Mai La Thai is an award-winning Creative Director and Art Director whose work spans advertising, design, film, photography, writing, and fine art.
 

She has led the development of campaigns, brand ideas, films, and visual stories for Fortune 100 companies, global brands, growing businesses, cultural organizations, and leading agencies.
 

Mai began her career at Pentagram, creating a niche role within Robert Brunner’s industrial design team and working across technology and hardware projects. At a time when home computers were still difficult for many people to set up, she recognized a broader usability problem in the maze of ports, cables, and connections on the back of PCs. While working on Dell systems, she designed a more intuitive visual system to make those connections easier to identify and navigate. Dell put the design into production, and the approach was subsequently adopted by other computer manufacturers, helping establish a visual convention that became standard across the industry.
 

She went on to Goodby Silverstein & Partners at the height of the dot-com boom, creating concept-driven work across E*TRADE, eLuxury, Pacific Bell, 7UP, and Isuzu, while helping the agency win HP and Sirius.

Her curiosity has taken her beyond traditional advertising into film, photography, and digital storytelling, where first-time ventures earned recognition. Nike later commissioned her first film for Joga.com, created with Google for the World Cup, earning Webby and Telly recognition. An early photography assignment chasing a U-2 spy plane became a Forbes Editor’s Pick, while the first website dedicated to her photography won First Place in the PDN Photo Annual.
 

Most recently, Mai helped lead the concept and development of Crowd Street’s new advertising campaign following its 2025 rebrand. The work received Silver and Bronze honors at the 2026 FCS Portfolio Awards.

Alongside her commercial career, Mai creates award-winning fine art selected for nationally juried gallery and museum exhibitions and presented at international photography and film festivals, including a solo exhibition at the New York Public Library in Midtown Manhattan.
 

Mai works with brands, agencies, and in-house teams to turn complex ideas into clear, distinctive, memorable work.      Get in touch.