Meet Kennon Fleisher | Art Director / Motion Designer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kennon Fleisher and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kennon, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
Honestly, I never wanted to do anything else. I always wanted to pursue a career in something I genuinely had fun with; which for me was visual story telling through video production and design.

All through high school, I was heavily involved in skateboarding and filming every moment with my friends, which is where I first learned to shoot and edit. After high school, I was taking a gap year and really expoloring what I could possibly do with video production as a career and I started shooting music videos for friends’ bands. I got all of my “work” together and created a reel which landed me my first internship, which turned into a paid job around a month later. It was a little luck, a little ego, and a lot of passion for it.

Being creative for a living is fulfilling in ways that are so unique to the line of work. Essentially, ideas that exist only in my brain are able to built out as a visual asset for people to watch all over the world on their TV screens to be entertained by, which is kind of amazing. I’ve helped companies grow, I’ve helped good causes spread their message, and I’ve created memories for people to always look back at. Creativity is the ultimate form of raw human expression and I’m beyond fortunate to be paid to do it for a living.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m primarily an Art Direction and Motion Designer in the entertainment space, currently working with Elastic.tv and Bungie.net.

It’s been a bit of a wild journey to get where I am. I started in High School when I got my first camera and filmed / edited almost everything I did with my friends. Tragedy hit my family when my Mom died during my senior year, which forced me into taking a gap year after graduation. I used the ensuing gap year to learn as much as I could about video production and let the loss of my Mom become my motivation to push me forward. I always told myself it’s what she would’ve wanted, so I really just went for it and decided failure wouldn’t be an option. I started shooting music videos for friends for a couple hundred dollars each and managed to cobble together a ‘demo reel’ which actually helped me secure my first professional internship, which turned into a paid job only a month later. Since then, I’ve kept that mindset and worked hard to make progress all the time. I made my way through the advertising world for a while, working on clietns like Audi, Volkswagen, The North Face, Dominoes, Taco Bell, and many many more. The real goal was always entertainment work though, and I eventually jumped head first into that world and haven’t looked back.

I’ve always maintained a balance of being passionate about creativity as a career, being motivated by life events, and being too stubborn to ever get discouraged by rejection. I think this industry requires all of that, especially the persistence.

In terms of work I’m proud of: I’m proud of a handful of projects, but “Man In The Arena: Tom Brady” has to be the biggest one. I was the Art Director on that project for Elastic.tv and helped my team set the look and tone of the entire 10 episodes of the show. We shipped over 4,000 individual graphics or visual effects files and at the end of the day it won ‘Best Documentary Series’ at the Sports Emmy’s in 2022, which was a pretty exciting moment.

I’ve also been working with Bungie on Destiny 2 for the past couple years. As a guy who grew up playing Bungie games, this has always been a lot of fun for me to step in and work with them on marketing and creative content for upcoming releases.

Currently, I’m working on a whole bunch of awesome stuff I can’t talk about yet but very excited for the direction things are heading.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I should caveat a little history of where I’ve lived first. I grew up in Pennsylvania and moved out to Denver in 2011, then to NYC and back to Denver, and then to Los Angeles from 2017-2020… and back to Denver again.

That being said, I seem to always end up back in Denver for a variety of reasons. It’s such a well-balanced city to live in. The weather is really pretty great year-round, the people are mostly friendly, and there’s a lot of fun stuff to do. It’s got a great youthful vibe about it and it’s within an hour of some of the most beautiful scenery you’ve ever seen.

Let’s say I have a friend coming in for the weekend and we’re meeting up on Saturday morning… I’d start with a coffee from Fluid or Carbon, then take them up to Mt.Evans for a quick drive around and some light hiking. Next, I’d bring them back down to the city to go grab lunch, then a beer at Denver Beer Company (I know there’s a million great breweries here, but that one has always been my favorite). I’d go hang out in River Front park and maybe show them Williams and Graham or Linger for dinner. That’s just a loose plan, but truthfully I bet I could make anyone fall in love with this city, they just need to give me 12 hours.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There’s a long list of people who I would love to thank in helping me arrive where I am now. It’s important to stress that the saying “You’re only as good as your network” is so very true, especially in the creative world. I have an extensive list of people who deserve a special thanks — but the following individuals have especially helped shape my journey in one way or another and deserve credit. Justin Majeczky, Sebastian Triscari, Kristen Del Calzo, Adam Espinoza, Jeremy Lindenmier, Julie Morrandez, Julianna (Esposito) Roppo, Christina Schroeder, Henry Hopkins, Teddy Sirotek, Rob Shearer, Dennis Kang, Robert Uncles, Luis De Leon, Duncan Elms, Kate Berry, Garrett Morlan, Eric Littlejohn, Alex Griendling, Corinne Bremmer, and many more.

Website: www.kennonfleisher.com

Instagram: kennonfleisher

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennonf/

Other: https://www.behance.net/kennonfleisher

Image Credits
Studio Credit: – Elastic (Turning Point, Man In The Arena) – Bungie (Destiny 2)