Associate Partner & Design Director

Nick Adam

Nick Adam is a design director and associate partner at Span. His work explores how brand systems behave like civic infrastructure—scaling across cities, institutions, and communities to build clarity, trust, and measurable impact. Rooted in the Midwest’s civic grit and generosity, Adam’s philosophy, identity as infrastructure, treats design as public work: aligning mission with momentum and making belonging visible.

At Span, Adam has led the creation of identities that define how organizations show up and serve the public. Help Stop Hate and Copi each earned Anthem Awards for human rights and environmental impact. His rebrands for the Nature Museum and First Lady Cruises modernized beloved institutions, while long-running collaborations like Slow & Low have become cultural symbols of creativity, heritage, and pride.

Earlier in his career at Firebelly, Adam led civic and brand systems for public agencies and nonprofits—including the design of Divvy with IDEO and the City of Chicago, a Fast Company Innovation by Design finalist that redefined bikeshare identity and helped shape his civic-systems philosophy.

Adam’s work has received more than 70 professional honors, including three AIGA 365 awards, recognition from Fast Company, the Society of Typographic Arts (multiple Best in Show), the Type Directors Club, Tokyo TDC, Communication Arts, and Core77. His projects have been featured in Fast Company, Wired, AdAge, The Economist, Smithsonian Magazine, NPR, and Print. His work is archived in the Art Institute of Chicago, the AIGA Design Archives, and the Milton Glaser Design Study Center.

A graduate of RISD, where he also taught, Adam previously advanced social-impact design at Firebelly and helped lead Thirst before co-directing Span’s evolution. He lectures widely at universities and conferences, championing the idea that design’s highest purpose is civic—to create systems that earn trust and sustain belonging.