We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Seth Garnes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Seth below.

Hi Seth, thanks for joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

At the very beginning of The Everything Collective, we really were into founding this community to collaborate with other artists from different disciplines. At that point, my brother and I had just moved to LA and would shoot music videos for his brand, Localcolor, and almost anybody else who would ask. We wanted to celebrate the work we were making with our friends and clients, so we started throwing gallery events with live music. At the time, I was working in the entertainment advertising industry as a motion designer, so I would animate flyers or backdrops for the show’s interiors. I also shot a few short documentary pieces featuring co-collaborators, interviewing them on their artistic processes. We seemed to be making an impact on the community around Downtown Los Angeles, and we still find those artists reminding us of that with their inspiring work today.

The thing is, during that time we made almost no money. Actually, I think we only broke even on two out of the three events that we threw. After the third, we had to admit our business plan was, more or less just: “vibes.” Those “vibes,” however, were a great base for the connections and impact we were seeking to make. So to pivot, I started watching other studios and agencies use business models that actually worked, and it revealed to me that we were trying to do way too many things. In the months that followed, we went from no unique selling proposition to defining our services and the mission of the brand overall a bit more. Most of that learning came from attending conventions, chatting with people at meetups, mingling online, and taking a chance on some advice.

Now that there are more mechanics of our business model in place, it’s been nice to focus energy on efficiency in solving creative problems for the brands that we partner with. In the range of challenges we’ve encountered, it’s been nice to rely on strategies that can apply to many scenarios. Most involve using story to reexamine our relationship with quotidian concepts and finding another perspective to explore. Usually, it’s not difficult when we get to work with the talent in our brilliant network. I still feel like the original core tenets of The Everything Collective haven’t changed much since we started. Our intention of fostering community solidifies as we settle into our identity as a 2D animation production company.

Seth, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

The short version is that I grew up in Columbus, Ohio before moving to Sarasota, Florida to attend Ringling College of Art & Design. Then, I moved to Los Angeles to really advance my career.

In my Ohioan teens, my parents sort of let me explore my interests and supported where they could. I’d saved up enough money from lifeguarding to buy my Nikon D5100 to shoot the videos from the “How To Use A DSLR” section of Vimeo. Pretty hot stuff. Some time after that I decided I was ready to start shooting music videos along with some basketball games for my high school. In my junior year, I joined the Art Post at Columbus College of Art & Design – a program that helped high schoolers put together a portfolio to submit to colleges. When choosing a major, I knew I always loved commercials and movies. But I didn’t know what any job for that looked like at the time, so I was choosing between film, graphic design and animation. I think at some point along the way, I’d watched enough Mad Men to decide that advertising was a career that I could get paid well for commercials. Eventually, that led me to choosing the Motion Design major at RCAD.

After honing fresh skills with new talented friends for a few years, I applied to a bunch of jobs in both New York and Los Angeles. I got offered a position to work at an agency in LA and wasted little time packing my car and driving from Florida. I was thrilled moving into our MacArthur Park apartment until I was informed that my job offer had fallen through. Understating the panic for brevity, I quickly found another position animating social campaigns for movies and television. Over around 8 years across many agencies & studios, I came to understand the groove of how an ad campaign works in different genres for different audiences. I learned to adapt the process for opportunities in trailers, brand pieces, social media, experiential marketing, and virtual reality. I got to learn and use those techniques in some exciting projects with cool people, too: exploring type systems for OFFF titles in Barcelona, shooting a documentary about an exhibit in Antwerp, and VFX supervision for a Starz promotional campaign in Hollywood.

Since then, I’ve honed down to more specific skill sets. But the initial broad experimentation led me to the work that I get to do now: problem-solving for brands on a large scale. It’s the kind of work I always thought advertising would be – this unique intersection of creativity and psychology. Watching the influence that art can have on people and their decisions at scale has always been fascinating to me.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

As a freshman in high school, it was getting to that point where you have to choose a career for the rest of your life. I wasn’t sure, but I thought being an architect would be fun. My dad had been an architect before I was born, and I’d heard that you still got to draw at work. Up until that point in my life, that was all I’d really ever done. I used to draw my own Sonic comics (with a Kirby spinoff), redesign videogame case covers (when they weren’t digital), and shoot short videos of road trips or my friends and I skating. However, telling people your life plan at 15 is to be an artist usually is met with “well, why don’t you choose a real job?”

One day at school I’d heard about an art club meeting on the afternoon announcements and thought I’d go check it out. At 3:15pm, the art room had maybe 7 or 8 other students I hadn’t met before. A senior there was showing off his sketchbook with awesome work and seemed cool with the art teacher. I remember finding out that he was working on a portfolio to submit to attend an art college – I had absolutely no idea that this was a life option. I immediately asked him more questions about what goes into whatever a portfolio was and where I could start.

He’d suggested a program at CCAD, but from that point on I think my view fundamentally changed on what art could be and how it applies to what society needs. I didn’t have to choose whatever a “real job” was or explain what I do to people to impress them. I could still contribute to the world with a natural inclination I had. Whenever things get hard, as they often can, I try to remember how much hope I had for my future at that moment.

(In case it gets to him, shout out to Ian Ballantyne for talking to that awkward freshman).

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Specifically, there’s a book that I got while in college called Never Sleep by Dress Code. When I first got it in my restless early twenties, it served as a comfort that I wasn’t insane for trying to pursue something that I didn’t totally feel prepared for. One of the founders also being from Ohio and describing a similar approach to starting his career certainly made things more relatable. Now when I take a look, it reminds me that I am crazy for pursuing this lifestyle – but that maybe I’m also one of the types of people it’s suited to.

While that’s one of my favorites, I still won’t miss a chance to find or explore something I’ve never encountered and then to let myself be obsessed with it for a few weeks before leaving it alone. I also try to read things I may not like, skip through movies and guess the plot, go to museums without context, really encouraging connections where they may not be obvious. There’s actually an excerpt in Never Sleep titled “4 Steps To Idiocy (and 1 step to sheer genius)” introducing the concept of ‘thinking wrong’ and I think it can be a useful and refreshing approach to creative work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theeverythingcollective.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/theeverythingcollective
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-garnes/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@everythingcollective4614