Creativity inspired by insight
Experience and expertise
Collaboration and commitment
Grillo Group is a communications design collaborative based in Chicago serving business, education, healthcare, not for profit, and cultural institutions. We bring to our clients proven expertise in all aspects of brand building—research, positioning, naming, tagline, messaging, communications planning, and design—print, digital, online, and environmental. We develop integrated marketing solutions to address every need. Brand identity, guidelines, launch, and awareness building programs. Fundraising campaign communications planning and case development, Advertising and sales support. Corporate and product communications. Collateral and packaging. Signage, sales environment, installations, interiors, murals. Fine art selection, curation, creation. Books and publications.
We enjoy what we do, and we enjoy doing it together with our clients. We’re hard workers, straight shooters, reliable, flexible, and practical. We’re a tight-knit group and pride ourselves on developing strong and lasting relationships. The fact that so many of our clients have been with us for so long attests to the value they place on productive and exciting collaborations based on honesty and trust.
Maria Grillo
Maria can see the forest and the trees at the same time. With logical precision and remarkable intuition, she clears the path directly to the solution. She would have been a great lumberjack. Lucky for her clients, Maria puts her big-picture perspective and problem-solving skills to work for them. She’s focused, but realistic and flexible. “That makes sense. Let’s try it.”
A Fellow of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Maria’s talent and achievements as a designer over the last 25 years have been recognized by some of the profession’s most notable organizations and publications: Communication Arts, Graphis Poster, Print, and ID magazines, the New York Type Directors Club, and British Design and Art Direction. Maria has taught aspiring designers and peers how to plan and implement branding and design programs at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Syracuse University’s Independent Study Master of Arts Program. She has served on the AIGA/Chicago Executive Board and as juror for numerous professional and educational design competitions. She is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
See details of Maria’s teaching experience and examples of her student’s work.
Max Russell
Max makes words work harder because he does the work before he writes the words. A quick study and a congenital collaborator, Max has a knack for putting clients at ease and for putting up with designers’ exacting demands. “How many words do you need? Zero problem. I’ve got a million of ‘em.”
As a marketing consultant, planner, and manager, Max has helped scores of organizations in both the private and nonprofit sectors develop branding and marketing programs and investigate new approaches for greater impact. As a creative team member, he has helped plan, develop content, and manage highly effective and award-winning marketing communications and public relations programs in the fields of healthcare, manufacturing, finance, banking, insurance, digital marketing, high technology, engineering, education, publishing, and architecture.
He is a successful business writer and has collaborated with subject matter experts and academicians on six published books on risk management, corporate reporting, governance, new product development, and strategic sourcing. He holds an MBA in marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.