Artist Bio.

Hi, I’m Jared.
Designer.
Photographer.
Musician.
Terrible golfer.

Hi, I’m Jared.

Designer.
Photographer.
Musician.
Terrible golfer.
Welcome to Forts Studios! I guess you could say I’m the man behind the curtain. Or the lens, as it were. Either way, when it comes to pushing all the buttons, I’m your guy. Nice to meet you.

Let’s rewind a bit. My professional career began at a small family-owned company in downtown Columbus, Ohio. In my first official role as a Graphic Designer I was responsible for digitally editing, reconstructing, and printing duplicates of large theater backdrops. Translation = they paid me to play around on Photoshop all day and print things on a gigantic printer. It was a pretty cool gig for a young kid fresh out of college.

Eventually I moved over to the corporate world when I started working as an in-house graphic designer for a large medical products distributor. It was a bit of a culture shock, coming from a company with 10 employees total. But it was a great growing experience for me. During the decade that followed I was immersed in catalog design, advertising, branding, trade show booth development, promotional products, and the many other forms of marketing communications.
During that time I also developed a love for photography. One of our biggest hurdles was acquiring quality product photos for the catalog, so at some point we just decided to start doing it ourselves. With some help from a few local resources I built a small photo studio in our office and I set out to learn a new trade.

There were some growing pains at the start, but it wasn’t long before I was running a full-time photography program out of our own professional studio. Within a few years I was in charge of all in-house photography for each brand owned by our parent company. We even had several product manufacturers in the EMS industry asking us to do their photography too. I guess I had a knack for this photography thing after all 😉

Fast-forward to 2012. I had grown a great deal as a designer and a photographer. I still enjoyed my job, but I started to feel like I was ready for a change again. So I decided to leave the comfort of my corporate position and go into business for myself. It was a gutsy move, but once I took the plunge I never looked back.

I love what I do. It is a great feeling to be able to help my clients grow their businesses. Sure, I don’t have the comfort of a 9-5 gig anymore. But that’s ok. When I see how my work directly impacts my clients I get more satisfaction than I ever had inside a cubicle.

Need some creative help? Give me a shout anytime. I am always on the lookout for new clients and interesting projects!

guitar photo

Work keeps me fairly busy nowadays, but when I’m not crunching away on a project you can find me writing music, spending time with my family, losing perfectly good golf balls, and fixing up guitars.

Work keeps me fairly busy nowadays, but when I’m not crunching away on a project you can find me writing music, spending time with my family, losing perfectly good golf balls, and fixing up old guitars.

Serving clients in the greater
Central Ohio area and beyond.

614-580-7214