Christopher Knowles
Christopher Knowles is a creative director, brand & experience designer with over 12 years experience partnering with entities in hospitality, food and beverage, education, music, cultural fields, sports, technology, small-businesses from startup to growth phases, as well as established corporate entities. He is currently working independently in a freelance capacity after serving as creative director at Elevate and Red Antler. His experience runs the gamut from overseeing cross-functional creative teams, to building comprehensive brand systems for clients independently, to producing exhibitions, teaching and efforts to improve community and culture through his ongoing project Monospace.

Information
Creative Direction,
Brand & Experience Design Services
Contact
LinkedIn


Photo Credits: Raye Moravek
Email

Instagram

CV I maintain an incomplete and evolving outlook on the human experience that helps sustain optimism, creativity, and curiousity in every day life. My work as a creative director, brand and experience designer embraces this philosophy and has provided value for clients in hospitality, food and beverage, education, music, cultural fields, sports, technology, small-businesses from startup to growth phases, as well as established commercial entities. My work advocates for solutions that are unorthodox, versatile, and memorable; following the principles of modernist design while retaining the evocative spirit of creative curiosity, the abstract and a healthy dose of inventive playfulness. I believe it is vital to consider a human - first approach to building meaningful design systems that honor emotional relationships between brands, experiences, and discovery in our evolving world. 

Currently I am working in a freelance capacity after recently serving as creative director at Elevate. I teach design at University of Tennesee Chattanooga. Before that, I was creative director at Red Antler, (2021-2024). Even before that, I taught as an adjunct professor of design at The University of Georgia (2017-2022) and was the co-chair of design at The Creative Circus (2017-2019)(RIP). And even before that, I was a designer at Sony Music and at a collection of small studios in New York including Out Of Office, Rosenworld, and Mark Pernice. (2012-2016). I am the founder and former director of Practise Makes Practice, a five-year operational nonprofit focused on pop-up design programming for the southeastern region (2019-2024).

Since 2023, I have been operating Monospace, a self-initiated project born from my lifelong personal passions of music, design, culinary arts and curation. Monospace actively designs experiences at the intersection of these passions through pop-up events, dinners, curated workshops, and a retail experience named Catalog, that reflects our programming through collected records, design objects, and self-initiated designs.

If you would like to discuss commissioning a project, please get in touch with me at ck@christopher-knowles.com, I would love to chat with you.


Select Clients
100 for 10 (Munich)
Alley Cat Music Club
Atlanta History Center
Audible
Bon Ton Atlanta
Brickstack Architects
Colombia Records
Common Companion Vet Co.
C.U.B.E Gallery at Lamar
Dodd School of Art
Epic
Laurie Rosenwald
Lyla Lila
Mark Pernice
Masterworks
Offset
Pearlfisher (San Francisco)
RCA Records
Red Antler
Showerhaus Gallery
Shutterstock
Son & Sons
Sony Music
Stove Works
Straight To Tell
The Creative Circus
The Dramatist
The Goat Farm Arts Center
The Lawrence
The Lucky Penny ATL

The New York Times
The University of Georgia
The Young Never Sleep Studio
Volatile Parts
WRK
Zapah Lab



Publications / Press / Exhibitions
V.2, R.3
Chattanooga, TN
Stove Works
February - March 2024

Meta Process and Performative Design Residency
Stove Works Residency Program
August 2021 - November 2021

Typo-Hetero-Chronia: Seoul to Atlanta
Atlanta, GA
Poster (x3)
Exhibition
Nov-Dec 2021

SENSE
New Orleans, LA
Annunciation Hall
April 2017

C-U-B-E: On the Boundaries
Athens, GA
Lamar Dodd School of Art
March-May 2016

100for10 Exposition
Munich, DE
Easy!Upstream Galerie
Dec 2015

100for10 Publication
Munich, DE
You Will Have Everything You Need
Sept 2015

Downtown Digital
Asheville, NC
Animation (x3)
April 2015

Independence
Asheville, NC
Installation
Oct 2014

NY Art Book Fair 2014
New York, NY
The Deathbringers
Oct 2014

Print Magazine: The Color Issue
Christopher Knowles Interview
June 2013


Capabilities
Animation
Art Direction
Bespoke Typography
Book / Brochure / Magazine Design
Brand Architecture
Brand Concept
Brand Ecosystem
Brand Platforms
Brand Standards
Brand Story / Voice
Brand Strategy
Campaign Development
Content
Copywriting
Creative Direction
Creative Consultation
Creative Workshops
Curation
Design Direction
Design Strategy
DJ / Music
Editorial Design / Systems
Environments
Event Design
Exhibitions
Graphic Design
Identity Systems
Iconography
Illustration
Naming / Nomenclature
Packaging
Positioning
Poster Design
Research / Insights
Sonic Identity
Spatial Design
Brand Strategy
Teaching / Lecture
Typography
Verbal Identity



Lectures
Performative Design and Meta Process
Chattanooga, TN
Stove Works
August 2021

Lecture: Relativity in Creativity: The Process of
Curating Your Voice to Discover Process
Athens, GA
Lamar Dodd School of Art
March 2016

Crafting Your Portfolio
PI Art Center
New York, NY
June 2014

How To Make Mistakes On Purpose
Workshop w/ Laurie Rosenwald
New York, NY
AIGA NY February 2013




All Works © Christopher Knowles 2012—’26

This site is a collection of some of my favorite work and is forever changing. Thanks for visiting