Ken Capelli

Ken draws from an astounding well of reference, inspiration, and experiences that was well beyond other Art Directors that I have worked with in my career. He excels at setting up the initial guidelines for projects at early stages, which guides the team all the way through to launch. I also always appreciated Ken's candor, transparency, and willingness to work on team issues with me as a production partner, as well as his ability to empower his leads through ownership and trust. He was constantly a source of guidance, confidentiality, and safe spaces to brainstorm on solutions together. Ken has stunning adaptability and an eye for process that benefits his teams greatly, especially in early stage products, start-up companies, and newly formed teams.

Ken was the Lead Artist and then Art Director at Planet Moon, presiding over its expansion from a 10-person studio to a studio with dozens of artists. He built a world class art team AND a world class outsourcing operation, and then had the calm temperament and the skill to run them both, simultaneously. Ken is superbly organized. He is particularly gifted with clients and service providers, explaining plans to clients in a way that lets them into the process and detailing his needs for service providers in a way that guarantees the best results.

I worked with Ken on English versions of multiple Asian games, ranging from straightforward translations to full-scale reskins with new art and story requirements. Ken has built a great team within Kabam, able to turn projects around quickly and with minimal fuss, and pioneered a number of techniques to make the process even quicker and more painless. He is one of my favorite team leaders to work with.

First off, Ken doesn't need my recommendation, go look at his resume and you'll see why. I'm giving it anyways because he is the most well rounded art director I've ever worked with. The best proof of his artistic style is that over the course of a year, we never received a negative piece of feedback about the look of our game (Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age) from the Hobbit License holders or the Peter Jackson group. To the contrary, we had the studio asking us to use some of our art. On top of his amazing artistic talent, Ken is also secretly a great project manager – he was always on top of the art schedule in a way I've never experienced with an Art Director, all while juggling assets for the two Hobbit games Kabam produced.

I have known Ken for years, and in that time he has become a sound colleague and good friend. As a colleague, I appreciate his capabilities as a developer as well as a leader. He is an astute Director with a knack for understanding a client's needs while keeping a stern and steady eye on production for quality, consistency, timeliness, and feasability. This allows him to disect any project into requirements hi and low in level, and realize value or mitigate issues early on. He also realizes the value of delegation, and deferring to areas of specialty, and utilizes this magnanimously to foster innovation and inspiration within the team and individual. My favorite strength of his as a person is his ability to foster leadership in those working under and with him – not just leading people, but teaching them how to lead and ultimately grow in value to themselves, their team, and company.