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"We
founded ONYX Media Solutions on a revolutionary principle:
The customer's needs come first. We know what it's like
to be clients of agencies and overpriced production companies.
Our goal is to be the anti-agency agency, and the best
way to achieve that goal is to do the opposite of business-as-usual."
- Grant Kauffman, ONYX Media Solutions |
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Grant
Kauffman
President & Sr. Producer
You can tell a lot about someone from the movies he likes.
One of Grant’s all-time favorites: the
documentary My Best Fiend, where Klaus Kinski explodes
in
violent fits of borderline-psychotic, aesthetically inspired,
vein-popping rage in virtually every scene. It’s
exhausting to watch. We think Grant identifies with the
filmmaker Werner Herzog, Kinski’s friend and sometime
director. The film is a metaphor for Grant’s work
at ONYX, where he has to soothe, cajole, and threaten
creative egos all the time. At least we hope that’s
the reason. Grant’s other all-time favorites: any
film adaptation of Little Women. His favorite character:
Beth. Always Beth.
Grant’s story begins, like so many film icons before
him, at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. But he chose
to leave the Celluloid Prairie for the bucolic swamps
of Florida, where he worked for Don King Productions.
(Suddenly, the Kinski thing makes sense.) Since then,
he’s done just about everything you can do in corporate
video. But he always had an idea about turning what he
did into something bigger and better.
In 2001, that idea took shape as ONYX Media Solutions.Pitchman,
client rep, editor, director, concept guy — Grant
wears a lot of hats at ONYX. Most importantly,he keeps
the rest of us going. He’s created an atmosphere
where creative people can take risks, be at their best,
and still like each other. And he had the foresight to
understand that customers benefit from that kind of atmosphere.
In other words, he sees the best in us, and helps us see
it too. (Suddenly, the
Little Women thing makes sense.)
Gary Hansbrough
Digital Media
To the untrained eye, the coolest thing about Gary is
the bit part he played in Animal House. Seriously. Get
the DVD. You'll see Gary in all his fraternal glory as
a bona fide brother of Delta House. He still has the toga.
But here's the real payoff: because of Gary, everyone
at ONYX ranks just two degrees away from Kevin Bacon.
That first acting job launched Gary down a long road of
other gigs. He's done his share of corporate video and
commercials. But he was never content with just being
in front of the camera. So he turned his curiosity about
what went on behind the scenes into expertise on producing
and distributing video. As the ONYX expert on streaming
media, Gary's one of the only people we know who can be
on-camera in the morning, and have that video digitized
and online by day's end. He's our version of Orson Welles
(minus the girth). And he makes all of it look effortless.
He's the kind of guy who gives us opportunity to use words
like "panache" and "aplomb" and really
mean them in a Noel Coward kind of way. How many people
can you say that about?
Jeff Velarde
Graphic Design
Jeff Velarde holds court as ONYX’s official renaissance
man. Designer. Illustrator. Animator . . Print. Web. Video
. . . His business card is 3 feet long. His resume looks
like the Manhattan phonebook.
And just in case you think he’s all business, he’s
as comfortable discussing the virtues and versatility
of alpha channels as he is the questionable production
values in The Omega Man. (Ask him to tick off the landlocked
countries of South America, or who served as McKinley’s
vice president.)
Trivia aside, Jeff’s passion is his art. He has the
unique gift of seeing the sublime where most see the everyday.
His paintings remind you that beauty doesn’t come
from what you look at, but how you look.
Jeff has a degree in graphic design from The Colorado
Institute of Art. He’s been helping companies put
their best visual foot forward for the past 19+ years.
When it comes to design, he’s seen it all. Better
yet, he’s done it all, and he’s done it well.
That’s what makes him such a great asset to ONYX
and our customers.
Ashley Grandisch
Interactive Design
What’s the best trait you can ask for in a designer?
How about someone who sees a blank page as a challenge.
Someone who sees possibilities where everyone else sees
only obstacles or nothing at all.
Meet Ashley Grandisch. After several years of award-winning
design work, and with a semester of
high-school Spanish under her belt, Ashley sells her car,
boxes up her stuff, and moves to Barcelona. Some would
ask, “Why?” Ashley asked, “Why not?”
She taught English, learned Spanish, honed her already
impressive design skills, and — lucky for us —
found her way back
to Colorado.
What did the experience teach her about design? A lot.
For example, in Ashley’s point of view, creativity
and commerce don’t have to speak different languages.
They can work with each other, build on one another’s
strengths, make a whole greater than the sum of the parts.
Good design may be a universal language, but the successful
dialogue of form and function needs a skilled translator.
That’s where Ashley comes in.
You could say that, from a design perspective, Ashley’s
native dialect is print. With the online revolution, she
made the leap from page to screen. But she brought with
her the craftsmanship, discipline, and attention to detail
that are rare in a lot of interactive design you see today.
Ashley has a degree in visual communications and graphic
design from the University of Kansas. She also has a PhD
in wanderlust. |
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