Opinions expressed by Digital Journal contributors are their own.
In the current landscape of media, there’s often an emphasis on quantity over quality. With a larger amount of content being generated than ever before, its sheer volume is mind-boggling and makes it that much more difficult to stand out in the crowd. For Pat King, a designer, art director, and creative director involved with crafting design, branding, activation, and campaigns, the solution is simple: make the best work you possibly can.
The multi-award-winning creative has experience in everything from serving as creative director for Emmy-nominated television specials to leading marketing rebrands of companies as vast and monolithic in culture as Apple. King wears many hats as a creative, doing a little bit of everything and serving as a hands-on worker in any project he touches. But as he puts it, it’s just what comes naturally to him. “Art direction, graphic design and animation… it’s the perfect combination of creativity and business, which satisfies both sides of my brain. I find there’s also a great opportunity working directly with the client to make sure that they’re presenting the best of themselves through visual communication.”
With regards to how he first got his start in the industry, King reflects that, “At a young age, I was always enamored with branding and filmmaking. I spent a month on the tundra operating the National Geographic polar bear cameras for Polar Bears International. From there, I moved to Whistler, BC, to pursue action sports filmmaking.”
Shortly thereafter, King moved to New York to attend NYU for filmmaking and got a BSc in Digital Communication & Media. In the years that immediately followed his graduation, he worked on large-scale media campaigns and rebrands for companies like ABC, NFL Network, and Nickelodeon, getting a surplus of hands-on experience straight out of the gate. King says he was also “part of the small, tight-knit team that worked on the show packaging and titles for the 20-year reunion of Harry Potter Reunion Special on HBO Max, which was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Hollywood Critics Association TV Award.”
While this professional experience and excellence were certainly rewarding, a very special creative LGBTQ2IA+ event in 2019 served as a proper showcase for exactly what kind of artistic heights King could truly rise to. “I was selected as one of twenty-five artists to celebrate world pride in New York with LinkNYC. The work was showcased across 7500+ screens across the city during the largest pride event in the world in 2019.”
King’s gift for crafting a system that works across all mediums, from social to web and print or broadcast, is unique in branding and has helped some of the largest brands in the country launch campaigns that have brought them immense levels of success. King says that many brands are looking for rebranding that is “simultaneously of the time and timeless,” and he’s had a penchant for delivering on both fronts with aplomb.
As an incredibly knowledgeable leader in the industry of branding, marketing, and design, King prides himself on working with both Fortune 500 companies and smaller startups. He never wants to feel caught in the machinations of the career nor the machinations of daily technological life, for he finds it to be creatively stifling. As King says, “Step away from your screen and enjoy what’s around you, the nature, the city, the people; inspiration can come from anywhere, and sometimes we’re so inundated with images and things from our phones that it can be great to disconnect.”
