John has worked in Dallas, Portland, Amsterdam, Italy, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Richmond, Chicago and New York. His installations, films and graphics have appeared from Red Square to Tokyo to Paris to Times Square, and in every country that sells Nike or Coca Cola or Adidas.

John is currently the Founder of JNO Creative LLC, operating as a freelance creative consultant specializing in brand image, design, advertising and marketing for creative companies and clients.

John was Chief Creative Officer at Havas Chicago from 2019 to 2021.

Since 2014, John has been the Chief Creative Officer and Partner of Translation LLC, a multi-focal agency that combines pop-culture relevancy with insightful brand messaging. During John’s tenure, the agency has won the NBA, the NFL, Weight Watchers, A&E and HBO, while leading work for State Farm, Kaiser Permanente, and the Susan G. Komen Foundation. During John’s tenure, Translation won its first Cannes Lions as well as many other awards for Value City Furniture, the NBA, State Farm, Kaiser Permanente, and the NFL. John has been instrumental in building and introducing a multidisciplinary model across Translation to accommodate a changing, fast-moving market.

From 2012 to 2014, John was the Chief Creative Officer for TBWA/Chiat/Day in Los Angeles where he worked for clients including Adidas, Gatorade, Nissan, and Pepsi. Under John’s leadership, the agency won the Southwest Airlines account. Also during this time, the Jeff Gordon "Test Drive" video for Pepsi MAX garnered over 43 million views on YouTube, one of the most shared ads that year. Under John’s leadership, the Adidas World Cup global campaign “All In or Nothing” was launched, beating the far more heavily-financed Nike campaign in its goal of signing up more young soccer fans than Nike.

From 2010 to 2012, John was the Chief Creative Officer of The Martin Agency, where he was instrumental in winning nine of eleven pitches including major clients such as ExxonMobil, Comcast, Kraft, Mentos, Norwegian Cruise Lines, LivingSocial, TracFone and Nespresso. He also led the agency in winning the interactive/digital work for existing client Walmart, and led the creative effort that saw Walmart win its first-ever major advertising award at the 2012 One Show. Also, under John’s leadership Martin won eleven Cannes Lions and an Emmy for existing client, the JFK Presidential Library.

John was the Executive Creative Director of the Amsterdam office of Wieden+Kennedy from 2005 to 2010. During his tenure there, he and his teams won six out of seven pitches including BASF, Honda, Pirelli tires, Tanqueray gin, and Heineken. The Amsterdam office also won Coca Cola’s global business and created the multi-award winning “Coke Side of Life” campaign and the “Open Happiness” campaign, one of the most heavily-awarded ad campaigns in coke-cola history. While in Amsterdam, he also led the creative effort for Nike Running, Nike Women and two World Cup initiatives: “Joga Bonito” and the highly acclaimed “Write the Future” campaign, which won an Emmy and the Cannes Film Grand Prix.

From 2002 to 2005, John was Group Creative Director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. There he helped launch the highly-awarded and innovative Hewlett-Packard “+HP” campaign. He also created a new visual identity for HP, while generating and supervising work including television commercials, multipage print campaigns, media installations, out-of-home advertising and innovative interactive campaigns. This work was awarded "Campaign of the Year" by Creativity magazine, Adweek’s "Spot of the Year," the prestigious Vision award by the New York Art Director’s Guild, The Grand Prix Epica, as well as numerous Cannes Lions and other awards.

From 2000 to 2002, John ran his own advertising agency in Dallas, Texas with partner Todd Tilford. Tilford:Norman was featured on the cover of Adweek during its first year and acquired accounts including Spyder skiwear, Pizza Hut, Footaction, Chili’s, the Limited, and Adidas Originals.

From 1998 to 2000, John lived and worked in Treviso, Italy as the Design Director for Benetton, Spa. At Benetton, he directed advertising and retail identity design projects for the company’s sports brands, which included Rollerblade, Killer Loop, Nordica and Prince. While in Italy, John also served as a director of the Benetton international design school, Fabbrica.

From 1996 to 1998, John worked as a senior art director for Wieden & Kennedy in the Amsterdam office, where he developed print and television campaigns for Coca-Cola, Microsoft and Nike. While in Amsterdam, John created the controversial, award-winning outdoor campaign for NikePark, a soccer experiential environment that debuted in Paris at the 1998 World Cup – Nike's first major World Cup campaign.

In his early career, John worked as a graphic designer for almost ten years, getting his start at The Richards Group in Dallas and later Nike Design in Oregon. John created logos for the Wyndham hotel group, the American Indian College Fund, and Nike footwear identities that are still in use today. John began working at Nike in 1989, where he developed graphic identities and retail installations and experiences. John worked with the famous Tinker Hatfield on the identity system for the Air Huarache. While based at Nike in Oregon, John was the lead designer for the internationally-recognized Hooptown complex in Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan, an innovative, retail basketball environment designed to introduce Nike basketball to Japan.