Michael Riley

Michael Riley is the Creative Director at Shine. Riley was born in Palo Alto, California and studied design at the Rhode Island School of Design. He has been directing and designing film and television title sequences, theatrical trailers, television commercials and identity packages since 1991. His first experience experimenting with film title design was at an internship under Tibor Kalman at M and Co. in New York. When he saw Mr. Kalman use typography as a thoughtful, conceptual, and expressive element in a Talking Heads music video, he realized the possibilities of mixing design with film. In 1991, Riley began working at R/Greenberg Associates in New York. In 1996 Riley became creative director and partner at Imaginary Forces in Hollywood.

In 2005 he opened Shine, where he leads a team designing film and television main title sequences, commercials, content for film, and branding identity packages. Riley has received numerous design honors, including a Gold Medal from the D&AD, the British Design and Art Directors Association and five primetime Emmy nominations. Riley is a member of the Directors Guild of America in the Commercial Director category, and also a member of the executive committee under the title design peer group at the Television Academy.