Meet Ken Krekeler

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ken Krekeler. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ken, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?

I came from a very supportive family growing up, and I always knew I wanted to go into illustration and design as a career. After high school, I attended the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, where I was surrounded by a lot of like-minded individuals that helped me build a community of friends and colleagues that exist still to this day. By 2015, I had released three graphic novels that were globally distributed, and we met with overwhelmingly positive reviews, which helped me establish a sense of identity and confidence in my work. In 2018, I left my job at an advertising agency to pursue a freelance career in comic books, cover designs, and portraits.ion, where I partnered with dozens of clients for comic book art, children’s books, cover designs, and portraits. Working with so many people allowed me to hone my communication skills with a variety of personalities, which helped better my sense of self-esteem.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

As a conceptual Illustrator on multiple freelance platforms, I’ve designed hundreds of book covers, comic book pages and children’s book art for clients across the country. I’ve also helped to make sure the needs of my clients are met, bringing their visions to life. Over the last years I’ve helped collaborate on comic book pitch projects, fiction and non-fiction book covers, animated sequences and a wide range of stylized characters from nearly every genre out there.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I believe that my three biggest attributes are my ability to communicate, well, to deliver efficiently on deadlines, and to work consistently at a steady to peace to estimate delivery realistically. I also have a finally tuned process of how a progress on each project, which helps tackle whatever I need to do (whether large or small) into a concentrated step-by-step process.

How would you describe your ideal client?

My ideal client is someone that can communicate openly with me and deliver honest feedback, or criticism in a concise way. Often times, clients may hold back on what they want to say, whether it’s because they don’t want to hurt my feelings or because they don’t know how to put into words what they want to see. Another great quality for clients to have is simply the ability to issue payments on schedule, and keep me appraised of when they will be unavailable. Knowing their schedule helps me plan out time on my end and account for our next communication..

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.kenkrekeler.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenkrekeler/

Image Credits

Publications:

Writer/Illustrator:
“Dry Spell”
“The Colodin Project”
“Westward”

Contract work:
“Little Dark”
“Timesmith”
“Ogre”