Episode 381: Stepping Out of the Linear Career Lane with Edmond Huot, Part II
Episode Notes
How prepared are you to confront your abilities and put yourself on the line in a way that generates a new revenue stream? Can you be enough, no matter the outcome? Edmond Huot answers those two questions and others.
In our first conversation, we learned that Edmond’s early years on a farm in midwestern Canada shaped his imaginative storytelling over all things relating to aviation, architecture, and illustration. The beautiful part of turning 50 is revisiting your childhood, mining what lay dormant, and resurrecting a newfound passion you can bring alive today. Edmond is stepping out of the career lane he built to bring out his ‘inner illustrative artist.’ Stepping Out of the Linear Career Lane with Edmond Huot, Part I | WeMentor Mondays with Nancy PODCAST
Edmond has succeeded in New York as a creative director in an NYC-based company of 20+ advertising, design, and PR firms, working for clients like Honda, TD Bank, Expedia, Singapore Airlines, Microsoft, and Kenneth Cole Fashions. In 2016, he shifted gears to focus his time and attention on revisiting his childhood passion for aviation and built a practice area in the airline space with partner and longtime friend Peter Clark. They formed an aviation-focused design firm called Forward Studio, a division of their Forward Media company.
It isn’t often that we can have friendships in our youth that evolve into business partnerships and entrepreneurial collaborators like Edmond found with his Canadian friend, Peter Clark. Through their collaboration and innovative thinking, they expanded their international airline branding and public relations studio work to include brand design, media, advertising, and special events. You can hear insights into why their partnership works.
The new twist for Edmond is overcoming the internal challenges of becoming a professional illustrative artist, where their public relations and special events will include the backdrop of his artwork and eventually feature other artists’ works. He gives a special event his signature, like the sketches he makes on thank you cards. He adds a personal touch to everything he does.
Edmond ran his concept by an aircraft manufacturer, who gave him his first green light. His description of how the special event is coming together is fascinating and a must-hear conversation if you are an entrepreneurial artist or anyone enthralled in making a living from your resources.
Below are other aspects of our conversation, which feels like a conversation just between the two of us that you secretly get to listen to:
- The impact of deregulation on the airline industry and how Edmond brings back romance, glamour, and humanity through branding to the security-laid airline industry.
- Livery design is the outside decoration of an airplane. When does it make sense to redesign an airline brand that may include repainting 50 airplanes?
- Edmond and his team take customers through a six-touchpoint chart, a brand design journey. The work is intense because it costs a lot of money if they get it wrong.
- How Edmond and Peter led their team and clients through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
- Edmond’s imaginative way of working with airline clients and their brands to get at the heart of their business. His explanation is priceless.
- Edmond explains the temperature read or green light he received from an aircraft manufacturer. Once he sold his new concept to marry some type of art event or exhibition with a public relations media mixture, the work to make the event happen and produce the artwork of the interior of a plane began.
Episode Resources
NEXT STEP: Challenge yourself and do the three Conscious Attentive Leadership Mentoring (C.A.L.M.) Activities, below. 
Conscious Attentive Leadership Mentoring
After listening, do these three C.A.L.M. Activities:
- Take this risk or do this adventurous task: I think this adventurous task is worth continuing into this week. Edmond Huot seeks to create work with a dual purpose, bridging the connection between our spiritual desires and emotional connection to our lifework. Answer this question: How do you think about your lifework through a dual purpose, as Edmond Huot describes it, or through another lens.
- Apply Self-Compassion: Acknowledge that the question above will take time to ponder. Allow yourself to sit with it and see where your thoughts take you. Experiment by setting a time limit, like a few days or a week, to come up with your answer.
- Welcome Appreciation: “I appreciate Edmond Huot’s courage to explore his transition from a creative director and design professional to adding professional artist to his lifework. Putting yourself out into the world musters up the depth of who you are and requires us to integrate your ego in a new way. We need to become egoless or more of who we are by evolving in the direction the Universe is nudging us. I appreciate Edmond and his journey. I appreciate his authenticity and am excited to learn how he integrates his art into his projects.”
Your Turn. Start with, “I appreciate what I heard from today’s Guest Mentor, Edmond Huot. I appreciate this week’s adventurous task because….”
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Guest Mentor
Edmond Huot.
As chief creative officer and founding partner at Forward Studio, Edmond Huot shares more than 25 years of experience with his clients, colleagues, and friends.
Growing up on a farm in midwestern Canada, Edmond spent countless hours lost in imaginative storytelling, obsessing over all things airliner, architecture, and design. His penchant for the dramatic and theatrical laid a formative foundation for what would eventually blossom into a career in advertising. 
Edmond and his longtime friend, business partner, and entrepreneurial collaborator Peter Clark founded several companies in Canada and the U.S. In his late thirties, Edmond rose to become the creative head of a New York City-based holding company comprising more than 20 advertising, design, and public relations firms, whose clients have included Honda Cars, TD Bank, Expedia, Singapore Airlines, Microsoft Tableau, and Kenneth Cole Fashions. In 2016, he shifted gears and began focusing his time and attention on revisiting his childhood passion for aviation, building a practice area in the airline space. Today, his creative outlook and point of view touch a range of bespoke services, including brand design, PR, media, advertising, and special events.
Episode 381: Stepping Out of the Linear Career Lane with Edmond Huot, Part II
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