DADSIGNER: Episode 15 with KC Clark

In this episode of the Dasigner Podcast, I’m good friend, KC Clark, a creative entrepreneur, dad, and owner of Legacy Creative. The conversation delves into KC’s journey through creativity, fatherhood, and his shift from being a primary designer to mentoring and coaching other creatives.

With a deep dive into his agency’s mission and personal life, KC shares insights on building a legacy, collaborating with others, and fostering creativity within his community.

Resources Mentioned:

Julie Clark’s Music: https://www.juliesusanneclark.com/

Connect with KC:

Website: https://legacycreative.co/

Instagram: @kcclark.online

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  Speaker 1 (Michael):
  Hello everyone and welcome back to the Dad Designer Podcast. I'm joined today by a friend. Not everyone on the show has been friends—I haven't met many people for the first time when we hit record—but today I'm excited to have Casey on and just kind of jive. So if this episode runs long, it's because it's two guys catching up. But Casey, welcome to the show.

  Speaker 2 (KC):
  Absolutely, bro. Thanks so much for having me, man. It was awesome.

  Speaker 1 (Michael):
  Yeah, and so why don’t you tell people a little bit about where you are, who you are, your family, and what you do?

  Speaker 2 (KC):
  Yeah, yeah. My name is Casey Clark. I’m originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, and moved to Asheboro, North Carolina here just recently. I’m a dad, husband, business owner, entrepreneur, and I have a lot of history in art and creativity. I have three daughters, who are all married to their first loves, which is just always a win—I love that. Two granddaughters, twin granddaughters with my second daughter, and then my son, who lives with us, he’s 18. Man, I’m just loving life as a dad with his son, doing it in a way that’s not even adjacent to the way I was raised. I love it. It feels like I’m getting to live the dream life with my kid, you know, with all the dad stuff. But it’s awesome, I’m loving it. My wife is just amazing. She’s a singer-songwriter. We met through music. Our first unofficial date was me inviting myself—or I think her inviting me, I can’t remember the story, it always gets twisted—to her house for a pot of coffee and a song share. I left that night in the car and I was like, “God, can I have this woman, please?” She was a dream. So yeah, we’ve spent 25 years—this February will be our 25th anniversary. We spent a good portion of that time writing songs, traveling. I spent a season as a worship pastor, and after that, we did some more writing and traveling. Now, we’ve shifted focus to where she’s leading the creative edge when it comes to music, and I get to play the role of encourager, underwriter, and bounce ideas off and cheerlead from the sidelines. I get to see the best parts of the creative process with her, which is awesome. She’s got a lot of brilliant ideas, which I get to be a part of. So, we’re really finding our way in a different season of life, and I’m just loving it, really, really enjoying it, with all its intricacies and challenges. Man, it’s great. I love it.

  Speaker 1 (Michael):
  Yeah, yeah. And if you get a chance to listen to Julie’s music, it’s some of the most from-the-heart, deep, rich, lyrically, and musically. Her voice is incredible and unique. Yeah, just if you want to feel things, put on Julie’s music.

  Speaker 2 (KC):
  Yeah, if you’ve never read the Psalms, I tell Julie, “You’re a psalmist.” And I don’t mean that in the modern interpretation, like, “Oh, you’re a worship leader, or you do songs in church.” I tell her, “No, you’re a psalmist,” because you cover every expanse of human emotion. Somehow, you have the capacity to paint a visual picture with specificity of your memories. A lot of her music is really based on memory, but somehow, her experience in life and with God is translated in these songs. Even though she’s being specific, it pulls something out of me. I’m very intimately acquainted with these stories, but if I wasn’t that acquainted with them, I’ve found—personally—just listening back like, “Wow.” I don’t understand how an artist can do that. It’s like she’s a train wreck—like, let the train come in and wreck your heart—but she has the capacity somehow to bring nostalgia and wonder and awe. I don’t know how she does it.

  Speaker 1 (Michael):
  And on your end, too, you’re an agency owner.

  Speaker 2 (KC):
  Yeah, yeah. I started the agency—I didn’t start it to start a business. I started it because it was an invitation. I felt this very clear invitation from God, “Hey, I want you to do this. I want you to start this company, I want you to call it Legacy Creative, and I want you to make space for your kids.” It’s interesting to me because I’ll share more about how there’s a distinction. I thought it was one and the same, but there’s a distinction in that, and it’s been really revelatory for me in this season of life. But yeah, I started it with an invitation. I was in the music world, so a lot of my clients in the beginning were musicians and artists. I was steeped in the creative community, so those were my people. They just became friends and clients, and then those friends referred me to other people, and it just kind of grew. Over time, it just became something where—I guess I’ve always been very efficiency-oriented—so I began to realize, “There’s got to be ways to do this further, or faster. We can get further faster by incorporating certain things.” So, I really became like a systems and processes junkie, even as a designer. And of course, I mean, we don’t have to get into this, but as AI comes online, it’s like I’m learning how to not draw hard lines between those things. I’m like, “This is just another tool in the toolbelt for me in my realm to serve and steward a client’s vision.” I’m learning that all those things I’ve learned over the last 20-25 years as a designer and illustrator, my degree was in illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design, have morphed into, “Okay, I’m bringing ideas into reality. I’m telling stories.” So, just leveraging design in different ways, and because it exposed me to so many more tools, it made sense for it to become more of an agency. It’s now a full-service agency. I’m not a videographer, I’m not a photographer, I don’t do those things, but I love partnering and collaborating with different practitioners in the creative arts and media, especially when it comes to storytelling. So, yeah, the agency was just kind of a natural progression. I felt I was being led and invited into it.

  Speaker 1 (Michael):
  I love that. And you mentioned earlier, when you started Legacy, there was this call to bring your family in and mesh the two together. But as you explored this, it sounds like the reality may be a little bit different. What has that looked like, and how are they woven in?

  Speaker 2 (KC):
  As a dad, I realized I spent the greater part of my parenting journey as the sole provider, always thinking, “Here’s an idea, let’s go for it,” but not necessarily taking into consideration that the original invitation wasn’t to start something to drag my family along. It was to start this company, call it this, and make space for your kids. When I realized that distinction, I was like, “Man, I missed it.” Hindsight being 20/20, I’ve recently been a part of this dad’s group. There’s a guy named Chip Dodd who has a book called Parenting with Heart, and one of the first things they talked about is that parenting is like a baby giraffe on ice skates—it’s clumsy, like there’s no perfection. There is no “nailing it.” That brought me so much freedom, because this season I’m in now is about going back and saying, “Okay, it’s never too late to make space for your kids.” I have adult children from 18 to 30 and grandkids. So now I’m a granddad, and now there’s a whole other generation of people in my life that I’m called to steward. And I’m learning how to do it in a different way. One of the first steps I took was establishing dates where it was like, “On this day, let’s hop on a call, let’s do FaceTime, let’s connect.” Just being really intentional in that space to say, “I care about you, I care about life, I’m turning what I do for clients to my kids.” I’m holding space for them in the sense of like, “Hey, what’s going on in your life? What are you dreaming about? How can I encourage you? How can I help you?” With them, of course, there’s a whole different level of intimacy, right? I’ve raised them, I’ve seen every aspect and dimension of their life, and now there’s distance, but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep that. I think I was focused on being a provider but wasn’t very present. So now I’m realizing, the gift of this season is that I’m doing more than I ever have, but I’m prioritizing being present with them. It’s a different season of life, and I’m grateful for it.

  Speaker 1 (Michael):
  Yeah, I love that. How much of that intentionality do you think 25-year-old Casey or 30-year-old Casey could’ve really given to them when you’re just trying to keep them alive and figure it out on your own?

  Speaker 2 (KC):
  I think what I’m learning now is that there are levels. There’s unconscious incompetence—I didn’t know what I didn’t know—and I’m moving towards conscious competence. Meaning, I know what I know now because of my experience. Wisdom teaches us in reverse—experience and knowledge become wisdom. The reality is, when I was in those earlier years, I didn’t have the capacity to understand what I needed to do in the moment. But I don’t beat myself up about it too much. There are still feelings about it, and I still feel like, “Man, I botched that.” But I recognize that it’s just a feeling. And when I have conversations with my kids, it’s like, “We just never really addressed these things, and now we are, and that’s awesome.” I think now, I’m learning to rely on wisdom and humility, and being willing to be stretched. I think that’s why coaching and consulting are so important to me, because I realized I didn’t have that. I never invested in myself. I just kept going. And as a parent, I’m realizing you can’t just be a locomotive, running through life, hoping everybody catches up. Parenting is a constant work in progress, just like the work we do as creatives.