About Us
Flyleaf Creative, Inc. provides graphic design services in partnership with visionaries in the fields of arts & culture, criminal justice reform, education, and freedom of expression. We use design to welcome audiences, expand knowledge, activate curiosity, and raise awareness to help amplify voices that bring communities together.
For 13 years, Flyleaf Creative has built brands, holistic print & digital campaigns, publications, digital strategy, and environmental signage for a variety of mission-driven organizations that are undergoing great transitions.
Over the years, Flyleaf Creative has garnered a reputation for our collaborative process, thoughtful strategy, and bold, memorable designs. Our team, led by founder Anita Merk, who brings 30 years of professional design experience, is committed to work that improves the lives of our fellow citizens, and we pride ourselves on establishing uniquely long-lasting relationships with our clients and creative partners. Those relationships are a Flyleaf cultural cornerstone, providing the connective thread to other innovative and like-minded individuals creating the meaningful work with which we align ourselves.
Flyleaf Creative is proud to be a certified women-owned business (WBE) in NYC. Our WBE# MWCERT2021-824
Services
Strategic Consultation
- Brand & Digital Ad Campaigns
- Membership Acquisitions
- Content Strategy
- Social Media Support & Consultation
- Copywriting
Branding
- Visual Identity
- Branding Guidelines & Templates
- Personas
- Brand Audit
Design
- Websites & Apps
- Digital Campaigns
- Fundraising & Event Collateral
- Print Collateral
- IA/UX/UI Design
- Season Brochure & Key Art
- Environmental Signage
Technology
- Front- & Back-End WordPress Development
- SEO, SEM, Google Analytics
- Facebook Ads Manager
- Accessibility
- Native App Design + Development
Project Management
- Strategic Timelines
- Staff Training
- Vendor Supervision / Printing & Mailing Service Coordination
- Information Organization
- Communications Tools Coordination & Training
- Web Maintenance & Support
Awards
2023: Awarded two “Gold Winner” by Indigo Design Awards in the category of Website Design for Social Change & Poster and Brochure Design for Social Change Negro Leagues Baseball Museum Barrier Breakers: From Jackie to Pumpsie and Béisbol and for Bard Prison Initiative Annual Report; additionally our work for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum was named a Final Winner for Design for Social Change of the Year
2023: Awarded two “Silver Winner” by Indigo Design Awards in the category of Website Design & Poster and Brochure Design forNegro Leagues Baseball Museum Barrier Breakers: From Jackie to Pumpsie and Béisbol and for Bard Prison Initiative Annual Report
2022: Awarded two “Gold Winner” by Indigo Design Awards in the category of Poster and Brochure Design for Bard Prison Initiative Annual Report and for St. Ann’s Warehouse 40th Anniversary Season Brochure
2022: Awarded “Gold Winner” by Indigo Design Awards in the category of Poster and Brochure Design for Social Change for Bard Prison Initiative Annual Report
2022: Awarded “Silver” by Indigo Design Awards in the category of Wayfinding for Theatre Row
2022: Awarded “Honorable Mention” by the Indigo Design Awards in the category of Website Design for Litmus Press
2019: Awarded two “Outstanding Achievement Awards” by the Interactive Media Awards in the category of Nonprofit for theracialimaginary.org and for archive.pen.org
2015: Awarded “Best in Class” by Interactive Media Awards in the category of Arts/Culture for pen-auction.org
2013: Awarded “Outstanding Achievement Award” by the Interactive Media Awards in the category of Advocacy for www.pen.org
2012: Awarded “Best in Class ” by the Interactive Media Awards in the category of Arts/Culture for www.artidea.org, a responsive mobile compatible Drupal website; also nominated for IMC’s “Top Ten Websites for 2012”
2009: www.towfoundation.org: Awarded the Wilmer Shield Rich Award in Excellence in Communications from the Council on Foundations
Anita Merk
President + Creative Director
Anita Merk (she/her) has 30 years experience providing project leadership and directing creative strategy. Her professional experience includes working directly with top-level executives across companies large and small from around the country to strategize and execute extensive creative campaigns.
She is a daughter of immigrant parents, a native New Yorker from Queens, and a first-generation college graduate. Anita is an adjunct assistant professor at Pratt Institute since 1999, and has served on Pratt’s Communication Design Curriculum Committee. Anita has a BFA with honors from FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology).
Together with her husband Danny Kahn, she is a founding member of Beam Camp, a summer camp in NH where children experience problem-solving through building large-scale projects together. She spends her free time frantically trying to finish reading for her book club, cooking savory meals, and attending live theater and music events as much as possible.
Tim Falotico
VP of Client Relations & Creative Strategy
Tim (he/him) is native New Yorker who brings a creative mentality and enthusiasm to all he does plus an unrelenting passion for culture and city life which has been pivotal to his work at Flyleaf. For 10 years prior to Flyleaf, he managed advertising campaigns for Broadway shows and other arts & culture clients in NYC at SpotCo, which included media planning for large annual budgets and working alongside other agencies (handling press, marketing, website) to execute comprehensive communications and marketing strategies.
Tim possesses a meticulous attention to detail and a knack for keeping everything that crosses his desk organized. In turn, he has applied his expertise to all of our accounts and projects, helping clients define strategies and organize complex information, and helping designers create successful pathways to carry out top-notch work.
Since joining Flyleaf in 2018, he has led and contributed to creative strategy for clients such as Longwood Gardens, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Bard Prison Initiative, and the Sarasota Performing Arts Foundation, and has been crucial in our relationship-building with long-standing and new clients alike.
Tim is a graduate of the University of New Haven, with degrees in Music Industry and Communications. He spends his free time seeing more theatre than anyone else you know, crushing trivia nights with friends, traveling, and making lists (playlists, among them).
Ojus Doshi
Senior Designer
Ojus (he/him) is a 2015 MFA graduate of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) who joined Flyleaf in 2017.
Ojus’s keen eye for design is matched with a methodical approach which has helped our clients realize their visions in ways beyond their imaginations. Throughout any design challenge, he aims to keep the client’s core mission at the heart of the work. He loves multi-layered visuals that can be viewed and read in a multitude of ways and has a knack for turning what might be complicated or mundane language and data into bold designs with easy-to-digest graphics and type layouts.
He has led creative strategy and design implementation for a number of multifaceted projects aimed at various audiences including annual reports, season brochures, websites, signage, and multi-channel advertising campaigns for clients including Bard Prison Initiative, St. Ann’s Warehouse, the Knight First Amendment Institute, and the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center.
Outside of work, you can find him taking hip-hop and South Asian folk dance classes, spending time at a park or a library, and constantly trying new food and coffee around the city.
Caroline Carew
Senior Designer & Design Strategist
Initially joining the Flyleaf Team in 2014, Caroline (she/her) has worked on projects for world renowned clients such as the Apollo Theater and PEN America. She brings thoughtful problem-solving and curiosity to a wide range of work including brand identity, digital, print, and signage.
A native of Tipperary in Ireland, she studied Fine Art printmaking at Dublin Institute of Technology, and draws upon this knowledge of artistic expression to bring balance to her design work, creating visually compelling and impactful experiences. Caroline’s creative approach is anchored in storytelling, weaving meaning and connection into all parts of a project through form, typography, and color.
In her free time she likes to make pizza, play guitar and help design the next big block party.
Katie Story
Visual Designer
Katie (she/her) is a designer, illustrator, and writer originally from Salem, MA. She has a degree in graphic design and creative writing from Pratt Institute, and has worked as a designer in NYC since 2017.
Since joining Flyleaf in 2021 she has had the opportunity to work with St. Ann’s Warehouse, the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center, Bard Prison Initiative, and Theatre Row.
In her free time, Katie fosters cats through the Brooklyn Cat Cafe, with a special focus on thawing the hearts of cranky senior cats. She enjoys reading and writing science fiction and fantasy, and is a member of Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers.
Sebastien Pierre
Graphic & Visual Designer
Since graduating from the Pratt Institute’s Communications Design program in 2018, Sebastien (he/him) has worked closely with a number of leading arts and culture institutions across in New York City, centering his practice at the intersection of art, communications, and design. His design philosophy is guided by his passion for supporting and enacting social change, seeing design as a means of creating a more accessible and equitable community.
In between design projects he’s most likely wandering around Brooklyn collecting magazines, newspapers, and other forms printed matter for his collage practice. Most of the time these journeys unintentionally reveal new sources of inspiration, feeding the creative processes through physical exploration.
In his free time Sebastien also enjoys going down Soundcloud rabbit holes searching for new experimental rap and electronic music, or couch critiquing whatever the current must-see HBO streaming series is.
Amanda Woloshyn
Senior Digital Project Manager
With almost 20 years of experience providing project management, creative direction, brand management, and strategic marketing in both agency and corporate environments. Amanda spent a decade leading Marketing and Communications for Glen Ivy Hot Springs, Inc in southern California, award winning and internationally recognized 22 acre hot springs spa and botanical garden destination that celebrated their sesquicentennial in 2010.
She manages team and client communications for digital projects, plays a key role with overall project and creative direction, and guides project requirements while keeping schedules and budgets on track.
Neil Scudder
Senior Developer
Neil is a veteran programmer with over 20 years experience working with web technology. His background reads like a Merle Haggard song, with early work in online casinos in the late 90s, online music management in the 2000s and most recently helping to build custom WordPress hosting infrastructure and API integrations between CMSes and third party services.
