● About

Benjamin Caruba

I make things. Good things. Creative things. The kind of things that make you stop scrolling for a second, which, if you think about it, is basically a miracle at this point.

I work at the intersection of art, design, concepts, and language — which sounds like something you'd read on a gallery wall, but I mean it. I've been doing this long enough to know what good looks like, and stubborn enough to not settle for anything less.

I lead teams, shape campaigns, and have strong opinions.

I'm fluent in French and English, which means twice the vocabulary to describe why something isn't working yet.

If you want a list of my awards, call my mother, she's been waiting by the phone. My personal favorite — and I'm not saying this to brag, I'm saying this because it's objectively correct — is my James Beard award, for best Magazine Feature "How Men Eat." in 2010.

Lastly, the website reads like mini stories instead of thumbnails. This was a choice. A deliberate choice. So you can get to know me a bit. Because at the end of the day, the best work out there tells a story worth listening to.

*Photo is not me but it is from a project I worked on. Some say I’m equally as cute. (talking about the dog)

ESQUIRE

The first time I looked through an Esquire Magazine I was a sophomore in high school. A girl I thought was cute was selling magazine subscriptions for a cheerleading trip. I bought one. I thought it would impress her. It did not impress her. Not even a little.

But something happened. I started reading the magazine. Really reading it. Looking at it. The design, the layouts, the photography. I became obsessed. So in a way, she did change my life — just not in the way I was hoping.

By senior year of college I had landed an internship at Esquire. The actual Esquire. The one I bought a subscription to for a girl who did not care. I decided this was going to be my first real job. I made it my mission.

The day before graduation, the Design Director called me into his office. I thought I was in trouble. I am always convinced I'm in trouble. He looked at me and asked what I was doing tomorrow. I said graduation. He said no you're not, you're coming back here to start your first day.

So I skipped graduation. I went to work.

That job was hard. Really hard. The kind of hard that makes you question every decision you've ever made. But it also gave me more than I ever expected — incredible experiences, access to people I had no business being around, and somehow, eventually, my wife.

Not bad for a magazine subscription that got me absolutely nowhere with that girl.

RUSSEL ATHLETIC

Russell Athletic has been making athletic gear for over 115 years. One hundred and fifteen years. That's not a heritage, that's a geological era. We felt like people should probably know about that.

The problem was nobody was talking about it. Everybody's out here launching new brands like authenticity is something you can just decide to have one day. You can't. Russell had it. They'd had it for over a century. We just needed to point at it and say — look. Look at this. This has been here the whole time.

So that's what we did. We stopped trying to make Russell into something it wasn't and started making a very strong case for what it already was. An American athletic brand with a track record that most companies would kill for, built on real heritage, real athletes, real product. Not vibes. Actual history.

We went back into the archives, dug up what made the brand matter in the first place, and used it to figure out where it was going next. Turns out when you've been doing something right for 115 years, the past is actually a pretty good creative director.

The goal was to make Russell the most respected and trusted athletic lifestyle brand in the world. Which is a big goal. But honestly, with 115 years of material to work with, we felt pretty good about our chances.

Creat a Buzz

We took over Complex Con. Had a booth that told the whole story — vault pieces on one side, new line on the other. Past and future, right there, let the customer connect the dots. And what met in the middle? RHUDE. Rhuigi's personal reinterpretation of the Russell Athletic sweatshirt. 40 pieces. That's it. Forty.

And I was there. Working the booth. On my feet. All day. At a sneaker convention, which is ironic, if you think about it — everyone's there celebrating shoes and my feet have never been worse. It's a lot. It's really a lot.

What did success Look like?

We created brand awareness and street cred — which, by the way, you can't just buy.
Believe me, a lot of people try. They try very hard. It's embarrassing —
and that led to actual sales. Real ones. And then Kith called. Kith. And we did a collaboration, and it sold out. Not in a day. Not in an hour. Minutes.

DAIRY QUEEN

It was 2020. The world had stopped. Nobody was going anywhere. Nobody was doing anything. Live production?
Gone. Film crews? Not happening. Everyone was sitting at home in sweatpants wondering what was next.

Dairy Queen still needed to sell Blizzards.

So we did what any reasonable person does when the entire world shuts down and you can't film anything — we drew it. Animation. Bright, fun, completely unaffected by global pandemics. No crew, no location, no craft services table that nobody was allowed to touch anyway. Just illustration, motion, and the kind of whimsy that felt like a genuine relief at a time when relief was hard to come by.

Turns out people liked it. A lot. Fans young and old lost their minds over it in the best possible way — sharing, commenting, expressing genuine excitement about new menu items like they hadn't felt joy in months. Which, to be fair, many of them hadn't.

And here's the thing — when the world eventually opened back up and production became possible again, DQ kept the animation. Not because they had to. Because it worked. Because it was fun and timeless and felt like the brand in a way that was hard to explain but impossible to ignore.

COVID took a lot of things. It did not take the Blizzard. And it accidentally gave DQ one of its best creative tools in years.

You're Welcome, Jimmy.

Look, we just needed to promote the Fall Blizzard menu. That was the whole brief. Promote the menu. Simple. Straightforward. We could have made an ad. We made candles instead.

Six candles. Each one inspired by a Fall Blizzard flavor. Pumpkin pie scented. Apple crisp scented. The kind of thing where you light it and suddenly your entire apartment smells like a Blizzard, which honestly is not the worst problem to have.

They sold out in under three minutes. Three minutes. We didn't even have time to feel good about it before they were gone. All proceeds went to Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, which meant the whole thing was delicious, charitable, and completely sold out before most people even knew it existed.

And then Jimmy Fallon talked about it on national television. On The Tonight Show. Jimmy Fallon. We did not call Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy Fallon called us. Well — he didn't call us directly. But he talked about it on TV which is basically the same thing and we're choosing to take full credit.

So yes. You're welcome, Jimmy. Glad we could give you the material.

Kansas City Stars

The idea for this campaign was to celebrate Community America Credit Union members as the true stars of Kansas City. And we had Mahomes and Bobby Witt Jr. involved, which — great, fine, they're stars too, nobody's disputing that. But here's the thing nobody wants to say out loud: you put a regular person next to Mahomes, they don't feel like a star. They feel like a rock. A decorative rock. Just standing there.

So I'm thinking about this — when do I actually feel like a star? When do I feel genuinely, truly pampered? And it hit me. The hair cut. That's it. That's the whole thing. You're in the chair, someone's got their hands on your head, they're asking about your life — they have to listen — there's a cape involved. A cape. You're not a rock in that chair. You're somebody.

And that's what Community America does. They're not Mahomes. You're not Mahomes. Nobody in this ad is Mahomes. But for a few minutes, you feel like someone actually gives a damn about you specifically. Which, if you think about it, is better than being famous. Famous people can't enjoy anything. I read that somewhere

You Didn't Make This Mess.

You're Cleaning It Anyway.

The Paperbird "Clean in Peace" campaign came to me under duress. It was late. It was stressful. I needed a break from whatever we were doing — I genuinely don't remember what it was, only that I couldn't look at it anymore. So I went to the bathroom.

And here's the thing — someone had just cleaned it. Really cleaned it. And I took a breath, and for a moment, I felt... calm. At peace. It's the only word for it. A clean bathroom is a sanctuary. And standing in that sanctuary, the idea just came to me. Which I thought was appropriate, honestly. Good ideas belong in clean places.

The campaign is built around one undeniable truth that nobody wants to say out loud: most of the messes you clean up are not your mess. They are not yours. You didn't make them. Your kids made them. Your guests made them. Your relatives who "just popped by" and somehow destroyed the kitchen made them. You are cleaning up after people who feel no guilt whatsoever — who have never once looked at a mess and thought, I should deal with that. They're fine. They're watching TV. And you're on your hands and knees.

That's what Paperbird is for. Not for your mess. For their mess. Which you are cleaning. Again.

Clean in Peace. You've earned it.

Big Ideas, Real Impact.

Kids are sitting in classrooms right now, as you read this and waiting. Waiting for someone to show up. Not a task force. Not a committee. A person. And here's what kills me: there are people out there with exactly what these kids need — the smarts, the drive, the ability to actually make a difference — and they're just… not going. They've got a hundred reasons, and I understand that, I do. But the kids don't have a hundred reasons. They just have one classroom, and right now it needs you. Teach For America exists because some people decided to stop waiting for someone else to handle it. Be one of those people.

CALL IT A COME BACK

So Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy. And suddenly everyone's acting like their grandmother died. People are rallying. In the streets. For a chain restaurant. Where they give you a pager that vibrates.

And who do they get to lead this movement? Flavor Flav. Of course. Because nothing says "please take our seafood crisis seriously" like a man who wears a clock around his neck. A clock. That he chose. To wear. Around his neck.

But here's the thing — and I'll admit this, because I'm a fair person — if you need someone to get the word out, Flavor Flav is actually your guy. The man is a hypeman. Professionally. That's the job. He stood next to Chuck D for decades and his entire contribution was to be extremely loud and enthusiastic. That's it. And it worked!

The Drip Bib

Look, here's the thing about young people, they don't think about Red Lobster. Not because the food isn't good, but because nobody's making it interesting for them.

So we had to do something. Something that said: Red Lobster is fun, Red Lobster is an event. Red Lobster is where you go when you want to feel a little fancy without being pretentious about it.

Now. I get stains on my clothes. Constantly. Every good meal I've ever had, I have a little... souvenir. On my shirt. I call them mini stories of good meals. Is that a problem? Sure. But is it also kind of beautiful?

And that's where the Prom Drip Bib came from.

A bib. For prom. I know how that sounds. But hear me out — you're seventeen, you're in a tuxedo that cost four hundred dollars, and you're about to eat a shrimp drenched in sauuuucceee. Something is going to happen. It's not a question of if, it's a question of where.

We put it on social. We built a whole website. 250 bibs, gone in under two minutes. Then we did it again — another 250. Gone.

Red Lobster became the pre-prom spot. For teenagers. Which, honestly, I'm still a little amazed by. But the bib worked. Of course it worked. Nobody wants a stain on prom night.

And look — they always say practice safe sex on prom night. Keep it protected. Well, we took that very seriously. We just applied it to the outfit. Same principle, really. You've got something special, something you've invested in, something you don't want ruined by one careless moment. You protect it. That's just common sense.

Best. Vacation. Ever.

Every travel card out there wants to show you someone clinking champagne on a yacht. Nobody's doing that. You know who's doing that? Nobody. I've never met anyone on a yacht. Have you?

The insight? Vacations are a disaster, and everyone knows it. So instead of pretending otherwise, we leaned into the chaos — and made the 4x points feel like the one thing that actually went right. Across TV, digital, and social, we built a campaign funnier than your last trip and easier to remember than reapplying sunscreen.

Fieldhouse, The multiverse of sport

Sports is fun to do, not just fun to watch. And yet most places make you sit there. Just sit there. Fieldhouse is not that. It's a sports entertainment complex — think Top Golf but for the entire multiverse of sports — launching across multiple locations in 2026, built around the idea that you should actually be in it. Playing it. Living it. With a drink in your hand and your competitive instincts fully activated.

I lead the creative team at Fieldhouse and my job is making sure that energy isn't just a concept — it's in every single touchpoint. The architecture, the interiors, the way the space pulls you from one experience to the next without you even noticing. I work across design teams to build something that's cohesive and immersive, where the vibe doesn't drop the second you walk past the good part. Because when the whole place knows what it is, that's when people stop leaving.

And what does the multiverse of sport become if it's only golf? Welcome to Clubhouse.

I am, for lack of a better term,
a lot.

I can art direct. I can design. I can lead a cross-functional team through a full campaign without losing the thread or my mind. I operate at every level of the creative process, which some people find unusual and others find extremely convenient.

These are examples of work when I lead design teams.