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Michael Wasilewski
Creative Director | Branding & Identity Design for early growth + scale
Michael Wasilewski is a Creative Director at MikeMikeMike, a creative agency based in New York. He has a robust background in brand strategy and design, having co-founded Frank Collective, where he served as Executive Creative Director for over 12 years. His professional experience includes roles such as Principal Creative Strategist at Trellis and part-time faculty at Parsons, teaching courses on brand concepts since 2014.
Wasilewski holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Graphic Design from The College of Saint Rose. His career spans various notable positions, including Art Director and Designer at @radical.media and an internship at Pentagram. His work emphasizes collaboration with clients to develop unique branding strategies that resonate with their target audiences .1
Highlights
Best Friend Client (BFC) appreciation post of the week! This time celebrating The Lemon Perfect Company and its fearless, energetic, relentlessly motivating captain Yanni Hufnagel.
**Reminder BFCs are our Best Friend Clients — something Jiffy Iuen and I internally coined over the years at Frank Collective. These are clients you love and instantly feel bonded with, working to achieve a shared vision. You feel like you can lock arms and scale any mountain together as a team.
Yanni first met with us at Frank back in the early days of the LA office — when we were in a very small co-working space in the Arts District. I didn't meet him at first, as I was based out of the NY office mostly — but I soon heard from Jiffy and Mitchell Orkis that there was a potential new brand identity job for a cold-pressed lemon water that was pre-formulation, in its seed round of funding, and the founder was "hyped!" to say the least 😆 . I then learned that prior to cold-pressing lemon water, Yanni was a Division 1 NCAA basketball coach, which, after meeting him, made everything click together. He is the definition of hard work and hustle.
We didn't know it yet, but both Yanni and Frank LA were about to embark on new chapters of growth together.
Yanni was breaking ground on Lemon Perfect, dashing from co-packer meeting to investor call to creative reviews on planes, trains, and automobiles — often with a small zip cooler containing early formulations of his product. When he came to the NY office for a packaging review with us, we joked that he should have it handcuffed to his wrist on the plane.
At the same time, we were at a pivotal point in Frank LA's growth. Scaling up, we had just made the decision to bring Andrew Almeter on as our FT CD in LA (saving me lots flights and Zoom calls - also doing it better than I could have). Andrew led a combo team of LA and NY designers through the brand identity work.
Our first round of design was actually a whiff — we pushed too hard on the lemon aspect instead of the water, resulting in a retina-burning yellow-on-yellow first-round presentation 🤦♂️ . Coach Yanni, though, was able to give it to us straight but also rally and refocus us on what became the basis of what you see today. That's the team aspect of the BFC relationship. We both knew what each of us was capable of, and rather than stand on a standard client/agency relationship, we just got to work.
Once off the ground, we watched and celebrated all the phases of LP's growth. We saw it in the cooler case at Erewhon, then an end cap, selling online, larger stores, Amazon, in our friends' fridges, bigger and bigger booths at Expo West, and even with Beyoncé! Along the way, we were doing photoshoots, social assets, websites, e-comm, secondary logo marks, art direction, and packaging updates. It's been a fun ride!
Raising a glass of ice-cold Lemon Perfect to you, Yanni, and so many of our team. 🍋 Annie Vaughn Seely, Jay Sprogell, Rocky Santaferraro, Eric Almquist
While running Frank Collective, Jiffy Iuen and I had a term for our favorite clients. We called them BFCs (Best Friend Clients). I'm happy to say that we're fortunate to count many as such.
I think anyone who works in this field can get what a BFC means. These are the folks that you are excited to see everyday. You have big belly laugh meetings, you enjoy every second working on their brand, and you don't want to let them down.
You believe in them and they believe in you. Its not just you as the agency owner/creative lead that feels it — it permeates to the whole team. You start scheduling meetings to be a tad longer because you know you'll run over. You think of it when you're off the clock. You genuinely are excited to see each other when they pop up on zoom or walk into the office.
You want to do a great job for them. Because you understand their values and aspirations — that becomes a source of inspiration. It's about crafting a brand identity that not only resonates with their target audience but also mirrors the essence of who they are. When this happens, yes they are technically clients, but really you collectively are a team energetically working together to make something great.
As I been reflecting on this lately, I wanted to share some of the work and a little about each project from the many BFCs we been fortunate to work with over the years.
I'm going to start with the wonderful guys over at Counter foods. Shout out to Benn Manning and Jeff Ferrell for being a part of our BFC club.
When Benn and Jeff first met with me, the company was called Macrofy, and I personally had no idea what the hell a "Macro-nutrional diet" was. But we right off the rip hit it off on that first call. It felt like we immediately became BFCs and it was time to just get to work.
Along with our talented team, Chris Thomas, Luke A. Horvath, Bliss Maginnis, and Michael Powers, we worked together to transform the idea of "Macrofy" into Counter Foods — a macro-nutritional food brand that make your calories work harder for you, while not sacrificing any convenience or taste. They had the smart idea to start with the vibrant macro-nutritional community from the start, creating recipes from leading creators in that space. Its been a joy to see the team grow from that initial investor deck into the cooler cases at Sam's club and Target.
I raise a chicken queso burrito to you fellas! Looking forward to seeing more success for you in the future! 🌯
#bfc #brandidentity #agencylife #casestudy #cpg
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
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Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.