About — Ryan Carter | ACD Art Director

It’s 1995, I’m 13, and this new 3D animated movie about talking toys comes out. From that minute forward I want to ride a Segway through the halls of Pixar for the rest of my life.

Cut to 17, I start learning everything I can about 3D animation and soon realize Sully’s life-like fur rendering in Monsters Inc. is the result of some very smart programming, so… I begin a degree in computer science. A little over a year and a lot of math later, I decide this is not the path for me.

Where is this going? Well...

In that time I fell in love with the process of movie-making and telling stories. For the next 8 years I absorbed all I could – cinematography, editing, motion graphics, directing, script writing, all of it. I knew becoming a storyteller in this industry was what I wanted to do, I just didn’t know which part. But then I discovered a career where I get to do ALL of it without actually doing ANY of it. Advertising. I’m in.

Now I get to tell stories for brands. Sometimes those stories inspire people. Other times they sell processed lunch meat. Either way, the power of advertising remains the same. Great ads persuade, amuse, challenge, and a lucky few become culture itself. It also helps to make up words. Wazzzuuuppp? Dilly Dilly!

When I’m not advertising I enjoy — camping, shopping for camping gear, 80s action movies, Star Wars, not talking about Star Wars on Twitter, standing on glaciers, fan casting the next MCU movie,(MALIN+GOETZ) Lip Balm, 4K blu-rays, stand-up comedy, candle making, self-improvment books, IMAX 70mm, reading actor’s trivia on IMDB, podcasts, Red Wing boots, LOTR Extended Edition, Peak TV™, Scandinavian design, VFX Breakdown videos, Grand Canyon, Netflix and chilling with my wife (I mean that in the sit-on-the-couch-for-hours sort of way.)