Gavin Potenza is a creative director and design imagineer in New York with 18 years across brand, product, and systems design, including more than a decade leading studios and teams.
About
He co-founded Datalands, an independent brand and information design studio, and more recently has been art and creative directing with Smith & Diction, BUCK, and others, most notably on the Superhuman and Calendly rebrands.Over those 18 years he has run studios, led creative teams, and art directed for others, working with companies big and small on brand identity, design strategy, visual systems, creative direction, campaigns, motion, information design, and generative tools.Before Datalands he was a partner and creative director at Script & Seal, and before that he ran an independent design and illustration practice, after starting out art directing animation at Nervo and Bent Image Lab.
Experience
2024–Independent creative director BUCK, Smith & Diction, Primary, Little Plains2019–Datalands Co-founder, creative director2013–19Script & Seal Partner, creative director2007–13Independent practice Design, illustration2007Bent Image Lab Art director2006Nervo Art director
Adobe, Apple, Calendly, Dashlane, Google, Handshake, Herman Miller, Lululemon, Meta, Microsoft, Nike, Shopify, Sundance, Superhuman, and Visa, among others.
Recognition
2023Communication Arts, Shortlist2015Communication Arts, Judges’ Pick2013Webby Award, Experimental & Innovation2013American Illustration, chosen three times2010Art Directors Club, Young Guns 82010HOW, Young & Hungry
Talks
2019SUNY New Paltz2015School of Visual Arts2014Pratt Institute2013Portland State University
Shows
2015Pencil Factory ExhibitionLondon2015Ghost in the MachineSalt Lake City2014Talk to MePortland2014Nothing Goes According to PlanSalt Lake City2011ADC Young GunsNew York, Tokyo2010Downy BirdSan Francisco
Published in
2022Building Science Graphics, A K Peters2013The Best American Infographics, Mariner2012Information Graphics, Taschen2012Behind Illustrations, Index Book2011The Modernist, Gestalten2010Impressive, Gestalten20091000 Ideas by 100 Graphic Designers, Rockport2009Flashback, Victionary2008Los Logos 4, Gestalten
Calendly wanted to be known for more than the meeting link, as it grew into a platform for notes, contacts, payments, and AI. I was on the Smith & Diction team from day one. My first pass at the wordmark is where its signature detail came from: tracked in tight, the letters seemed to flow into each other, so we customized them to actually connect. I built Patternly, a pattern generator in Figma Make that produces the calendar-block patterns used across the brand, and developed the Midjourney-driven imagery behind its color fields. Beyond that, I worked across the symbol and the brand and web system.
Grammarly, Coda, and Superhuman were becoming one company, and the brand had to hold all three without flattening any of them. I joined Smith & Diction midway, once the core identity was set and the harder problem was everything around the logo. I helped concept and build a layered visual language that works across product, marketing, and physical space, and stretches to every product in the family. To keep it consistent without getting repetitive, I built a set of generative tools that produce a wide range of assets from the same underlying rules.
Mirror had plenty of data and one real goal: get people to come back tomorrow. When it introduced the Total Health Score, a blend of heart, muscle, and recovery, the number needed to feel like encouragement. We built a full visual system for it inside the product UI, from a single workout readout to long-term progress. Each pillar got its own visual behavior, and together they roll up into one score people actually want to move.
Nike needed its data to look like Nike, whether it showed up in a social post or an internal review. We built one visualization system organized in three tiers. A simple version for social, a sharper one for presentations and marketing reporting, and a detailed version for internal comms. Same visual logic at every level, so the audience changes and the system holds.
How do you draw courage? Microsoft Praise lets people thank each other for things that don’t come with an obvious picture, like inclusion, kindness, or being a great teammate. We created a family of ownable, emotional symbols for those moments, built to live across Microsoft’s many platforms. The set works in flat and 3D, and feels universal without feeling generic.
Volta Charging had just rebuilt its brand, and data visualization was the missing piece. Over two months, we developed an ownable data viz system, motion included. It launched through a marcom landing page and social campaign built on Volta’s climate consciousness research. The charts had to make the case on their own: climate-conscious consumers up nearly 15% since 2021, in red states and blue states alike.
Dreams Never Die is an artist-first music label, and the brand needed the same energy as the people on it. We built an identity with real attitude: a warped, stretchy wordmark, loud illustration, and a system loose enough to go from digital drops to merch.
