Today we’d like to introduce you to Ken Vale.
Ken, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I did not plan on being a business owner, nor did I ever even consider running a small business when I began my career. I was a very introverted person, with an aversion to people and society in general. This is why the events that steered my life away from autonomous design work, and towards things like SWOT meetings, profit and loss reports, and rolling forecasts would make my young self cringe. But here I am.
In the mid-90s I was captivated by the process of 3D animation. I had no formal computer programming or design training, but nonetheless I was convinced I could become great at it. At that time, I was an intern at a video production company that had just invested in a 3D system. I became addicted to learning the programs, going into the office on weekends and at 5am on weekdays before work so I could spend quiet hours in a dark room staring at a screen. Being new to Atlanta, I had a very minimal social life; no family, nothing to slow my addiction. It took me a while but eventually my boss discovered my passion and I was given an opportunity to work on actual jobs for actual clients. I loved it.
A few years later I found myself freelancing as an independent animator, and making decent money. Out of the blue, two of my friends in the video production industry invited me to join them in starting a digital design company. The three of us soon launched Artifact Design. That was 19 years ago and it has been a constant roller coaster, with very exciting highs, and very depressing lows. But things are never as bad (or as good,) as you think they are at the time, and we battled through it all.
Within the first few years I had bought out my two partners and found myself as the sole business owner. I forced myself to dig into books and sites about running a small business. Eventually I hired a great GM to fix all of my mistakes.
In the last few years we’ve had to change to keep up with technology and industry trends. We went from a “boutique” animation and design company to a full-service “turn-key” digital design and post studio. I have been lucky enough to find some of the best talent in the industry, and smart enough to stay out of their way and let them do what they love. We have lots of ideas for new digital products and content that we are exploring, and I expect Artifact Deign to look very different in the next several years. Hopefully we can continue the tenets that have kept us afloat and successful for so long.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Early on, the managing partnership was successful, maybe too successful, because we made some humongous mistakes. We became over confident and grew our staff too quickly, we starting a web division (an industry we knew very little about), we invested lots of money in a large, rented office space, and we didn’t notice that we had only a couple, albeit large, clients. When our biggest client, who was providing 60% of our work, pulled their work in-house, (something that happens periodically I found out later,) we almost went belly up as a company. Our debt was huge, we had to do a few rounds of layoffs, and to make matters really painful, the three of us began bickering about what we should do to reverse our trend. Partnerships are tough and our disagreements led to heated arguments. Our friendships evaporated, and we were very close to closing the doors for good.
Around this time one of my partners announced he wanted to move out of state to raise his family. The third partner and I bought out his share and took on his debt. A year later my remaining partner also decided to leave the state, and I was left with a decision: keep the company myself including the mountain of debt, or close the doors, each of us taking on half the debt. But I really felt the business was viable, so I agreed to take it all on my shoulders, and a 12 employee company was down to 1.
Determined to rebuild the company the right way this time, I was very conservative in every move I made. I did all the work myself for a few months before bringing on a junior animator to help. Next, I hired an inexperienced but ambitious Project Manager. We slowly started to maintain a consistent profit, landing a variety of smaller, then larger clients, and over the next 5 years the debt was paid off. Since then we have had good years and bad years, large staff and small staff. But the main thing that kept us afloat over the last 20 years was our conservative approach to risk-taking, and our ability to maintain great relationships with our clients. And these relationships were strong not only in a business sense, but, (maybe more importantly) on a personal level. Our clients liked to work with us because they liked us as individuals. This is one of the bedrocks of our success.
Some other big challenges we have had to work through recently include: knowing when make changes to our offerings that allow us to flourish in the completely changed entertainment markets; being patient enough to find the right leaders to fit our business personality; developing new sources of revenue that can fill in the gaps between high-end advertising projects; and maintaining the image of a company that is incredibly experienced and trustworthy, and yet capable of doing contemporary, cutting-edge design work.
Artifact Design – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Artifact Design is lively team of creative commercial designers/producers located in the Old Fourth Ward in Atlanta GA. We position ourselves as a high-end design-focused production house, capable of competing with the best motion design companies in the world. We have a proven track record, a great reputation, and very experienced and trustworthy team leaders.
Our office typically houses 7-8 full time employees, and as many as 6 part-time/contract employees. These include creative directors, art directors, designers, animators, editors, and project producers.
We are known for our dependability, experience, and professionalism. For large advertising agencies, our main clientele, this is vital. I would like to think our personality, and creativity are also reasons clients come to us.
We are expanding into new markets in the next few months, I can’t say what these are just yet, but the change is exciting.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Honestly, my proudest moment was when I landed my first job as a graphic designer having had no training in graphic design. I had put so much time and energy into proving I was the best candidate for the job even though I was the least qualified. I gave it my all -and I won as an underdog. What could be better than that?
Contact Info:
- Address: Artifact Design
455 Glen Iris Drive NE,
Studio F, Atlanta, GA 30308 - Website: artifactdesign.com
- Phone: 404-888-0061
- Email: kitty@artifactdesign.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artifactdesign_atl/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArtifactDesignAtlanta/
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