About – LaPlacaCreative

Michael LaPlaca

When people ask me what I do, or what I am, I’m often torn about what to say first. I consider myself an illustrator and a graphic designer and the order doesn’t really matter. Throughout my career I have used my illustration work whenever I could in my design work and I wouldn’t be much of an illustrator if I wasn’t a good designer first. So, I’m both at my core.

Being thus it’s important to know that I think visually. I see the graphics of an idea while the idea is forming. This has served me well in creative meetings throughout my career. It’s what enabled me to form my first company, then my second, and then found a very successful advertising agency in New York.

When I was 22 I started a greeting card company called Up& Coming Graphics. (I always liked that name so I mention it here. People used to ask, “If that’s the name, then what will you call yourself when I get there?”) I designed, produced, and distributed a line of Shakespearean greeting cards using my illustrations with quotes taken out of context for some very funny messages. At one point my cards were in 72 stores across the US and Canada. And I didn’t even have a rep.

Another designer and I formed a design company as a joint venture and we did well. That led me to my own design firm where I began to specialize in collateral and advertising for museums. My first museum client was The Morgan Library and I designed the first ever ad campaign for an art exhibition. (Previously museums placed Season announcements in a few papers.) The second client was The Metropolitan Museum of Art then MoMA and the American Museum of Natural History. I had found my niche was off.

The niche solidified and the workload intensified so I took on a partner and we formed LaPlaca Cohen Advertising in 1991. Eventually our client list grew to additionally include: The National Gallery of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Cleveland Museum, the Getty Museum, the LA Philharmonic, and many others. It was an exciting time and I loved being a creative director for 17 years.

In 2005 I bought an historic palazzo in the walled Umbrian hill town of Bettona. It was supposed to be as something I’d like to do when I retired. After 3 years of restoration a big life changing shove shoved and I decided to take the opportunity to fulfill my dream and moved to Italy.

In addition to being a graphic designer and illustrator, I’m now an Innkeeper and offer small group tours (with various themes) and rentals. I’m still a designer and work on just about anything anyone asks me to do as well as projects close to my heart and my writing. Art is still at the center of what I do only now I get to live real close and up personal with it. Check me out at aWeekinUmbria.com and maybe come for a visit.