Outsourcing Key to Walker Creative

Advertising and design firms exist because of outsourcing.

Walker Creative Inc., for example, is hired by clients primarily to design publications. In turn, the Fayetteville design company will outsource specific photography, copy editing and public relations duties to freelancers.

“We exist based on people outsourcing their projects,” said Tim Walker, president of the graphic design company. “We exist because corporations’ in-house communications departments outsource work to us. That’s a large part of our client base.

“We’re project managers, too. We’ll coordinate a team of people, some of whom are in our office, some aren’t.”

Among Walker’s clients is The Life@Work Journal, the international Christian business magazine based in Fayetteville.

Having Walker Creative design the publication saves money and headaches, said Stephen Caldwell, Life@Work’s executive editor.

“Walker Creative has been indispensable to us in creating a first-class publication,” Caldwell said. “They are as talented as anyone we could find in the country.”

Caldwell said he would have to hire a graphics staff of two to three full-time employees to handle the work Walker Creative does for Life@Work.

“It’s headache free for us because you hand somebody the ball and you know they’re not going to fumble,” Caldwell said. “It gives you great peace of mind.

“I use Tim because I could not persuade anyone that talented to move to Fayetteville,” said Sean Womack, co-founder and “chief creative officer” for Life@Work. “I use him because of fantastic work. I could certainly get it done cheaper, but not better.”

Walker, a native of Jonesboro, left his job as a graphic designer at the University of Arkansas in 1992 to start his own business. The company name has changed a couple of times but has been Walker Creative for the past five years.

Now, Walker Creative has nine employees (including Walker) and a slew of awards. The company designed covers for Life@Work that were included in the 34th Society of Publication Designers Annual in 1999.

Walker Creative also had work chosen for inclusion in The World’s Best Publication Design, published by the Supon Design Group.

Walker Creative’s work has been recognized in national design trade publications such as Communication Arts, Print’s Regional Design Annual, HOW Magazine, Step-By-Step Graphics’ Design Annual and Graphic Design USA.

Besides Life@Work, Walker Creative’s clients include The Injoy Group of Atlanta, Word Publishing of Nashville, Tenn., and several local companies, including the Bank of Fayetteville; the UA; Wal-Mart Stores Inc.; J.B. Hunt Transport in Lowell; Ozark Guidance Center and Northwest Health Systems, both in Springdale; and the Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care in Fort Smith.

“The type of work we do is the most important thing to us,” Tim Walker said. “We’re not focused on the billing.”

Walker said he enjoyed “the pleasure of constantly trying to improve your work and your business.”

Outsourcing is just the nature of the business for design and advertising agencies. Many companies have design departments but outsource some work to local agencies like Walker Creative.

Walker said that his company does some advertising work but that the main focus is design.

“Out of the nine people on staff here, seven of them are designers,” he said, “including me.”