Meet Jon Hormachea of Ankor Creative in Aurora

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jon Hormachea.

Jon, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I have always been a creative person. I enjoyed the arts growing up and in school. I didn’t major in Graphic Design or anything. I have a BA in Communications but I really jumped into design after I graduated from college.

At the time, I was working in a tattoo shop as a professional body piercer but decided to try and pursue something else with my degree. Because of the market crash in 2008, when I graduated a couple of years later, things were still a bit rocky in the job market. And because I had spent my time putting holes in myself and others to pay the bills, I had no experience from internships or anything else to speak of.

I started working part-time retail jobs and doing free design and photography gigs for friends. Local musicians, small business owners, just anything to get a portfolio started. I decided at the time that it might be good to go back to get that Fine Arts degree my parents never wanted me to get and I enrolled part-time at MSU Denver back when it was still Metropolitan State College of Denver.

I ended up getting a student job with the Alumni Association and that’s when things really started to take off for my career. Before a year was up, I had transitioned away from seeking a second degree and working retail into a full-time role as a Creative Multimedia Specialist for LIV Sotheby’s International Realty (formerly Fuller Sotheby’s International Realty). That’s really where I cut my teeth as a designer. I learned how to design for a luxury market and had the honor of working on some really amazing projects, including creating marketing for one of Sotheby’s International Realty’s Legacy Properties.

After my time in luxury real estate, I transitioned into working with a local media company that had its focus dialed in on government contracting and the legal market in Colorado through software, publications, and a creative agency. I acted as the Creative Director for their agency for a couple of years before moving into a role managing the creative team that served the national market for Entercom Communications, one of the largest radio providers in the U.S. I led a team of four other designers, including myself, in executing digital creative projects for partners of Entercom who would use their advertising platforms within each local market. We served a total of 40+ markets by the time I left the company a couple of years later to pursue my business full time.

Now I run Ankor Creative LLC full-time, teach design courses at MSU Denver as an adjunct faculty member, and create pop surrealist art as “Blood & Gold”, selling prints and apparel of my work to fans all over the world!

Has it been a smooth road?
I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a creative professional of any kind who hasn’t struggled to find their success in life. Creative work is fleeting in many ways. We produce work that ultimately will become stale, it will be tiring, and the new look of tomorrow will govern our work the same as it always does. I think for this reason creative professionals, myself included, tend to be the hardest on themselves about their own work.

We can always point to someone else’s work that we think is better than ours, what we know we could have pushed further or refined more in our own work. And that endless pursuit of perfection is something that I know I still struggle with to this day. But I’ve become a lot better about accepting projects as they are upon completion. Nothing will ever be as polished as you’d like it to be, I think. Plus, you’re probably the only one who would notice anyway. That’s the funniest part about it. As long as you are communicating the intended message with your work, and people are responding to it, that’s all that matters.

Please tell us about Ankor Creative. What should we know?
Ankor Creative LLC is a boutique creative studio focused on producing high-quality creative and marketing solutions for our clients at a cost that isn’t going to hurt their budget. With my experience in everything from design and marketing to photography and illustration, I am able to help my clients produce unique solutions to their marketing needs and help them stand out from their competition without costing what I typical agency might because I’m the one executing on all aspects on the project with you. I don’t have a team, I don’t have contractors, it’s just me and my wife (who is also a stellar designer) doing great work for our clients. So you know that you’re getting the best quality work and you know personally who is making the collateral you’re using to help your business grow!

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I think Denver is a great city for creative professionals right now more than it’s ever been. The city keeps growing as more people continue to move here and as businesses move their operations here. That makes the market for creative work more competitive, but that ultimately leads to better creative and professionals pushing themselves harder to create their best. I think Denver’s commitment to the arts is visible and something that we hold high as part of our culture here in the city. Areas of the city like RiNo are a testament to that if anything.

Pricing:

• $60 per hour for Graphic Design
• $80 per hour for Photography
• $100 per hour for Illustration
• $100 per hour for Web Development
• $120 per hour for Consulting

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ankorcreative.com
• Phone: 303-579-5967
• Email: jon@ankorcreative.com
• Instagram: @ankorcreative

Image Credit:
Headshot – Eric Jahn Photography, Buffalo NY

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