Pete Friedrich began his graphic design career in mid-1980s after attending Parsons School of Design and School of Visual Arts. As a designer deeply involved in the publishing world, he cut his teeth for three years at Rolling Stone and for the short-lived but highly regarded Manhattan Inc. magazine. He then moved to Time, Inc., as a designer at Fortune magazine and then special issue designer for Sports Illustrated. At the same time he maintained a steady involvement in entertainment media, designing record albums and band identities, and creating several restaurant identity programs. His work has won many design awards.
Relocating to San Francisco, Pete created a small studio continuing magazine and book publishing work, while growing entertainment design work in the music field, eventually becoming art director at Alias Records. Pete’s publishing work with Wired magazine and books and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, during the early internet heydays, brought Jeff Yerkey and Pete’s paths to cross and together they created a multi-disciplinary studio: Charette Design.
For the next decade Pete expanded and deepened his identity and branding experience, working on countless Internet start-ups, law firms, and professional service firm identity programs. In 2001 Charette identified a growing need for their global clients with New York offices or headquarters to have a principal available locally. Pete opened the New York office in May 2002. The opening of Charette’s New York offices brings Pete back to his native grounds after 11 years working at the San Francisco office.
An engaging speaker, Pete has presented at many varied venues, such as the Seybold Convention, UCSF Graphic Design Courses, Graphic Artists Guild Seminars, the College for Digital Arts, and the San Francisco Book Fair.
He is a long-standing member of the Graphic Artists Guild, American Institute of Graphic Arts, and the Legal Marketing Association.
Charette has permanently aligned its services with Right Hat. The professionals from both companies began their collaboration more than five years ago when serendipity intervened, and the two groups found themselves independently assigned to the same large rebranding project. That partnership was so successful that the professionals have been collaborating on projects since that time and now work through an exclusive alliance arrangement.