Mike Neal

Mike came to SVA with a background in graphic design and advertising. He received his BFA in Visual Communications from California State University, Long Beach, where he was president of VCDA, a student run design & critique group. He has since been a tutor, lecturer, judge, and guest critic for classes at CSULB, UCLA, USC, and the Bookshop.

As a graphic designer, he worked with local organizations such as Long Beach Memorial Hospital and the Long Beach Public Library. At the Port of Long Beach he explored environmentally responsible design to mirror its new “green” policies. Eventually, Mike’s love for big ideas brought him to Ogilvy, Los Angeles, where he was an art director on global, national, and regional brands like Cisco Systems, Mattel, Kraft, Playstation, ampm convenience stores, and Heal the Bay.

While a part of D-Crit’s inaugural MFA class Mike’s interests and expertise expanded into blogging (as he did for Pentagram’s New York Office), industrial design, architectural criticism, social theory—and apparently planetary science. His thesis topic, Tabula Rubra: Critical Reflections on the Design of Mars, allowed his inner Utopian to emerge through a theoretical and immersive study of the current speculations towards designing the first beyond-Earth “exo-terrestrial” human colony. Mike’s research lead to a presentation at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in conjunction with its Other Space Odysseys exhibit, and a nationally broadcast radio piece on Studio 360’s Science and Creativity segment.