Michelle D. Novak, MI, is a professional brand designer and strategist, archivist, writer and editor, and instructor.

Novak received her Masters of Information degree (MI, formerly MLIS) in Archives and Preservation from Rutgers University (summa cum laude) and holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She also holds professional certificates from Boston University School for Continuing Education, Gen-Fed Institute for Federal Records at the U.S. National Archives, the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP), and the ZAG Branding Master Class, among others.

She has developed brands and projects for a wide range of clients—from a NASA-founded commercial technology start-up, to the Clinton Global Initiative and other national and international nonprofits, to higher education, to B2B and B2C financial service providers. Her communications strategy experience affects all aspects of her work.

A lifelong history nerd, Novak also brings her extensive experience organizing, preserving, and interpreting materials to the history space—where she has been providing services to libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies for more than a decade. She is active in many facets of cultural history, including branding and logos, website design and programming, social media outreach, conference materials, publications, collection digitization, and public history outreach, among others.

Representative Clients + Projects

Representative Clients + Projects

History, Archives, and Education

Providing a wide variety of services for clients in the history space, MND’s experience includes promotion, publications, conferences, and archival work. Recent projects include:

Rebellion in New England—1774, The Pursuit of History Press

Co-author, designer, and exhibits researcher for a publication on the seminal events across New England leading up to the Revolutionary War. thepursuitofhistory.org/publications

Bergen County Historical Society

Procurement (from auction), processing, and digitization of the Zabriskie Family Collection of more than 500 items including 18c–20c manuscripts and maps, publications, and photo archive.

History Camp

Brand designer, conference materials designer, website designer and co-programmer, and copyeditor for this series of educational conferences, author discussions, and webinars spanning more than 10 years, a half-dozen host cities, and more than 10,000 attendees. historycamp.org

The Pursuit of History

Brand designer, conference materials designer, website designer and co-programmer, and copyeditor for this history-focused educational nonprofit that hosts The Pursuit of History Weekends—a series of small-scale seminars providing educational experiences about history where it happened. thepursuitofhistory.org

The History List and Rare Finds

Design of original, made in USA history-themed products for The History List and other partners. Projects include:

Knox Moving Company (thehistorylist.com)—Original design celebrating General Knox’s and his troops epic 1775 trek sledging cannon more than 300 miles from Fort Ticonderoga, New York, to Dorchester Heights, Massachusetts, to break the Siege of Boston.

Pilgrim Hall Museum / “The Mayflower Passengers” (thehistorylist.com) Design and production reviving “The Mayflower Passengers” exhibit graphic into a portable poster format and which includes new content about the Mayflower Compact. Sales benefit the museum foundation and has proved a wildly successful fundraiser.

The History List Rare Finds (thehistorylist.com/collections/rare-finds)—Assistance with procurement, research, conservation, and framing for one-of-a-kind original manuscripts, photographs, prints, textiles, and books.

America’s Summer Road Trip

Brand, website design and programming, and publicity for this lockdown-project which featured presentations and Q&As from historic sites across the country. The live event was simulcast on the website and Facebook and drew more than 13,000 unique viewers from across the world. americassummerroadtrip.org

New York Genealogical and Biographical Society (NYG&B)

Brand designer, website, event, and publications designer, including the Society’s recently published 580+ page, New York State Archives Guide: For Family Historians, Biographers, and Historical Researchers (NYG&B, 2024, newyorkfamilyhistory.org) as well as dozens of other publications and event materials.

The New–York Historical

Processing archivist for the Victorian Society in America, Metropolitan Chapter Records (MS3205) and the Ketterer-Crown Family Papers (MS3213). The latter included family manuscripts and photos as well as the extant corporate archives for the C. P. Ketterer Co., a family-owned NYC carriage maker which later was one of the earliest companies producing bodies for automobiles (including Henry Ford’s personal touring car) and for which about very little was previously known.

National Genealogical Society (NGS)

Brand, publications, website, and conference designer for NGS materials, presentations, and various years of the annual NGS Family History Conference branding. ngsgenealogy.org

The Genealogical Society of New Jersey (GSNJ)

Former Trustee, webmaster, and newsletter designer.

Publication designer and contributing author for ‘In 1775 this happened…’ the Diary of Marten Roelofsen, a previously unpublished manuscript containing a first-hand account of the 18c. schism between the Congregation of the Hackensack Dutch Church.

Grant Project Administrator for the NHPRC-funded project, New Jersey Early Land Records, which processed and abstracted and brought into one database more then 80,000 early land records from across more than 60 collections at the New Jersey State Archives. The project also included the ingest of more than 16,000 original 17c. and 18c. manuscripts, deeds, and maps acquired in 2016 from the West Jersey Proprietors. njlandrecords.org

The Genealogical Society of Bergen County, New Jersey (GSBC)

Trustee, webmaster, Editor of the Society’s newsletter, The Archivist. Author or more than three dozen articles on New Jersey history and technical research and technology “how-to” articles.

Project organizer, researcher, writer, and grant administrator for “Bergen County in Six Objects,” a Bergen County grant-funded project which discovered, digitized, transcribed, and celebrated six previously unpublished objects. njgsbc.org/bergen-county-six-objects

Corporate and Nonprofit

Projects include:

Client

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