Student Spotlight: Ken Stout

In our next student spotlight, we are featuring Ken Stout! Ken discovered BYOL through our YouTube channel and has since been busy taking InDesign, Photoshop, Lightroom, and Premiere Pro classes.  

I admire how Ken has consistently sought out opportunities to grow his creative skillset, whether by turning a love for photography into a side hustle or by challenging himself to develop marketing assets despite his background in operations. I hope you find Ken’s story and his perspective on the importance of investing in your own creative aspirations as inspiring as I do!

Thank you for sharing your story with us, Ken!

Tell us a little bit about yourself!

Hi! I’m Ken, a Leo. I love long walks on the beach at night. Wait! This is a BYOL spotlight, right? Sorry! Take 2. Hi, I’m Ken. I’m a husband to my beautiful wife, Amy, and we just celebrated our 20th anniversary in June. I’m also a proud father to our daughter, Bee, who will be a senior in high school this coming year. I have a terrible habit of turning hobbies into side hustles (photography, woodworking, web development), sometimes taking the fun out of things.

Tell us about your career path.

I’ve always liked solving problems, big or small, which led me down the path of Operations. For the past 15 years, I’ve been an Operations Manager at a few companies, mainly in Business Operations. Think boring stuff like process improvement, data analysis, strategic planning, project management, and leading teams. How does this relate to creative ventures? It doesn’t. But I do get to dabble with these things in my current company as I tackle our marketing efforts.

How did you develop a passion for photography? 

When my daughter was born, I wanted to take lots of photos. My Motorolla flip phone didn’t take the best pictures, so I convinced my wife that we needed a better camera and bought a Nikon D40. It was an entry-level DSLR camera with a couple of kit lenses. After that, I was hooked on photography and started learning everything I could about it. (Side note: one of the best books for any beginning photographer is Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson.) Eventually, I convinced the wife that we needed to upgrade gear (lenses, new camera body, off-camera flash). After a while, we had spent a small fortune on camera gear, which led me to try and make money with this hobby; see above about turning hobbies into side hustles. My passion is landscape photography, but trees don’t pay me to take photos of them, so I started taking family photos and created Ken Stout Photography.

How did you find yourself at BYOL?

Over a year ago, we needed to update our marketing materials at my current job. Part of that was business cards and, eventually, a new product brochure. After some research, I found that InDesign would be best suited for data merge (business cards) and brochures. Having never touched InDesign, I did what any aspiring professional would do. I went to YouTube. After finding several beginner tutorials that were bland, I came across some guy named Dan, who was exactly what I was looking for in a teacher. Fast forward to earlier this year, we needed some additional marketing materials that required design work. I’ve created basic designs in Photoshop before and decided  I wanted to dive into Illustrator. I went back to YouTube, and wouldn’t you know it, Dan was there with an Illustrator course. So, I decided to sign up for BYOL. Ever since then, I’ve lept feet-first into courses. I even took Photoshop and Lightroom courses, thinking I knew those programs very well. It turns out that being self-taught leaves tons of room for improvement. I learned tons from those courses, and Lightroom sparked my photography bug again. I went out last weekend to take some landscape photos for the first time in a couple of years.

What is your favorite BYOL class? Why do you like this BYOL class?

This is a tough one. I would probably say Illustrator Essentials since that was my introduction to Illustrator and opened up a new set of tools to help me create. A close second would probably be Lightroom Essentials since this class sparked my photography bug again, and the software advancements are amazing from when I last used it. As of now, I have completed five classes and just started with Premiere Pro since I have never worked with video. I honestly believe I’ll take most of the classes on BYOL since Dan and the team do a great job putting these courses together to get maximum results.

What advice would you give to someone looking to grow their creative skillset?

One of the best investments anyone can make is investing in themselves, whether from learning, fitness, personal growth, etc. So, if you are looking to grow your creative skillset, dive into the areas that interest you and consider it an investment. It may be an investment that will have monetary results or something that makes you happy by expressing your creative nature; nonetheless, it is an investment. BYOL is a great resource for learning about the common creative tools needed to do professional creative work or just work you do for yourself. Most importantly, and this is where I struggle, have confidence in your abilities and give yourself some grace. Great artists don’t just spawn overnight; they hone their skills and practice a concept of continuous improvement.

What is next for you? What are some future goals you have?

Regarding BYOL, I plan on completing the Premiere Pro, InDesign, and Figma classes. As far as my professional life, I would love to own my own design/marketing agency. Even if that agency consisted of just one employee, me. Until then, I plan on continuing to learn design and practice those skills as well as being the best Operations Manager I can be to help grow our company.

Anything else you would like to share that we should have asked you?

I want to share a few words that I hope folks find inspiring. As I get older and my hair gets grayer (although the color grading tools in Lightroom can fix that), I realize life is short. I know that is cliché, but it has made me see with a more precise focus that we should chase those dreams and passions we have. Don’t put things off and say, “One day.” Embrace them and pursue them if you are able. Even if you fail, there is wisdom in failure. I would rather fail than wake up one day and wonder “what if” and think about “what could have been.”

I am also a strong believer that putting your work out there for others to view and provide feedback on is an integral part of becoming better. It is scary, humbling, exciting and so much more. It's great when you get that feedback of confirmation that things went as planned. However, there are times where you think you did well, but some encouraging feedback of, "what if you tried this", "maybe use a different font", "this would be even better with a different color palette"; helps us grow and become even better. I would be remiss if I didn't say thank you Pedro for your support during my first couple of classes! Your encouraging words, support, and the way you challenge me to improve are greatly appreciated.

Thank you, Ken!