Taking care of our team and creating a positive culture is at Atomhawk’s core. Every year we commit to providing a working environment where our people can produce the best work of their lives. In 2022, this has allowed us to accomplish feats as a team that would be impossible alone.
It’s been a huge year for us. You may have seen our fresh new branding and website, which we unveiled in June. But there’s so much more we’re proud to share in 2022, so grab a cuppa, get settled in, and let’s go!
Atomhawk is growing! Across our three studios, 59 amazing new people joined our art teams, production, and management.
Our artist and production matrixes were restructured for clearer career progression. There are now more options for building individual careers, including expert specialisations and management pathways. We’ve also made countless promotions and are proud of our team that is growing and evolving alongside the business. We also got some swish new merch this year, aiming to provide our people with more subtle, trendy designs. No walking logos, thanks!
On top of all that, we raised our minimum salary, along with the rest of Sumo Group, with additional pay reviews and a cost-of-living bonus.
As the games industry’s go-to art and design partner, we have the best jobs in the world, but when we’re not working on exciting AAA projects, we love hanging out for team meet-ups, dinners, socials, and game nights. We also love getting out and about for excursions, whether that’s for our summer party in Durham, a trip to Leamington, Nottingham or Birmingham for the Advance team, or a spot of karaoke in Vancouver!
Sometimes the fun’s about learning too. We hold regular life drawing sessions, and visit museums across the country to better understand the world, feeding that knowledge into creating forward-thinking, high-quality art and design.
We moved into our new Gateshead office during the pandemic, but in 2022 we’ve finally welcomed the full team back. At last, our offices are vibrant and alive with energy again! We also rolled out brand new powerful laptops for all staff, as well as new Wacom Cintiqs and tablets for our art team.
Our Leamington office opened this year, as a base for the Advance team and hotdesking space for our remote workers in the Midlands. In 2023, the Canada team will be moving into a beautiful new office – look out for pics when that happens!
2022 marked the sixth consecutive year of the Atomhawk art competition, which gains kudos and popularity every year. The 2022 theme was Forgotten Creation. We welcomed back some of our favourite sponsors and continued the Rising Star Mentorship after a very successful first year trialling the program. An impressive 465 submissions were received from all around the globe, and our Grand Winner, Quinten Blake was offered an amazing opportunity to join Atomhawk full-time! How cool! Congratulations to all the amazing winners this year and especially to Quinten!
What will our seventh art competition bring? Join us in July 2023 to find out!
Atomhawk can only continue to create some of the best work in the games industry by investing in the future. That’s why we connect with educational partners all around the country, and the world, giving talks, sharing wisdom, and conducting portfolio reviews. Our mission is to encourage all students and learners at every stage of their journey to explore the furthermost corners of their potential and become the artists they want to be.
This year, Atomhawk visited 23 educational institutions to deliver wisdom, whether in person or online, and we plan even more visits in 2023.
We also attended eight industry events this year, including Trojan Horse was a Unicorn, XDS, Concept 101 and Develop: Brighton. It was wonderful to be able to connect with our peers once again, delivering talks that inspire, sharing both the knowledge and the problem-solving skills we’ve developed as a team over the last 13 years.
Nader’s talk at SDC2022 on State of the Art: Current and Future Art Development Trends was published on YouTube and is now available for anyone to watch. The valuable talks we give aren’t always made available for the public, but you will be able to find them through our Resources page when they are.
Charity remains an important part of Atomhawk’s ethos; our team is passionate about being environmentally conscious and helping those in need. Here are just a few of the causes we’ve been involved with this year:
In addition to supporting their studio charities, Canada holds a monthly ‘Hawk of the Month’ award. The winner gets to donate $100 to a Canadian charity of their choice, meaning we donated to seven additional Canada-based charities this year.
Although we’ve done a lot this year, we’re thinking about what tomorrow might bring. Keep an eye out for more service lines, expansion of our art and design teams, and news of where we’re jetting off to next to give a talk!
To keep up to date with all things Atomhawk, follow us on our social media at ArtStation, Instagram and LinkedIn.
That’s all from us, see you in 2023!
