The Marginalian
The Marginalian

CreativeAllies: Artist, Meet Artist

The cross-pollination of disciplines and talents is a powerful beast, and we find that it’s all the more prevalent in the creative sphere — lots of musicians also design and illustrate, lots of designers also mix music, lots of filmmakers play an instrument. Startup Creative Allies has stuck its flagpole in this rich intersection by matching visual artists with their favorite musicians to create anything from album art to tour posters to music videos.

It’s a simple yet brilliant concept: The “allies” — designers, photographers, illustrators, animators and creative types alike — upload their creations inspired by music, which can then be licensed to the musicians that inspired them if the latter choose to “activate” them. Musicians can post requests for whatever they need made, be it a radio commercial or a t-shirt design, and allies can browse jobs to find something that strikes a creative chord.

It’s sort of like Threadless meets crowdSPRING, only with far more gratifying street cred if your art gets chosen by the very musician who inspired it. Licensing fees range from $25 for a high-res photograph to $200 for a Flash movie, but said street cred is no doubt priceless.

So whether Ani DiFranco needs a tour poster or the Harvest of Hope festival wants a flyer, the only thing standing between artist and artist is a simple, free signup process open to anyone anywhere in the world.

Hailing from indie music marketing support outfit Music Allies, the team has previously worked with Ani DiFranco, Sia, Aimee Mann, Jack Johnson, Mason Jennings, Martin Sexton and many other such fine musicians. And we think they’re onto something great.

Check out Creative Allies for a wonderful dose of cross-pollinated creativity.


Published February 17, 2010

https://www.themarginalian.org/2010/02/17/creative-allies/

BP

www.themarginalian.org

BP

PRINT ARTICLE

Filed Under

View Full Site

The Marginalian participates in the Bookshop.org and Amazon.com affiliate programs, designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to books. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book from a link here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. Privacy policy. (TLDR: You're safe — there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses.)