Dan Smith

Dan is a seasoned design director with deep experience inventing consumer brands—from their existential beginnings to formidable launches—and reinventing brands with a new story to tell. Dan spent serious time leading creative teams in-house at NBBJ Architecture, Starbucks, Experience Music Project (MoPoP), Giftcertificates.com, Realogics, Chateau Ste. Michelle and—on the agency side—a decade working directly with incredible clients, from global to local, at Tether, a design and branding firm in Seattle.

Dan also has a passion for fostering international connections between designers. He organized a series of poster exhibitions for Bumbershoot, Seattle’s biggest music and arts festival, culminating with The Seattle-Havana-Tehran Poster Show in 2015. Through this self-initiated, city-to-city exchange project, Dan mounted ten total exhibitions, gave talks at universities from Beirut to Boise, and made innumerable friends around the world.

Dan joins Cognition to bring his big brand, human connection, and impact thinking to a new sector—science, innovation, and medicine. Dan leads large and small brand development projects and brand campaigns, guiding cross-functional teams of strategists, writers, designers, and visual storytellers to new heights.