Andy Mullady is a brand design consultant in Austin, TX. He has carried a sales quota, run a retail P&L, and won a national licensing award with design. The work below is how a kid drawing linebackers off the TV on the Kankakee River became the person founders call when the brand has to raise the price.
Born in Kankakee on New Year's Eve, 1980. Two obsessions, same discipline: drawing athletes off the television — Jordan, Bo Jackson, Dee Brown — and getting up behind the boat on the Kankakee River. Practice, repetition, wipeouts, repeat. Nobody called it design yet.
The sketchbooks from this era are in the archive. Some of them survived the water.
BFA in graphic design. In 2001, cut a wakeboarding film — riding the Kankakee, edited for a video class. The athlete and the artist stopped being separate people.
Two hundred cold calls a day at SBC, then a ten-week ADP sales intensive in New York — a five-step framework delivered word for word. Most designers have never asked a stranger for money. That education is why the work here talks about margin and sell-through, not mood boards.
I carried a quota before I carried a portfolio.
Co-owned a retail store on Belmont. Grew it from one employee to eight, $150K to $500K in revenue. Learned what a brand is worth when the lease depends on it — and what happens when design decisions meet real buying decisions every single day.
Co-founded 500 Level after moving to Austin. The premise: what if you don't want to wear a jersey? Fan apparel built on artwork instead of team logos. The Urlacher design landed in 2012 and growth skyrocketed across every major league. Hired five freshly graduated designers and taught them to design, print, ship, and survive crazy fans.
500 Level won the NFLPA's Apparel Licensee of the Year — announced alongside EA Sports and Panini America, in a licensing program doing $1.5B+ at retail. Designs featuring more than 500 players. Gary Vaynerchuk's signature turned into a logo. Muhammad Ali and Bruce Lee licenses. The Sager Strong shirt on TNT, worn by Kevin Durant.
It isn't a design award. It's a sales award won with design.
Rebranded Rosenhaus Sports — the agency repping nearly 100 active NFL players — from a borrowed Superman "S" to a mark that shows up on PTI and Forbes. Built brands and stores for BirdieBox, WOLACO, Third Coast Grappling, Hudson Cole. Every engagement the same shape: research the business, build the system, measure the result.
Founded Lake Austin Design — a studio above the only gas dock on Lake Austin. Swiss grids, Vignelli discipline, Futura and Helvetica, and a three-step process: Research → Create → Results. Rebranded Nautical Boat Club ("Don't just boat, Boat better") and supported five new locations and hundreds of new members. Still on the water. Still drawing.
If you do it right, it will last forever.
Massimo Vignelli — the standard the studio is held to
Command Zero — cybersecurity founders backed by Okta Ventures and Crosspoint Capital — came in with a $10M round and zero branding, "almost out of spite." Five months later: identity, 16-page system, web, RSAC program. One partner, one system, every room they walk into.
Andy embedded with us like a co-founder, not a contractor. Smartest brand investment we've made.
Erdem Menges — VP Product Marketing, Command Zero
No account managers. No junior handoffs. Twenty years of proof that good design is good business — with the quota, the P&L, and the trophy to show for it.
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