A Creative Market Open House Event

Once a quarter, the Creative Market team gets together in our San Francisco home office to hang out, have some fun, discuss ideas and projects, and plan out the next quarter. Last week was one of those weeks for us. It was great getting to hang out with the everyone (since about half of the staff is remote at this point), but the whole team agreed that somebody important was missing from the party. Who was missing you ask? YOU were!

The Creative Market Team + The Creative Market Community

Getting together as a team is awesome, but we wanted to get the Creative Market team together with the Creative Market community. Each and every member of the Creative Market team works hard to make this place the best that it can possibly be, and we’re doing that for you folks, for the entire community! So, why not chat with some of you, get to know you, and see what thoughts and ideas you have for Creative Market?

A Simple Event for a Simple Idea

Seems like a pretty simple idea right? We agree. And a simple idea like that calls for a nice simple event. Nothing flashy, no big crowds to get lost in, just the Creative Market team; a dozen or so Creative Market shoppers, shop owners, and members; and menu of delicious food and drinks.

 

 

So, we reached out to a few local Creative Market community members, ordered some dinner, and had an Open House Event right in our very own Creative Market office.

The Results

The verdict? The open house was fantastic! The feedback regarding the open house, from both the team members and the community members that were able to join us, was overwhelmingly positive. We all had so much fun just hanging out, learning more about each other, and talking about a site that we all enjoy and are invested in.

 

We talked to community members who had been using the site for years, as well as some who were relative newcomers. We chatted with shop owners who have made thousands of dollars on Creative Market, and shop owners who have made tens of dollars. We got to know shoppers who have just recently made their first purchases, and shoppers who have spent hundreds of dollars on Creative Market.

 

Everyone had so much to say about the site, that the team had to start a shared spreadsheet to make sure we keep track of all of the ideas (there were some really great ones).

 

Will Creative Market Have Another Open House Event?

It was pretty clear that we all enjoyed this open house. While we don’t have specific dates in mind just yet, we are interested in making this a more regular occurrence. So, if you’re in the San Francisco area, don’t be surprised if you see an invite to a Creative Market open house show up in your inbox down the road.

Would You Be Interested in Attending?

If you’re in the San Francisco area, would you be interested in attending a Creative Market Open House? Let us know in the comment section below, and we’ll add you to our invite list for the future!

A Creative Market Open House Event

Photos and Video From Our Lettering and Lattes Event at SXSW

Last week, nine members of the Creative Market team headed down to Austin, TX for a little thing called South By Southwest (SXSW). Okay, that was obviously an understatement, SXSW is in no way a small event. It’s huge, and we were excited to get the chance to hang out with so many interesting and inspiring creative people! Still, when you’re attending an event that big, it can often be hard to break away from the crowds, have real conversations, and get to know and learn from new people. So, we decided to plan an event for just that purpose. Read on to learn all about Creative Market’s Lettering and Lattes SXSW event.

Music courtesy of Marmoset

What was Lettering and Lattes?

Don’t get us wrong, we love awesome festival parties, they’re a blast! The thing is, we also love learning about people, their experiences, and their creative ideas. We knew, in order to do that in a genuine way at SXSW, we were going to need to proactively set aside some time and plan for these types of interactions. It’s with this intention that we started planning our SXSW event.

How did the Lettering and Lattes idea develop?

The idea for the event was originally thought up by our Community and Design teams, but the event definitely ended up being a whole Creative Market Team effort.

The Creative Market team at Lettering and Lattes

We decided to hold the event in the morning, so people would still be able to enjoy all of those great late night parties, which naturally lead us to TOMS Roasting Co.

There’s no way we were going to have a morning event without caffeine, and TOMS has some of the best coffee in Austin. The folks at TOMS were incredibly obliging, and they worked closely with us during the entire event planning process.

After finding a location, we knew we needed a cohesive theme to help tie everything together. We asked ourselves, “What does our community love?” “What will really get conversations going at this event?” The answer was so simple: Lettering.

You only have to spend a short time with the Creative Market community to know that just about everyone here, including shop owners, buyers, and team members, loves hand lettering! From there Lettering and Lattes was born.

How did everything turn out?

Everything went wonderfully! We had over 150 people come out to the event. We enjoyed coffee, tacos, learning new lettering tips, and, perhaps most importantly, we made new friends and had fantastic and authentic conversations.

Thank You!

There wouldn’t have even been a Lettering and Lattes event if it wasn’t for our awesome Creative Market community, so thank you all! Even if you weren’t able to make it out to Austin, so many of you spread the word about the event, and we really appreciate that.

We also need to send a giant thank you to all of the Master Letterers who came to hang out with everyone, do a little lettering, and share their expert tips and tricks.

Make sure to follow these lettering experts on Twitter:

• Angela Southern


• Ryan Hamrick


• Lin Zagorski


• Becky Murphy


• Paul Soupiset


• Bushra Mahmood


• Steve Wolf


• Colore’ Grace


• Sean Wes McCabe


• Zachary Horst


• Monorail Studio (Sandrine & Daniella)


• Brad Woodard


• Simon Walker


• Nathan Walker


• Natalie Armendariz

Of course, where would we have been without the abundance of help from the folks at TOMS Roasting Co., the delicious breakfast tacos from Tacodeli, and the beautiful tables and benches provided by Monarch Event Rentals.

So many people came together to make this event what it was, and we’re more than grateful!

Will Creative Market be doing another Lettering and Lattes event?

While we don’t have anything on the books right now, we really love how this event turned out, and we’d be excited to do something like this again. We’re even up for expanding the idea or changing things up somehow. What do you think, would you be interested in attending an event like this? Do you have any suggestions on how we could improve this type of event? If we do something like this again, what city would you hope to see it in?

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Make sure to check out the hashtag #LetteringAndLattes on Twitter and Instagram for more awesome photos from the event.
Photos and Video From Our Lettering and Lattes Event at SXSW