience, who has worked with clients such as LoveFrom, Airbnb, Meta, Google, Acne Studios, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Madhappy, North Six, TAG Heuer, and Hong Kong’s Tsz Shan Monastery.

For them, I’ve developed brands or helped them experiment and pivot, expand audiences, produced campaigns, revised digital strategies, and launched or relaunched major editorial projects. In all cases, I’ve helped them speak with greater impact.

My approach to brand strategy focuses on voice, audience, and a broad set of cultural references and research – a result of a blended experience as leadership of both a creative agency, two global magazines at times extension and reanimation, and years as an independent brand consultant and copywriter. 

I have always led and worked as part of highly collaborative and disparate teams,  producing creatively vibrant work that responds to both brand and business objectives. With experience at several very tight, defined brands – such as Apple – I also understand how to experiment within parameters. 

You can find a portfolio of my work here, and my CV is below.

It would be a pleasure to contribute to Apple.

Sincerely,

David Michon


EXPERIENCE


FEBRUARY 2016 — PRESENT

DAVID MICHON LTD.

Audience-driven content strategy, copywriting and brand development for clients that include Acne Studios, Meta, Google (Google Safety), IKEA (Atelier100), Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Tsz Shan Monastery, Swarovski, Majid Al Futtaim, LoveFrom, Madhappy, Private Views(s) podcast, G.F. Smith paper company. Results: core brand strategies and internal assets, websites and social media, OOH & digital campaigns, books, magazines, podcasts.

Highlights:

  • Narrative and copywriting for The Voyager Scholarship, a collaboration between The Obama Foundation and Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky
  • Increased the Acne Studios social following by 600K in five months after developing their first-ever digital content strategy, in part thanks to a forensic analysis of past user engagement
  • Product naming and brand development for new-gen beauty company Faculty, who went on to close a $3m SEED round led by Estée Lauder

Editorial contributions Monocle, PIN-UP, Kinfolk, Vogue Italia, L’Uomo Vogue, Icon, Acne Paper, The Gourmand, Riposte

Talks and moderation UN-HABITAT, London’s Design Museum, UCL Bartlett School of Architecture, Dubai Design Week, London Design Festival


JUNE 2015 — JANUARY 2016

ICON MAGAZINE
 Editor-in-chief

Within two months of refreshing its content strategy and design under my leadership, the magazine’s readership increased 30 per cent. Thanks to new relationships with key brands, ad revenue was increased by 100 per cent in that same period.

The strategy: once-prominent British design magazine had become stale. Giving it a fresh design and overhauling its editorial approach, I was able to broaden its appeal from trade-only to consumer.


JANUARY 2014 — MAY 2015

WINKREATIVE
Managing editor

Oversaw all tone of voice and copy- and editorially-led projects, which form the core of the agency, leaning into its relationship with Monocle magazine (as its sister company), and a broad network of entrepreneurs, artists, architects, designers, and community leaders.

Select clients BMW/MINI, Lexus, The Government of Thailand, Porter Airlines, Union Pearson Express Line, Barangaroo (Sydney), Covent Garden (London). All of these clients sought strategies that could contribute to both brand building and sales or membership.


OCTOBER 2009 — DECEMBER 2013

MONOCLE MAGAZINE
Managing editor

Led the launch of MONOCLE 24, the magazine’s 24-hour digital radio station. Produced the station’s #1 show, The Urbanist, which garnered 500,000 weekly listeners and 2.5 million subscribers by the end of Year 1.

Worked with editors to shape editorial content, and with Monocle’s advertising team to design and place ads throughout its podcasts – the vast majority of those brands had never produced audio advertising before. Hired and managed a team of 20+ staff and 20+ freelance talent.

In print: concept development and executions on special projects for Helsinki, Thailand, and Florence; editorial contributions to over 40 issues of the magazine, as well as guidebooks and special publications.


PERSONAL PROJECTS


NOVEMBER 2022 — PRESENT

FOR SCALE
for-scale.com
A Substack ‘Bestseller’ twice-weekly newsletter on domestic interiors, which changes we the way we speak about ‘design’. Subscribers include leading editors, and top interior designers, industrial and graphic designers.

FOR SCALE emerged from the development of a start-up, with technology partners in London, that sought to capture the new energy around secondhand furniture selling and 20th-century design in a story-led digital marketplace powered by new technological abilities.

Early praise “The best thing to have happened to design publishing.” (Sophie Lovell, author of Dieter Rams: As Little Design As Possible), “In my opinion, the best design newsletter around.” (Kelsey Keith, brand creative director for Herman Miller).


SUMMER 2020

WHERE WE STAND
wherewestand.co.uk

Where We Stand is a design challenge that asked 15 world-leading design agencies, designers and design partnerships to help reimagine public spaces to fit the physically-distanced demands we must place on them, as we grappled with a global pandemic.

Profiled in Dezeen, El País (Spain), The Creative Review, The Brand Identity, It’s Nice That, Design Week, Grafikmagazin (Germany), The Business Times (Singapore), and others


EDUCATION



London School of Economics
M.Sc., Media and Communications

University of Winnipeg
B.A. Honors, Politics

Bogaziçi Universitesi (Istanbul)
International exchange program through the University of Winnipeg