Entrepreneur and Artist Kendall Hurns is Blending Together the Worlds of Art, Sports and Fashion

Kendall Hurns is somebody that does it all. The creative's first official foray into the sports universe was representing newly-retired four-time NBA champion Andre Iguodala. Now Hurns blends together the dynamic worlds of art, sports, and fashion all together as the founder of The Arte Haus—a company that tackles a multitude of initiatives including building innovative artist collaborations, and offering consulting services to artists along with providing management services. Before all of that, however, Hurns was a member of the McDonald's squad, having worked at the company in his teens. Tons of very successful individuals in all fields are McDonald's alumni members, which has led to the launch of the company's new initiative called “1 in 8.”

What is “1 in 8" exactly? Well, it's a program that brings together both the past and current McDonald's crew members to create a network of expansion and opportunities—based on the statistic that a whopping 1 in 8 Americans have worked at the Golden Arches. Members of the 1 in 8 will have access to exclusive programming, which includes mentorships with notable alums, reunions with former teammates and more. One of those "Elite 8" members is indeed Kendall Hurns, whom we caught up with recently to chat more about his career journey.

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Robotic Minds Concepts is a name that you should familiarize yourself with as you'll be seeing a lot more of it in the future. A lifestyle concept brand centered around the idea that "we as individuals have the power to break old, confining molds and build ourselves new at any given moment," a variety of uniquely-designed hoodies, t-shirts, canvas prints, accessories and more are just some of the valuables you can find on the company's website with more in store along the way.

Describing Arte Haus and Robotic Minds Concepts as being his two main companies at the moment, Hurns has certainly come a long way in the entrepreneurship field since his days of working at McDonald's as a teenager. "It was my very first summer job," he tells us. "I was about 14 or 15-years-old, and it was a cool experience because a lot my friends and I would just hang out there for fun. I would go to McDonald's so much that when I started working there it was a super cool transition—the people that worked there taught me a bunch of stuff that I didn't know because obviously I hadn't worked there before. It was a cool experience and I took a lot from it—especially on the creative side."

Fast forward some odd years later, and Hurns is now a part of the company's "1 in 8" alumni as an example of one of their biggest successes. "It the actually the craziest stat I've ever heard—apparently one out of every eight individuals work at McDonald's in their lifetime! It speaks to their branding—I took my son to the McDonald's headquarters, and I just thought about how we've had this shared experience of McDonald's over the years." Hurns participation as an alumni member also means he got the honor of designing that nifty letterman jacket he mentioned earlier.

"The start of the design process was nostalgia—just kind of tapping into how I remember the brand making me feel when I was younger," he says continuing: "I remember McDonald's as really colorful and fun. One of the most important things they allowed me to do was pour myself into the jacket. During the discussions they actually told me they 'wanted more Kendall,' so I put a lot of myself and Robotic Minds into it. It was incredible!"

Kendall, as he says, is "always in the creative space," and "always conceptualizing" 24/7. At least couple times a week he's discussing some sort of design, and that also includes working with a lot of artists. What exactly does he look for when it comes to who he chooses to partner with? "Obviously a connection with their artwork. I collect a lot of art and understand the emotional aspect of it. On the business side I take that same approach as there has to be something organic coming from them for us to work together."

A true connection to your craft and individuality is what will get you connected to Hurns, who's got some fun stuff in the pipeline that we'll be seeing soon. "More collaborations," he says. "I truly believe in collaboration as it brings two different worlds together. We did a collaboration with LeBron James, and we have a second part of it that you'll be seeing at the beginning of the NBA season. We're also working on our vision for next year in terms of what artists we want to work with. Creativity can be tricky because it takes a long time to plan, but we're just trying to be ahead of the game."

You can continue to keep up with Kendall Hurns via Instagram.

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