BRIEF PLUS: Sean Owolo—Designing a New Career

By Shanna Green

For someone lacking a formal background in visual graphics, Sean Owolo is rapidly positioning
himself as a leader in the field known for its eye candy.
In an age of job duties becoming fluid, and “preditors” becoming the norm, Owolo represents thenew breed of business developer. Owolo, who currently works as an executive producer/businessdevelopment at Los Angeles motion graphic design and illustration company Big Machine Design,has been able to position himself to be in high demand in the industry by learning to anticipateemerging trends and react quickly.
And Owolo says it was all by accident.
The former music executive started his career working in marketing for major record labels
including Warner Bros. Records and Universal Music. He left the music industry in favor of design five years ago when he realized that the industry was steadily tanking.
Owolo, a longtime fan of visual effects and animation, said he noticed that design had gone so
mainstream that even consumer markets had shifted their attention to it. Whether it was laundry detergent or soap bottles, design had finally become a larger part of their marketing plans.
“Everywhere people are competing for eyeballs, whether it’s TV or product packaging, so design
has become a lot smarter and I just wanted to be a part of that,” he said.
Although he had no design background, he landed a position in business development at creative agency 3 Ring Circus, and was able to transition quickly into the design industry, which he credits with his past experience in the music industry.
Once he became emerged within the company, he noticed that there was a large group of
creative directors and freelancers who wanted to start their own company, but often didn’t have
the business and financial know how or means.
Thus, in early 2007, HEROIC, a joint venture between Owolo and 3 Ring Circus CEO John
Sideropoulos was born. HEROIC became an umbrella answer for him to start a company with the
financial infrastructure that he could represent designers and best match them for jobs, freeing
them up to concentrate fully on creating.
After spending three and a half years at 3 Ring Circus and co-launching HEROIC, Owolo had
achieved what he’d set out to accomplish and felt it was time to move on.
In June of 2008, Owolo left 3 Ring Circus and HEROIC to go to work for Big Machine Design.
It was his ability to work both sides of the industry that Big Machine Design Co-Founder and
Creative Director Steve Petersen said he found so attractive about Owolo.
“We looked for a long time in the broadcast/design world to try to find a good business
development person and it’s really hard,” Petersen said. “We started looking out there in the
industry and I think we’re very happy with our decision to look in the music industry.”
Since coming to Big Machine Design, Owolo has had the opportunity to work on a number of high
profile jobs including Nashville Star for NBC, a new open for Live with Regis and Kelly, an AMC
comic book style tribute to Samuel L. Jackson and the opening credits for last fall’s Gary
Unmarried, which he noted was particularly impressive to his teenage daughter who
accompanied him on set to meet Jay Mohr.
But one of the favorite jobs he’s done over the years was a summer of 2007 rebrand for the
bilingual music and lifestyle channel LATV. While at HEROIC, Owolo was tasked with finding
designers to come up with a package for the Los Angeles-based channel that was getting ready
to launch nationwide. Owolo brought together two companies, BuildDestroy and Wondermint, for
the job, which consisted of a graffiti artist doing live action spray painting on green-screen, which
was then layered with matching visual effects. The package was met with critical acclaim and
featured in Stash magazine.
“It was just a great project that the clients loved, but also that the designers loved,” Owolo said. “I
think that that’s when it’s perfect; when your client is ecstatic and also the designers didn’t have
to compromise their vision at all and they’re happy as well.”
Owolo sees the key to his future in the industry as being able to evolve and adapt right along with
it. From doing and re-doing work specifically for HD, to designing projects to fit onto cell phones
and ipods in the correct ratio to designing in-game graphics for the steadily growing video game
industry, Owolo sees the design industry as wide open to those who can seize the opportunities.
Sometimes companies have to make their own opportunities, he said. As part of anticipating the
evolution of how audiences will consume entertainment, Big Machine Design is currently
developing new original content to sell to the very channels they’re designing for.
“It’s just a manner of bracing yourself and putting yourself ahead of the curves and in areas that
are just starting to think about that,” Owolo said. “Outside of just broadcast design and TV is the
Internet. Now you have that force to deal with.”
Big Machine Design has already produced and sold their original live action and animation series
“True Crime: Streets of Miami” to truTV, and currently has another 10 shows they’re internally
developing.
This could be a huge part of the future of design companies that both Petersen and Owolo
recognize. By creating content for the very networks they’re branding, they’ve been able to give
themselves a critically competitive edge.
“We’re privy to a lot of what’s coming out, and a lot of the sensibilities of the networks,” Petersen
said. “We’re kind of always ahead of the curve because we’re working on the branding of some of
that stuff.”
The next goal for him, Owolo says is to become even more involved in this production of original
content and eventually executive produce television shows. Design, he says, is the industry to
pursue.
“There’re just so many areas that need design,” Owolo said. “Anything that appeals to the eyeball
is going to need a designer. I don’t see it as an industry that’s going to slow down anytime soon.”