Why this project?

I launched MoGraph Mentor, the online school for motion graphics, in 2012. Through the first few years of that experience I became interested in the idea of hybrid learning centers. A place where people could leverage the abundance of online education, but still get a more wholistic and formative experience.

Traditional art schools are successful in part because of the environment that students find themselves in. Social context around learning is THE most powerful human motivator. You hear it from artists time and time again, “The best part of art school was being there.” You’re not paying for access to information when you spend $30-$65K per year at art school, you’re paying to be on the campus around other students and having access to on-sight instructors. You’re paying for the wholistic experience around your learning, which is powerful.

If online schools can find ways to build that experiential learning on top of their training libraries, then we will see some truly breakthrough educational models. This was the line of thinking that I became interested in sometime in 2014.

The Raleigh Campus

In 2015 I started to target a first campus site, with the intention of buying a commercial building and renovating it. I went under contract on a site just outside of Raleigh in the town of Fuquay-Varina. It was an old pharmacy and had a great location on a corner in the quaint downtown.

The final designs I created with the help of a structural engineer were designed to have a large open cafe and computer lab, along with 2 private classrooms for live and online instruction. It was designed to be a cross between a retail and institutional experience.

After getting an initial zoning approval as a “retail” use, our final zoning was classified as “educational.” The deciding factor was my intention to include people under 18 as part of the intended use. If it was workshops for adults then it could be retail, but in serving young people a new set of requirements kicked in. This zoning made it clear the second floor was unusable for the intended purpose, at least within the constraints of my budget. So we pulled out of the purchase agreement and decided to look at different locations. This led me to widen my search to entire Southeast (NC, SC, GA, FL) based on our families desire to live near family.

The Sarasota Campus

We relocated to Sarasota with the intention of building the first campus location. Our new site was around the corner from Ringling College Of Art & Design, a proximity I felt could help us gain some early traction.

I signed a multi-year lease for two adjoined spaces that gave us around 6,000 Sq Ft. It was a lovely modern building attached to a french cafe and art gallery. So the location seemed like a good fit all around.

I built 2 computer labs, a back office area, multiple lounges and a workshop venue. It was lovely.

What I learned.

The Sarasota campus was closed after 2 years in operation. While I was disappointed to shut it down and re-focus on digital, it was the right decision in the long run.

This experiment taught me several things:

• Hybrid model is promising, but there needs to be a long runway.

• Cross-functional learning environments are the future.

• Self-directed education is the future, but people need time to adjust.

Create Academy was an experiment with a concept I had been thinking about for several years so I am grateful for the chance. I would do many things differently the next time around, which will hopefully come sooner than later.