Who we are

The Story Workshop is a design studio led by Erik Evans. The Workshop creates powerful brand experiences and visual storytelling filtered through a unique vision and sensibility.

Forged by a career spent in animation, marketing, agency work and publishing and fueled by my love for graphic design, typography, film, graphic novels, DIY building and storytelling we strive to create powerful work that connects on a visual as well as conceptual level.

What we offer

The Story Workshop offers a commitment to creativity, integrity and craft. Delivering brand experiences that engage, delight and entertain.

BRAND STRATEGY
BRAND IDENTITY
EXPERIENCE
PACKAGING
CAMPAIGNS
ILLUSTRATION
DIGITAL

The best brand strategy is developed as a partnership between the client and design team. This is a key component to establishing a road map that will guide us in expressing your brand attributes to your consumers through design. The best identities require courage and a strong vision.

Who am I?

Erik is the Creative Director at his company, The Story Workshop. With a career spanning over 25 years Erik has had the pleasure of working creatively with some of the best companies in the Bay Area including Pixar Animation Studios, Duarte Design, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Facebook, Cisco and others.

As a creative leader, Erik utilizes a background in animation, illustration, branding, graphic design, film, design thinking and storytelling, to create powerful work that connects on a visual as well as conceptual level. His goal is to create powerful brand experiences and visual storytelling that filter through a unique vision and sensibility.

Erik holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Animation and Illustration from San Jose State University and a Master of Fine Arts in Illustration from The University of Hartford. He lives in Bend, Oregon with his wife, Tarah, and twins Jackson and Parker as well as furry kids Cody and Kirby.

For more information on Erik or his work, please visit www.thestoryworkshop.com

Personal Manifesto

A few years ago, I hit a crossroads in my creative life.

I found myself questioning the very foundation of my work.
Did design still matter to me?
Was I meant to be doing something entirely different?
Was there a deeper meaning I was missing?

Instead of burning everything down and starting over, I chose something quieter and ultimately more transformative. I went back to the basics. I followed the creative instincts I had been ignoring and let curiosity lead the way.

Those experiments became three projects that changed everything.

First, I started building with my hands. I put aside fear and perfectionism and learned to work with wood, steel, and stone. I rebuilt my backyard piece by piece: a deck, a pergola, stonework, and a studio I designed and constructed from the ground up.

Second, I returned to comics, the medium that shaped my imagination as a kid. I wrote and drew stories simply for the joy of it, reconnecting with the part of me that sees the world through characters, worlds, and narratives.

Third, I created and taught an after-school program that helped kids write and illustrate their own stories. Watching them light up with possibility reminded me why creativity matters in the first place.

What surprised me was how interconnected everything was.
Every skill I had honed in my career design, storytelling, problem solving, systems thinking, coaching showed up naturally in everything I did. Building with my hands became a physical expression of design thinking. Making comics reawakened my love for storytelling. Teaching unlocked a nurturing and coaching side I had never fully embraced.

By doing what I genuinely loved writing, drawing, building, teaching I rediscovered who I had been since childhood. I returned to the kid alone in his room, dreaming impossible worlds into existence.

And suddenly everything made sense.

When I embraced the things I loved without irony and without hesitation, my entire creative life shifted. My work became more inspired. My relationships deepened. My sense of purpose became clearer. The confidence that emerged carried me from senior designer to art director to creative director.

More than anything, I found gratitude.
For the craft.
For the journey.
For the chance to keep creating.

That gratitude continues to shape the creative director I am today.