About Colorcubic

ounded in 2007, Colorcubic is the multidisciplinary creative studio of Michael John & Christy Lai in Portland, Oregon. We spend most of our hands-on time making and curating things we love for both client and studio projects. In addition to the usual studio happenings, we run two subsidiaries: The Color Bureau, our online shop (launching very soon), and an audio/visual record label called Nueva Forma. For further investigation: peruse our disciplines of practice, view our work, or stalk learn more about the founders below.

If you’re interested in working with Colorcubic, we’d love to hear from you. If you’re not interested in working with Colorcubic, we’d love to hear from you.

Christy Lai // Co-founder, Creative Director, UI Designer, Developer, Illustrator, Typographer

hristy spent her precocious youth involved in various activities ranging from classical violin to fine arts to reading back issues of Orvis catalogs under flashlight and sheets (a side effect of growing up on the lake in North Idaho). Her curiosity and acquisition of a Packard Bell 386 equipped with a 14.4bps modem led her to explore bad early web development in the walled garden of Prodigy, and later, the gems of AOL. Luckily, the skills extrapolated from those experiments (and others neglected to be mentioned) landed her various positions in interactive media involving kiosk design, digital publications, and web design and coding. Shortly after studying computer engineering at Oregon State University, Christy teamed up with partner Michael John in an effort to escape the tribulations of working for the man and founded this design studio. Preoccupied with geometry and the word color as a prefix (and scheming in such), Colorcubic was naturally a suitable neologism for the grandest scheme of all.

Michael John // Co-founder, Creative Director, Illustrator, Animator, Typographer, Photographer

ichael is a man of many hats, and consequently, many stories. Childhood summers were spent studying a wide range of arts: theater, dance, drawing, and music. As a teen, Michael was part of several shoegaze and surf bands, and later went solo as an electronic producer under the musical guise of Masmöd. All the while, drawing, design, and motion graphics were also an integral part of his interests which eventually led him to study communication arts and music composition at Portland State University. During this juncture, he spent considerable time abroad in Japan, and took on different roles in various industries, many of which he’d probably like to forget. One in particular involved a stint working as a porcelain technician in a dental lab. Healthy gingivals notwithstanding, it was taxing on his health and creativity. It didn’t take long for Michael to part ways with the nine-to-five vocation, only to trade it for a nine-to-midnight one at Colorcubic. He’d say that the latter is much more satisfying anyway.

Noah Bernstein-Hanley // Copywriter, Photographer, Graphic Designer

oah hails from a magical pine forest in northern Vermont where everything is possible and anything goes. Consequently, he has had little practice at contentedness and even less patience for stagnation. An avid sound and visual artist since his early years, Noah’s unique concepts garnered the attention of his teachers and mentors almost immediately. His freelancing graphic designer mother took him under her wing as computers were just taking off and Katie Couric was still confused about how to pronounce “@”, while his piano, bass, saxophone, and band teachers all told him to stay away from avant-garde jazz. As if he needed more help flying off the deep-end, his father handed him a Canon AE-1 35mm camera for his 16th birthday and an English teacher told him he needed to go “on the road” to fulfill his destiny. The road took him to Oberlin College and Conservatory, where he attained a BA in creative writing and a BM in jazz saxophone. It was more or less inevitable, as far as destinies go, that Colorcubic would find this outstanding multidisciplinarian in his wanderings.

Personal Website | Twitter | MySpace | Skype: Noerbh

Disciplines of Practice

We're involved in all sorts of things, as evident below. If you've got a special project that doesn't seem to fall into any of our disciplines, get in touch with us. We've got many tricks up our sleeves, and might just be able to do what you need. It's been a while since we've made porcelain teeth, but we could probably do that too. And no, we're not kidding.