No. 473 · March 1, 2025

Michael Kern

Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Playfight

Michael Kern’s workspace

Michael Kern is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Playfight, a brand transformation studio that helps businesses design a new future with strategy, creative, story, technology, art and culture.

He has worked with countless brands including Nike, Adobe, American Express, Starbucks, Google, Pinterest and more.

Prior to founding Playfight, he founded Welikesmall, a digital agency that was acquired in 2019 by Thinkingbox.

He works alongside Co-Owner Ryan Gass (also pictured) in this creative workspace.

Follow Michael on LinkedIn.

Do you feel it is important to have your workspace physically separated from the home?

Having my workspace physically separated from home is super important for me. Work tends to bleed into family time, so that physical separation is key for us.

My calendar is always packed, and I've learned that having dedicated work focus blocks without interruption is absolutely essential to getting anything meaningful done. I'm always trying to get some solid focus time, you know?

Our space does double duty as a music studio and library too, which is pretty cool.

Plus, Ryan (my business partner) uses it as well, which honestly saves us from the awkwardness of him always being in our house. Makes it way easier to switch off when I'm done, I can just walk away and actually be present with my family instead of still being in work mode.

Michael’s gear

29 items.

On the desk29

From the census

Checked against every interview we’ve published. The Top 50 ›

20

A Mac Studio is in 20 of the 527 gear lists we’ve published, this one included.

No. 1

The Apple Studio Display is the most-listed monitor in the archive.

The last four Saturdays

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