I’m an explainer.

My job is to improve your standing in the world.

The first half.

Craig Frazier is an illustrating designer who has enjoyed a distinguished career since 1978. He opened his doors as Frazier Design in 1980 and built a practice designing corporate communication, annual reports and advertising. In 1996, he scaled down the design side of his practice to concentrate on illustration (and a few special design projects). Within two years he had developed one of the most distinct and recognized illustration styles in the country. Wit, irony, and simplicity have become the currency of the Frazier style.

In the words of Ivan Chermayeff, “I think that one of the explanations for Craig Frazier’s expressive and memorable illustrations is that he has been—and still is—a designer. The search for a concept, and not putting anything down until a concept is found, is what makes the end product great work that communicates, often about difficult subjects.”

The second half.

By 2011, the special design projects had grown in number and the studio evolved into a hybrid design/illustration studio. Frazier credits his success as an illustrator to being a disciplined designer the first half of his career. He goes on to credit his current design skills as a result of becoming a successful illustrator the second half of his career. “When you have created illustrations for over 2000 stories, (many on breakneck deadlines), you can’t help but learn how to cut to the essence of a problem.”

He is a frequent contributor to the NY Times and business publications like Time Magazine, Fortune, Bloomberg Business Week, Harvard Business Review, and The Wall Street Journal to name a few. Amongst his corporate clients are Adobe, American Express, Amtrak, Boeing, Chevrolet, Deloitte, Goodwill, Herman Miller, Kia, LucasArts, MasterCard, Mohawk Paper, Navigant, Nestlé USA, The Oxbow School, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Royal Mail, Steelcase, Salesforce, U.S. Postal Service, United Airlines, Whitehead Institute, and Xerox. Craig has created seven postage stamps including the 2006 Love stamp and the 2010/11 commemorative Scouting stamps.

Craig has published a 176-page monograph titled The Illustrated Voice, (Graphis Press, 2003.) He is also the author and illustrator of ten children’s books.

Awards and Distinctions

The firm has garnered countless awards from Communication Arts, The New York Art Director’s Club, Print Magazine, Society of illustrators, American Illustration and Graphis. Craig has received two Silver medals from the Society of Illustrators and was featured on the cover of their Illustrators 42 Annual (2000). Craig was published as one of the top 100 illustrators in 100 Illustrators, (Taschen 2013). He was featured in Communication Arts in 1999 and twice in Graphis magazine in 2003 and 2004.

Craig was a founding member of the San Francisco Chapter of the AIGA in 1985 and served on the Board as its Treasurer in 1987. He was the Chair of Sponsorship for the 2005 ICON 4 Illustration Conference. Craig is a frequent lecturer at universities and design conferences.