Mike Abbink

Profile

Mike Abbink is Executive Director of Design, Foundations at General Motors, where he leads the evolution of GM’s brand identity and design systems across the company’s portfolio — shaping coherent experiences from digital interfaces to the vehicle itself.

Before GM, Mike spent nearly a decade at IBM in senior creative leadership, where he directed some of the company’s most consequential design work: the IBM Design Language, the Carbon Design System — encompassing components, patterns, documentation, and visual language — and IBM Plex®, IBM’s open-source corporate typeface family, created to embody the brand’s character at global scale.

His career began in 1996 at MetaDesign in San Francisco, working with Nike on strategy and retail environments for Niketown Honolulu and stores in Vienna, Melbourne, and Toronto. He went on to co-found Method as Creative Director, then served as Design Director at Apple, CreativeDirector at Wolff Olins, Creative Director at Saffron Brand Consultants, and Executive Creative Director at the Museum of Modern Art.

Over nearly three decades, Mike has led work in brand identity, design systems, typography, and digital product expression for organizations including Adobe, Apollo Tyres, Belkin, Citibank, GE, Goldman Sachs, Gucci, IDEO, Knoll, Microsoft, MoMA, Mozilla, Nike, Nokia, Product(RED), PwC, Swiss Re, and Visa. His work has earned numerous international awards in graphic and typeface design, including recognition for Carbon and IBM Plex — with IBM Plex Sans and Mono acquired in 2024 into the permanent collection of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. He holds a BFA in Graphic Design and Packaging from ArtCenter College of Design, has taught at the Academy of Art University and the University of the Arts Philadelphia, and has served as a guest critic at Yale’s graduate design program.

Contact

mike@mikeabbink.com
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Capabilities

Brand identity
Brand strategy
Design systems
Website design
Exhibition design
Guidelines
Packaging
Type design
Wayfinding

Awards

Client experience