Scott Rempe ’88: An artist with a business mindset

Throughout his life, Scott Rempe ’88 has shown a passion for art, business and helping others. His Clemson story began when Rempe enrolled as a graphic communications major in 1984.

One professor in particular, Ken Leshienski, made a big impact on Rempe when he encouraged Rempe to consider pursuing sales on top of graphic design. This moment would influence Rempe’s career and shape his future path. Taking what his professor said to heart, by the time he graduated in 1987, Rempe had the skills of a graphic designer and used those skills to open a free-lancing illustration business and enter the corporate world.

Following graduation, Rempe spent 17 years in sales and eventually pivoted to marketing at BB&T (now Truist), where he found a good balance between both his creative and business sides. Later, he moved from BB&T after 10 years and began marketing and selling for yet another printing company. Meanwhile, he had also been running his free-lancing illustration business for 25 years, Scooter Ink Illustrations.

Coming up on his retirement, Rempe has been wondering what this next chapter in his life might look like, and when thinking about it, he landed on something that encompassed the three things he had been passionate about during his time as a student, as a professional and as a person—a love for art, skills for business and a desire to help others. This led him to eventually find himself with the unique opportunity to impact a large community of people using his skills—artists.

Over the years, Rempe has returned to Clemson to speak with graphic communications students about career and networking advice and to share his journey as an illustrator in the business world. He branched out and started to speak to other young artists as well, and that’s when he began to notice a commonality.

“What I started seeing over and over again was all these creatives who were extremely talented, underselling their work or not marketing it appropriately,” explains Rempe. “I realized my success in sales and as an illustrator was largely due to my business skills. I knew how to sell and market my work, but many artists don’t.”

Since then, Rempe has been meeting and sharing business advice with writers, illustrators, painters and other creatives through one-on-one meetings, podcasts and conferences to show them how to have a business mindset.

“My main goal is to teach this community tools to use to ensure success. This could be anything from implementing contracts to raising hourly rates,” he says. “So far, the overarching message I’ve received is that my advice makes logical sense, but many creatives just hadn’t thought about these things previously.”

Rempe is excited to continue working with young artists. “If I can help younger artists and set them up for success now, that impacts them for the next 30 years. That’s fulfilling for me.”