PRINCIPALS

Michael K. Wollner

Founder/Creative Director

Michael is the founder and creative director of WollnerStudios, Inc. He has over 30 years of experience from such high-profile agencies like DDB Needham Worldwide, Ogilvy, Benton & Bowles and DMB&B. He brings a combination of excellent creative and marketing ideas across a broad spectrum of consumer and b2b categories with his international experience. He is a passionate exponent of ideas based design, advocating the delivery of creatively executed, single-minded solutions working across all communication levels.

An award-winning designer, Michael has also served on several judging panels for design including the prestigious Clio Awards in New York. He received a Bronze Lion from the Cannes International Commercial Film Festival for his work on a special project for Guinness Book of Records. He is also the recipients of several awards from the International Advertising Festival (IAF) for outstanding achievement in print and interactive design.

WollnerStudios, Inc. was founded in 1997 and quickly achieved success with high-end corporate clients such as the Southern California Special Olympics, TRW, McDonnell Douglas, Epson, Castle Rock Entertainment, American Express, Guinness Book of Records, Yamaha and Pepsi.

Teaming up with Ray Wyman Jr (Heavypen Publishing) in 2004, Michael added publishing to his agency’s portfolio of services. New projects included “Hands and Dove: The art of Alexandra Nechita” and a new regional wine and food magazine entitled “Color and Aroma.”

Around that time, Michael also began focusing on the unique communication design needs of the hospitality and lodging industry. He drew up concepts for the Marriott Los Angeles Downtown and was awarded a contract to redesign their website (www.thelatouch.com) and launch a local advertising program. Since then, Michael has guided the agency toward specializing in this sector and has successfully added several local restaurants and boutique hotel projects to the agency’s client line up.

Michael was recently invited to participate as a panelist during the 2008 Lodging Conference*. The panel topic, “Maximizing the Performance and ROI of your hotel,” follows explores best practices and lessons learned in advertising and promotional solutions that can help increase hotel occupancy, enhance guest experience while reducing operating costs and improve overall margins.

Michael has received other honorary assignments and panel invitations including teaching design and illustration at the AFI (American Film Institute), panelist at the Hollywood Film Festival, presenter at MacWorld and teacher at the Strata International User Conference in Utah.

Michael currently serves on several boards and committees for charity organizations and corporations.

* The Lodging Conference is the premier event for hotel owners and developers in North America.

Ray Wyman Jr.

Partner/Editorial Director

Ray Wyman, Jr. is a career writer and has been heavily involved in the publishing field for more than 30 years. He began his career in publishing as an assistant pressman for a regional newspaper in 1976. He has spent the rest of his life amassing experience in all aspects of publishing: from concept to production and from prepress to distribution.

After completing a degree in journalism in 1982 at California State University of Long Beach, he worked as a freelance writer for several local entertainment publications and local agencies. In 1984, he opened Ray Wyman & Associates, Inc., a firm that specialized in publishing periodical marketing materials and newsletters. He changed the name of his business to Blue Rose Press, Inc. in 1988 and continued publishing monthly and semi-monthly newsletters, seasonal sales catalogs, and other ‘book form’ marketing materials.

It was during this time that he wrote his first books. The first was entitled “Companion to Rare Coin Collecting” of which 10,000 copies were published and distributed by IRC&B, Inc. in late 1989. He also wrote and self-published and self-promoted “The Art of Jack Kirby.” The coffee-table sized book was well received by Kirby fans and received good reviews from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Entertainment Magazine, and other publications. He also wrote two stories for the Star Trek franchise that were produced in episodes of Voyager and Deep Space Nine.



In 1996, Wyman renamed his company to Heavypen Productions and continued building his professional expertise in corporate communications. He was also an editor for several websites including Magellan until it was bought out by Excite.com in 1997. He also had various corporate communications clients including Sun Microsystems and Texas Instruments. In 1998, he was recruited by the World Trade Centers Association to help promote business tourism and was credited with increasing global awareness for their mission of “peace through commerce.”

Wyman’s byline has appearned in numerous professional and special-interest magazines. He has also served in various editorial capacities for regional lifestyle publications such as Brentwood Magazine, OC Metro, Laguna Life and People, and Color and Aroma.

He joined WollnerStudios, Inc. in 2004 as Partner and Editorial Director. One of his first projects with the agency was an artbook for the well-known artist Alexandra Nechita entitled “Hands and Dove: The Art of Alexandra Nechita.”

Wyman is an active advocate for education, serving the national NetDay96 movement, Orange County-based Project Tomorrow, and Homework House, a free after school tutoring program for ‘at-risk’ children. Wyman was honored by the Orange County Board of Supervisors with a proclamation for his “Leadership in Education.”

He is a native of Southern California and lives in Orange County with his wife and two children.