Photo by Christopher Campbell on Unsplash
Maya Chen
Co-founder & Creative Director
Maya Chen co-founded Fireflies Collective after a decade of shaping brand identities for cultural institutions and independent studios across New York. She believes that great design begins with listening, and that the most resonant visual work emerges from genuine collaboration. When she's not leading creative strategy, you'll find her sketching in Prospect Park or hunting for rare vinyl in Bushwick.
About Maya
Maya Chen grew up in San Francisco surrounded by her grandmother's ink-wash paintings and her father's architecture blueprints. That collision of traditional artistry and structural thinking shaped everything about the way she approaches design today. After earning her BFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design, she spent five years at a Manhattan branding agency working with museums, galleries, and nonprofit arts organizations before realizing she wanted to build something of her own.
In 2019, she and Eliot Frost founded Fireflies Collective in a converted warehouse studio in Williamsburg. Maya's vision was clear from the start: create a studio where strategy and aesthetics carry equal weight. She leads every project by first understanding the story a client wants to tell, mapping out the emotional territory before a single pixel is placed or a color palette is chosen.
Her approach to art direction is rooted in research and cultural context. She draws from typography history, contemporary art movements, and the textures of Brooklyn's streetscape to inform visual systems that feel both timeless and grounded in the present moment. Clients describe her process as rigorous but deeply intuitive.
Maya has led brand identity projects for the Brooklyn Museum's emerging artist series, several independent publishing houses, and a range of boutique hospitality brands. She has spoken at AIGA NY and Type Directors Club events about the intersection of cultural identity and visual branding. Above all, she is driven by the belief that design should amplify voices that deserve to be heard.
