Art Meets Brand.

Identity Brought to Life.

Carnes Creative brings identity into the physical world through brand systems, site-specific art, and creative direction for spaces and experiences.

brand.reveal.
art.create.
space.become.

brand.

Who are you, and why should you look like everybody else? I uncover what makes you distinct.

What I Do →

art.

A brand can be beautifully resolved and still feel anonymous. Art brings emotional recognition, presence, curiosity and feeling.

What I Do →

space.

What happens when people physically enter a place? I turn identity into an atmosphere people can physically experience.

What I Do →

featured projects

  • Building a Brand to Expand

    Red Touch Media

    Brand Environment · Original Art · Experiential

    View Case Study

  • Revealing a Brand Persona's World

    Qdoba Mexican Eats

    Brand Interpretation · Original Art · Environmental

    View Case Study

  • Creating a Place to Belong

    Sebastopol Center for the Arts

    Brand Strategy · Identity · Creative Direction

    View Case Study

  • Award-Winning Brand Rooted in Place

    City of Wheat Ridge

    Brand Identity · Wayfinding · Civic Environment

    View Case Study

Michelle Carnes, Founder of Carnes Creative

For more than 25 years, I’ve shaped distinctive identities, campaigns, and environments through a practice grounded in both creative direction and art. I’m the person who can design the identity, paint the painting, conceive the installation, direct the environment, and sit in the strategy meeting.

Carnes Creative is intentionally founder-led — giving clients direct access to senior creative direction, with trusted specialists brought in when a project calls for production, fabrication, technology, or installation expertise.

What I love most is turning identity into something tangible — creating a world people can recognize, enter, experience, and remember. I’m drawn to what makes a brand or place singular — its character, history, and point of view — uncovering what’s already true before deciding how it should look. From there, I build a visual language with its own personality, feeling, and sense of place.

About Michelle

clients + collaborators

Good work starts with a good conversation.

Let’s see what we can create.