Michael O’ Riordan


Branding, Design, & Visual Communication

        Hello, my name is Mikey. I’ve been working in the fields of Brand and Design for many years. I have a diverse skillset that makes it easy for me to thrive in evolving interdisciplinary settings. I want to work with people and organisations who innovate at the forefront of their industry, thought leaders who aren’t afraid to be disruptive and push boundaries. 

        Whether creating a brand identity, building a product that will scale globally, or crafting profound experiences that foster meaningful connections, my goal remains the same; I strive to develop work that not only inspires, but also educates and empowers the viewer. Ultimately, I aspire to work at the intersection of design, education, and innovation, where creative ideas and learning meet.

Get in touch with me here:
hello@michaeloriordan.net


Minerva University
  1. Ascent
  2. Civitas
  3. Elevation
  4. Foundation Week
  5. Sapientia Critica
  6. Graduation
  7. Meridians
  8. Quinquatria
  9. Website


Minerva Project
  1. Consequent
  2. Advertising
  3. Website


Entrepreneur First
  1. Brand Consultation
  2. How To Be a Founder
  3. The Polaris Fellowship


Minerva Baccalaureate
  1. Various Works
  2. Website


Various Projects
  1. Anam Ceol Music Therapy
  2. Paul Quinn College
  3. Kayla
  4. BSKC
  5. MINT
  6. REC’D
  7. Miscellaneous


Experience

Minerva Project - 2019/2022
Designer

Entrepreneur First - 2022/2023
Brand Strategy Consultant

Minerva University - 2023
Senior Designer

Freelance - 2016/2023

Studio93 - 2017
Junior Designer


Education

Moate Business College 2013 - 2014
Art & Design Portfolio

Technological University of the Shannon:
Midlands 2014 - 2017
BA Graphic Design
First Class Honours

Technological University of the Shannon:
Midlands 2017 - 2018
BA Honours Graphic & Digital Design
First Class Honours


Accolades

TUS BA Graphic Design - Student of the Year 2017

Featured in Design Research Society 2018 Exhibiton ‘Best of Emerging Irish Design’ for the self-directed project ‘Recd’ and also for work produced in Ryan Hoey’s project ‘ZINEGIRLZ’

Featured in the 100 Archive’s “In with the new” article series.

Part of the team that helped Minerva University get listed as WURI’s “Most Innovative University in the World” in 2022.
Mark




Arcana Mundi — Economy and Eccentricity



“Profuse strains of unpremeditated art.”
(Shelley)
                A rock is a perfect metaphor, an allegory in volume. When placed it’s sculptural limits beget a kind of artistic proposition — and when considered with reduced anthropomorphism and ungeologically — produce a ready-made analog to the causation and bounds of our attempts at the understanding of all things.

Here the sculptor has made no concessions; no attempts to curry favor with curators or collectors — pieces wholly outside discourse. And if pressed for an affiliate movement for these “sculptures” (i.e. Cubism, Mannerism, etc.)… perhaps Monism or Cosmogonism? Definitely not Conceptualism or Pataphysics — Actualism?

The analog? Well for sure it is 1:1. Weird; yes — a knot to be admired for it’s curves — not for untying. An emergent surface as thick as it’s mass. 
 
Were it possible for the instances of our minds or world events to be mapped and dimensionally materialized, something similar to a rock would appear — areas of smoothness yielding to pockmarked particularities, density shifts and feathered explosions. What really is the shape of a boom town? A pilgrim’s journey? A section of jungle mayhem? A boring era? The silhouette of a father’s cold slap? The contours of a brief, intense friendship? Comfortably we perceive all of these things as ready to be integrated into ledgers or novels or timelines; but really they are queer crags and striations of unimaginable idiosyncrasy.

So yes, the reflective, reasonable yield of our mind has much symmetry (computation, cataloguing, narrativizing, etc.) but it’s actual shape is no shape, but unfolding chaos and singularity visible only to our particular time-scale. Our species-wide symmetries and quantizations are basically improvisations white-labeled onto directionless infinitude attempting the constant creation of navigable Dimension.

So, look intimately at a rock, walk around it, get up close to it, savor it’s complexion and composition as you would any painting or temple and see it as the faultless mirror that it is — a truly perfect sculpture.



ABSTRACTION AND EMPIRICAL ILLUSTRATION
We live our lives made up of a great quantity of isolated instants. So as to be lost at the heart of a multitude of things. (From the Double Dream of Spring, 1970.)




  1. Gavrilo Princip’s last grocery list written
  2. The time that alligator ate that fish
  3. When the Yongzheng Emperor found that weird dust bunny under his throne
  4. The great earthquake of Alexandria
  1. The invention of expectation in literature
  2. When the heaviest cacao fruit fell in Takalik Abaj
  3. Animesh eats his first Fly Agaric mushroom