Marilyn Frank
From Chicago to New York and back again.
marilyn@marilynfrank.com
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About

I've spent my career learning new languages, from Letraset to LLMs.

At the age of 11, I knew design was my calling. I learned the trade when paste-up boards and the first Macintoshes shared the same lab, and I've been carrying craft across tool changes ever since: graphic design, art direction, campaigns, brand, content strategy, research, and now conversation design for AI.

That path runs through 52mm, the New York design studio I co-founded — clients included Showtime, the NHL, and VH1 — then StudioNorth, where I was an art director building integrated campaigns for B2B technology, healthcare, and nonprofit brands, and U.S. Cellular, where I concepted and art directed a 360° VR retail experience for associates nationwide. Concept, campaign craft, and production — in-house and agency-side — are the muscle memory underneath everything I make.

Today I advocate for healthcare consumers, shaping how one of the largest health systems in the country talks to its patients. It's the same job it's always been: intention meeting material with enough skill to make something true. The material just talks back now.

Outside the day job, I write Digital Widow, where design, grief, and technology sit at the same table. I also write articles on LinkedIn — most recently on AI and design.

RECOGNITION
ADC Young Guns, two-time winner
Graphis
GD USA
Artwork in private & corporate collections, incl. SoHo House Chicago
DISCIPLINES
Art direction & campaign development
Conversation & AI design
Design leadership & strategy
Content strategy · UX research
Brand & editorial design
FUN FACT
My handwriting is a licensed typeface: Divine, released by [T-26] with the late Frank Heine. It still turns up in the wild: food packaging, t-shirts, signage.
The story so far

Same calling, new materials.

AGE 11
The calling
A kid in Chicago decides she's going to be a designer. The decision sticks.
THE LAB YEARS
X-Acto in one hand, mouse in the other
Graphic design at Columbia College Chicago, learning the trade where paste-up boards and the first Macintoshes shared the same lab.
NEW YORK
52mm, the studio years
Co-founds a design studio in New York. Showtime, the NHL, and VH1 on the client list; a Broadcast Designers Association Silver for “Behind the Music”; two ADC Young Guns wins; and her handwriting released as the typeface Divine.
2001–2008
Fire and glass
Back in Chicago, learns glassblowing from her husband Peter. Together they build F2, a design-glass practice with a West Loop gallery — and press in Dwell, Chicago magazine, and the Tribune.
2008–2014
Season after season
Marketing director and designer for fashion retailers, running seasonal campaigns end to end on retail's relentless calendar: managing budgets and media buys, and developing creative concepts for everything from online presence to print campaigns.
2014–2020
The campaign years
Art direction at StudioNorth — integrated campaigns for B2B technology, healthcare, and nonprofit brands — then U.S. Cellular, where she concepts and art directs VRX, a 360° VR retail experience for associates nationwide.
2020
Healthcare, for humans
Joins one of the country's largest health systems to advocate for healthcare consumers — including redesigning the hospital bill itself.
THE ESSAYS
Writing through it
After unexpectedly losing her spouse, begins Digital Widow — essays on what falls away and what remains when change, grief, and technology collide.
THE AI TURN
Teaching machines to talk
Leads conversation design for Grace, a health system's AI assistant — and writes the organization's first conversation design standards. Still designing. Still saying yes to new materials.
The generalist thing is the point. Every discipline is another cut of the same unicorn.
See the archive →
The Communicorn: cuts of a communication designer
© 2026 Marilyn Frank