Being KEEN is something that is at your core. It’s a way of doing business, collaborating with clients and internal teams to create meaningful and effective solutions. It’s a way of thinking that evokes out-of-the-box ideas and a drive to positively impact the world.
The year we rebranded, some serious thought went into our new name. We knew who we were and how we could help our clients, but what should we be called?!
Pfft, easier said than done.
After numerous brainstorms, countless revisions, and due consideration, we landed on KEEN. Now, many years later, we’ve refined even more of our offerings, vision and story, which has allowed us to grow.
In the search for even more KEENers, we’ve had the unique and reflective opportunity to look at our team, our clients, and our services to really understand how best to move forward and grow our team. With a corporate culture that is a little less about the corporate and more about the culture, it’s no surprise we’re looking for someone just as awesome and ridiculous as the rest of the KEEN crew.
Whether you’re a client or someone applying for a job, here is a snapshot of what working with KEEN is like:
Passion
We are super passionate about the work we do, our industry, our clients, and our community. This standard at KEEN can be seen radiating off of our staff.
We like to get involved, whether providing brand strategy, evolving your visuals, or taking your UX design to the next level. We are all crazy for what we do and genuinely love our work and helping clients navigate their obstacles with creative solutions!
Dedication
All hands on deck! When you think of dedication at work, it can often be misinterpreted as late nights. While sometimes that’s what it takes, dedication means much more than just getting it done.
At KEEN, we are committed to our clients, our team, and our work. This means we collaborate, we research, we brainstorm, we test, and we solve problems with thoughtful and effective solutions. Yet, we don’t give up and rally our team and our clients because we are determined to figure it out together.
Teamwork
Because more is more. With a team, there is no shortage of creative juices flowing through our office. Still, it is our ability to work together that really results in dynamic campaigns, goal-crushing results, and out-of-the-box ideas.
The same applies to working with our clients. We would lie if we said clients come to us with a problem, and we walk away and solve it.
Most of the time, collaboration with our clients unveils the perfect message or design inspiration. And we love that! We combine our varied experiences, talents, and skills to strengthen ideas.
As KEENers, we crave conversation and excel in a team environment where we can bounce ideas around, solve problems, layer onto initial concepts, and help each other refine final deliverables.
Caring
There may be a lot that goes into being a KEENer, but we are care bears at our core. It’s not in our nature to leave our fellow man hanging, ignore our clients, or disregard an opportunity to help. We care about our clients, our direct points of contact, their campaigns and their business.
And the same goes for our team and our community. Call us crazy, but seeing others happy and succeeding feels great! Daily there are a number of KEENers exemplifying their caring heart unknowingly, often as a supportive sticky note, card and cookies for a client, donation for a community initiative, or even just as a listening ear.
Caring is just part of our DNA and is the backbone of our work, our people, and our mission to positively impact the world.
Driven
At KEEN, staying status quo isn’t just boring; it’s not who we are.
Most of us were the student who shot our hands up first and participated in extracurricular activities, and yes, we may be a bit nerdy, but it’s more because there is a constant hunger in each of us to keep learning. Collectively we have the drive to try out new tactics, explore new industry technologies, refine existing practices, and ultimately better ourselves, our clients, and our community.
Fun
We wouldn’t be who we are if we didn’t have fun while we did it. At KEEN, we are graphic designers, web developers, art directors, marketers, photographers, videographers, content strategists, social media experts, writers, and more. But every one of us is a goof. So at KEEN, we always try to inject Fun into our day and our client experience, whether a Monday morning or Friday afternoon.
I mean, if you think about it, we spend half our lives at work so who wants to work somewhere or with someone who isn’t fun! Not us.
Fun for us can be showcased through our area of expertise, diving into a logo design while listening to our favourite jams, or brainstorming a new marketing campaign over a coffee.
Fun is also sometimes not directly related to our work and can be seen as:
- Dessert (so much dessert! How can you not smile while eating a cookie!)
- Workouts (because you feel good when you look good ;))
- Gifs (because gifs are awesome)
- The oddest but most wonderful off-topic conversations
Conclusion
Not coincidentally, what makes up KEEN also makes up our core values. These are the red thread that ties us all together. They are embodied by our team and our ideal clients. Our core values are a daily reminder of who we are, not only during working hours but in our downtime as well.
Still interested in getting to know us better? Guess you’ll have to work with or for us!
Check out our careers page and shoot us your resume & cover letter. Or, if you’re interested in working with a real-life KEENer, contact us, and we’ll get in touch.
