Mihai Badic

2003-2008 Start in film, theatre & photography

I started my career at age 16, working on dozens of Romanian releases of cult films (including In The Mood for Love by Wong Kar-wai, Spider by David Cronenberg and Mulholland Drive by David Lynch) at Independenta Music & Film, a Bucharest-based film and music distribution and production company, between 2003 and 2006. During my time there I also worked directly with Romanian directors such as Florin Piersic Jr. and Corneliu Porumboiu.

I was also involved in theatre, and was a founding member of an English youth theatre groupe called Brainstorming, associated with the George Cosbuc Bilingual High School in Bucharest, that exists to this day. Our original productions in English travelled to local festivals and through my multimedia work for our plays I also got other commercial motion graphics and video work, such as working with theatre director Radu Nica on his adaptation of Rodrigo Garcia’s play Agammemnon, staged at the Metropolis Theatre in Bucharest in 2007.

I left Romania for Belgium after high school and in 2007 I had a solo photography exhibition at a central Brussels gallery called “Art en Vue” (now closed), which received positive press reviews, including the daily newspaper “L’Echo”. That summer I was the official photographer and video assist for the winner of the 2008 Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the Berlin Film Festival, a film called O zi buna de plaja / A good day for a swim.

2008-2012 The UK, advertising & ILLUSTRATION DEGREE

In 2008 I moved to the UK and worked as a Junior Art Director at Langland, a top 50 UK ad agency specialising in healthcare. My clients included the NHS and Pfizer (for which I co-wrote the winning pitch for a hard-hitting national campaign aiming to curb the sale of illegal drugs online, called Get Real, Get a Prescription).

I relocated to Brighton in 2009 to finish my studies and got a BA in Illustration from the University of Brighton in 2012. My final major projects were 2 live action short films which I wrote, produced, shot, directed and post-produced (“I was there, you know” and “One Bite”, which is currently being re-edited for release).

During my studies I kept working commercially, as an animator and illustrator for Brighton & Hove City Council projects on youth advocacy, creating album artwork and photography for local bands and designing merchandise for the likes of legendary music label Tru Thoughts. I was also a finalist in a London Transport Museum illustration competition in 2010 aimed at promoting cycling.

2012-2014 Running a creative studio

After finishing university I co-founded a multidisciplinary design studio called Sensery, which operated out of Brighton between 2012 and 2013. It moved from a living room to an office in months and over just a short year of operations we were producing mixed media work for Pepsi, DHL, TEDx, and the National Autistic Society, and we were featured in BuzzFeed for our self initiated campaign to give pubs custom designed coasters that helped promote the work of local illustrators.

As a side project while running Sensery, I was the lead animator of a popular mini documentary called PostHuman: An Introduction to Transhumanism, which went viral on Reddit and garnered over 350k views.

My work on the documentary took me to California in 2014, where I worked on branding the first ever Effective Altruism Summit, an event which still happens and is now called Effective Altruism Global.

2014-2023 tech, mental health & philanthropy

Returning to London, I got a full time job as a UX designer for food delivery tech behemoth Just Eat, after initially being contracted to work on a corporate innovation video. I was a crucial part of the transformation of it’s growing international team to be organised in self contained “pod teams” rather than keep antequated departmental structures.

I left Just Eat to work on launching the first version of nootropics.com, which at the time was a major nootropic supplement store. I created the brand, designed all of the packaging and the e-commerce website (note the domain has since been sold to a separate entity and the supplement platform was taken down).

Between 2015 and 2016 I was the Creative & UX Lead of the Effective Altruism Foundation, where I designed, prototyped and coded improvements to their various websites and brand touch points as well as refreshing their core branding and producing a brand manual for online and print.

I later joined the charitable sports startup Funder Inc, setting up a US-inspired 50/50 raffle system at sports games in the UK, and was a key part in winning major contracts with the likes of football clubs Chelsea FC (for which I also produced this short advert) and Brentford. During my time as Head of Creative and UX there, I managed a team of designers, created the online platform and physical media branding in-stadium, and produced videos showing the impact of the sports clubs’ charity arms as well as animating content for social media.

In 2018, I worked as a motion graphics contractor on the initial branding of the large cryptocurrency project Reserve stablecoin.

Later that year, I took a full time role, creatively heading mental health tech startup Mind Ease for 5 years, pushing through Covid to win a 1 million pound investment round, managing and mentoring a team of designers. The app we developed has since been acquired by the CALM – The Campaign Against Living Miserably and is still operational under the name CALMzone.

Musical side quests

Pre-Covid lockdown, I ran a London-based listening party events series called 7-11 musical discoveries, and DJ-ed at various London venues and small festivals. I also hosted a monthly radio show on London’s Netil Radio for 5 years, between 2020 and summer 2025, most of which is documented on my Soundcloud. I released music under my name and still guest DJ here and there.

2024-2026 CREATIVE CONSULTANCY

Between 2024 and 2026 I worked primarily with funded but not-for-profit entities, supporting them with hands-on multidisciplinary creative consultancy. Standout clients include:

Bloom Wellbeing Fund – Branding, creative consultancy and online platform design & code.
Thought Saver – Product design consultancy, illustration, prototyping.
Alpha Epsilon – Branding, creative consultancy and online platform design & code.

2026 COMMITMENT TO TIME BASED MEDIA

I wrote, produced, directed and edited “The park with the stones“, taking a personal experience and turning it into a fully fledged, professionally produced project with a world class crew and cast. Along with completing the film, I set up a boutique production company called Studio Areal to own the IP for the film and to support coming narrative and occasional commercial projects.

I also freelance as a creative producer, director, editor, designer and analog photographer.