Creatively Blog

At Creatively, our driving mission is to champion creativity and help a global creative workforce find jobs. Creatively is more than a platform, we’re a creative collective, dedicated to nurturing a collaborative community that recognizes the imagination, skill, and value of its many individual members.

We believe creativity is an immensely valuable part of the global economy. 

Creative work across all disciplines is a driving force in global businesses, with the power to entertain, innovate, and generate revenue. And in these unprecedented times, we believe the imagination, ambition, and skill of the creative community is more vital than ever. 

We believe a strong creative community is diverse and inclusive.

As a platform built by creatives for creatives, Creatively recognizes the immense importance of nurturing a community that truly reflects the diversity across the full spectrum of the creative economy. We’re committed to spotlighting work from creatives of all different racial, religious, and ethnic backgrounds on our platform, and in particular BIPOC voices, who are often underserved by the broader creative community. We hope that in supporting these creative voices, we can nurture a collective that reflects the true diversity of our industry and help companies and brands connect with a breadth of diverse talent.

We recognize that any commitment to building an inclusive community starts with us: As the Creatively team grows, we’re committed to ensuring BIPOC representation at all levels of our staff and providing extensive bias training to all employees. Additionally, we plan to establish an advisory committee who will help the Creatively leadership team shape diversity and inclusion policies for both our company and our platform.

We believe collaboration makes the work better—always.

Collaboration and giving credit for creative work is at the heart of the Creatively platform. Our app and website make it easy to add collaborators, grow your network, and celebrate each other’s work. We also encourage and celebrate creatives who make good collaborators, both by lifting up fellow creatives and giving appropriate credit to others. We strongly oppose any creative taking undue credit for collaborative work, or using their position to wrongly influence, intimidate, or threaten less experienced creatives. 

We believe creatives should retain the rights to their own work.

You have sole ownership and copyright to the work you upload on Creatively. Our Terms of Use has a section called “user contributions,” which makes clear you retain ownership of your contributions.You can review it here. While Creatively has rights to use and display these contributions in connection with the app and site, we won’t use any of your contributions in promotional materials or marketing without your permission.

We believe creatives should be compensated fairly for their work.

Creatives may choose to work without pay for any number of reasons— to expand their work experience, for example, or as part of a volunteer or pro bono project. However, Creatively strongly encourages creatives to enter into any agreements, with clients or otherwise, with full awareness of the market value of their work and any potential risks. Further, Creatively encourages any prospective clients or employers to ensure they are compensating creatives fairly for any work they commission — whether it’s original or licensed. Creatively is committed to asking creatives for permission for any existing creative work we use in our own marketing materials and offering an honorarium. We are also committed to paying fair market rates for any original work we commission for campaigns or content.

We are foundationally opposed to the idea of “spec work.”

“Spec work,” or speculative work, is any kind of creative work submitted to prospective clients in an effort to win work. We believe that asking creatives to do speculative work is exploitative and unethical, and ultimately devalues both creative professionals and the industry as a whole. Members of the Creatively community are trained, practicing professionals, and should be fairly paid for their efforts at all times. Creatively is aligned with organizations like the AIGA and RGD, along with various advertising agencies, in strongly discouraging the practice of requesting any creative work to be produced or submitted on a speculative basis in order to be considered for acceptance on a project. Organizations or brands using this platform to engage in this practice may be barred from Creatively, and not permitted to rejoin.

We’re working to ensure Creatively is a safe space for all.

The Creatively app and website are a safe space for creatives to connect authentically, share their work, and discover opportunities around the globe. To nurture this community, we have a zero tolerance policy for harmful content and communication, including but not limited to: graphic violence, abuse or harassment, hate speech, suicide or self-harm, promoting terrorism or violent extremism, sex acts, child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity, and any content that threatens or glorifies violence. Additionally, you may not publish other people’s private information without their express permission.

Any account on this platform that violates these policies may be barred from Creatively, and not permitted to rejoin. To flag any content you feel violates these policies, please use the report/block feature on our iOS app or email feedback@creatively.life.

If you have any questions or feedback regarding Creatively’s principles or policies, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at feedback@creatively.life. We would love to hear from you.