Mike Perry is the founder and chief creative officer of Tavern, a Brooklyn-based global creative agency crafting timeless brands across food, beverage, hospitality, and beyond.

With 15+ years at the forefront of brand building, Mike’s earned a reputation as a certified creative powerhouse. His career spans leading roles at top global studios like Stranger & Stranger, Design Bridge, and JKR, and media giants like NBC Sports and TikTok. He’s the creative mind behind some of the industry’s most recognizable rebrands for clients such as Budweiser, Burger King, and Diageo.

Mike Perry Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mike_l_perry/

Mike Perry LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikelperry/

Tavern Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tavern.agency/

Tavern X - https://x.com/tavern_agency

Tavern LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/tavernagency/

Drop us a line - cheers@tavern.agency

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What if the most powerful kind of creativity isn’t about making things beautiful, but making them clear?

Gordon Kaye never planned to work in design. He studied law, built a career in New York, and handled media and trademark cases before joining NBC as counsel, reviewing everything from late-night jokes to broadcast standards. But when his father’s health declined, he stepped away from law to take over the family publication, Graphic Design USA (GDUSA), a magazine his father had launched in the 1960s to celebrate the people behind design, not just the work itself.

What began as a rescue mission became a lifelong calling. Gordon brought his legal mind and curiosity for communication to a creative field that thrives on clarity. Over the decades, he’s evolved GDUSA into more than a design magazine, it’s a respected voice for how ideas move through business, marketing, and culture.

On this episode of Design Of, Gordon and Justin talk about what design can teach every leader: how to communicate simply, lead with empathy, and build trust through the way we share information. They discuss how his outsider’s view helped him see design not as decoration, but as direction. And how clarity, when done well, can turn creative thinking into real influence.

For business and marketing leaders, this episode is about more than design. It’s about the responsibility of communication. About how we help people see what matters. And how legacy, when guided by purpose, can evolve without losing its truth.

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In this episode of The GDUSA Podcast, we welcome Paige Breedlove, Vice President and Senior Digital Recruiter at Robert Half’s Digital Talent Center, and Lucy Marino, Executive Director of Robert Half’s marketing and creative practice.

Together, Paige and Lucy offer an expert perspective on the evolving nature of creative work—specifically, the accelerating shift from traditional graphic design to digital-first production and media. Drawing on their extensive experience guiding both companies and individuals, they explore how these changes are influencing hiring practices, skill requirements, and career development strategies across the industry.

Topics Covered:

• The transformation of graphic design roles in a digital-first world
• What hiring managers are prioritizing in today’s creative candidates
• Strategies for job seekers to remain competitive and relevant
• Insights into workforce trends and the future of creative talent

Featured Guests:

• Paige Breedlove — Vice President & Senior Digital Recruiter, Robert Half Digital Talent Center
• Lucy Marino — Executive Director, Marketing & Creative Practice, Robert Half

Resources:

• Robert Half | Marketing & Creative Talent Solutions
• Lucy Marino’s career column in GDUSA

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As executive director of Technology Staffing Services for Robert Half, Randi's primary responsibility is to develop and oversee programs that enable the company's Permanent Placement teams across North America. Robert Half connects employers with highly skilled technology, creative and legal professionals.

Throughout Randi's 20-year career with Robert Half, she's taken great pride in providing strategic staffing solutions and quality customer service to her clients and candidates. She's also had the opportunity to expand their business, develop their Robert Half teams and improve employee retention in her various leadership positions.

You can find Randi on LinkedIn.

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Stephanie is a strategic, data-driven sustainability, ESG and communications leader who is currently Sr. Director, ESG at global talent solutions firm Robert Half. She collaborates across the enterprise to find ways to continue and amplify the company's focus on ethics, integrity, innovation and inclusion, and she stands firm in the belief that she must learn and work each and every day on how to show up as a supporter and collaborator to act in allyship with historically excluded groups.

She is passionate about our planet, politics, and plant-based food (feminism doesn't start with a P but it's in there too), and she spends her free time outdoors on various modes of human and wind-powered conveyances and/or devouring books and puzzles of all kinds.

You can find Stephanie on LinkedIn.

You can find the Robert Half ESG Webpage here and ESG Report here.

Lucy is Executive Director of the marketing and creative practice at Robert Half. In this role, she oversees strategy and operations for the company’s marketing and creative talent solutions teams across U.S. locations.

Since joining Robert Half in 1999, she has helped to advance Robert Half’s marketing and creative and technology practices throughout a number of geographies. With her passion for people and solutions, and a deep understanding of the industry, she has advised thousands of company leaders on talent solutions and guided thousands of individuals on the next steps in their careers.

She also serves in board-level roles for organizations and has contributed her time and expertise to many local design schools and other creative organizations.

You can find Lucy on LinkedIn.

You can find Robert Half Marketing & Creative here.

Robert Half Marketing & Creative

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Over the course of three decades, Debbie has built her Northern New Jersey-based firm into a hub that embraces the philosophy of great ideas that genuinely work.

“When we meet with a client, we really tune in. We brainstorm, we collaborate, and we develop something that is wonderfully tailored to the client’s goals—a finished product that conveys why your company, brand or product is different—and why your own clients and customers should choose you and not the competition,” she says.

Having honed her skills at Federal Paperboard, where she worked with brands such as Klondike, Nutella, Polly-O, and Dunlop, Debbie doesn’t turn off her designer’s instincts when she leaves the office. In fact, a trip to the grocery store is just as likely to be for product-packaging research as it is for stocking the pantry.

As an entrepreneur, a wife, a mother, a frequent university lecturer and even a black belt, Debbie looks at every new opportunity as an exciting puzzle to be solved.

You can find Debbie at: https://barnettdesign.com
or follow her at:
www.linkedin.com/in/debbiebarnettideasthatwork

https://www.instagram.com/barnettdesigninc/

https://www.facebook.com/barnettdesigninc/

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Paper is Michele's world. With 25+ years in the industry, she's seen a lot of changes. Watching technology infiltrate every aspect of our lives, she believes paper and print has evolved to a point where it can be considered a new medium. People respond to beautiful print, unique substrates and tangible things more than ever before. The right paper can be the critical factor that not only elevates a brand but helps define it - increasing shelf presence, brand equity, and response rates while driving sales.

As the Marketing Manager at Neenah, Michele works on strategies, new ideas and tactics that keep Designers, Brand Managers and others who specify paper confident in paper specification, connecting them with Neenah's sales team and resources to provide solutions for packaging, print collateral, label, gift cards, direct mail and digital printing.

You can find Michele on LinkedIn and Neenah on Instagram and on their website.

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Studio on Fire is a Midwestern company based in St. Paul, Minnesota; owned by husband-and-wife-team Ben and Stacy Levitz. Their printing operation started in 1999, when Ben rebelled against the grind of designing behind a computer and bought his first printing press. This early basement studio stationed a Chandler & Price platen press between the boiler and the clothes dryer and just a step away from the cat box. Fast-forward twenty-one years— that basement hobby is now a truly unique commercial print shop with a battery of presses and a crew of talented people. That first press still sits in the entryway of their shop.

They proudly represent the best version of craft manufacturing here in the United States of America. They own the 19,000 square foot building that has been their home for the last five years.

Above all else, THEY LOVE MAKING THINGS.

You can follow them on Instagram.

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Podcast art by Maliya Naz