Home / Blog / A Global Solution For Creativity

A Global Solution For Creativity

Chicago skyline seen across the water

By Parker Asmann

Creativity has long been something that has been encouraged and admired in today’s day and age, the necessity to be creative in one’s endeavors is more prevalent than ever, especially when it comes to financing what one is passionate about. As a result, creativity has surfaced in new forms in the way of crowdfunding and the creation of fundraising platforms like Kickstarter and GoFundMe.

The Story of Crowdfunding

You might be asking yourself, what exactly is crowdfunding? How do these organizations like Kickstarter and GoFundMe work? It’s really quite simple. The Kickstarter campaign is pioneering, and has morphed into something that is designed to fund the future for creative minds alike.

Surrounding anybody’s creative process are limitations, whether it be in resources, finances, or overall connections, each of these things do what it can stand in the way of creative endeavors. Luckily Kickstarer offers a home for a wide variety of projects big and small, centered on film, games, music, and even design and technology.

Since their launch in 2009, Kickstarter has witnessed over 5.7 million people pledge over $1 billion to aid in the process of funding more than 57,000 projects of all shapes and sizes. With these kinds of numbers you would expect that the individuals behind Kickstarter would have a substantial amount of control over the creative process. Think again.

Kickstarter simply has a list of guidelines and requirements that must be met upon the creation of a project. Past that, the creators have complete creative control over their projects and their eventual success or failure. This company serves a dual purpose as a platform and a resource; they’ve designed a strategy that allows them to be completely secluded from the development process.

While inquiring through the initial facts of the Kickstarter operation, the all or nothing approach that the company has embodied has the tendency to raise some red flags for project creators. However, the idea can be viewed as highly motivational in the fact that it has provided a certain level of momentum and motivation for the creators. In the past six years, the Kickstarter group has recorded that 44% of all the projects that have been created have been fully funded.

Especially in the era of technology that currently surrounds the world, social media contacts have grown increasingly important, as technology has advanced. Through the Kickstarter and GoFundMe platforms, a network of social media contacts from around the globe can be created and provide a communal feel that acts as a support group for designers.

Although different from Kickstarter, GoFundMe has also created a large amount of success through their crowdfunding campaign. From school tuition, sports teams, medical bills, and volunteer trips, GoFundMe has funded a wide variety of creative ideas. With GoFundMe, the money that is generated comes in as each donation is made as opposed to Kickstarter that has an overall goal that must be met. Nonetheless, both outlets have created an inventive environment that has allowed for creative thinkers to see their projects flourish.

Chicago Crowdfunding Footsteps

Being as bustling of a city as Chicago is, it’s only natural that the third largest city in the United States saw some of the most funded Kickstarter campaigns in 2013. Among the top being the most funded was Chicago watchmaker Central Standard Time who is known for making the “world’s thinnest watch”. The company received just over $1 million from over 7,500 backers who vouched their support. Central Standard Timing and E Ink have partnered together to present the CST-01 E Ink Watch.

This is just one of countless examples around the Chicago land area that have utilized the resources of the Kickstarter campaign to help see their dreams transformed into actualities. Among some of the most interesting projects was the “NeoLucida,” a 19th century optical drawing tool revolutionized for the 21st century.

In simple terms, the NeoLucida is a drawing aid that helps the drawer trace what is positioned in front of them. Why is this important? Well, this particular product is the first portable, authentic camera Lucida to be designed in over a century. Historically, artists used optical aids to help recreate the reality that was seated before their eyes, which is where this newly renovated idea comes into play in today’s world.

Designed by Pablo Garcia and Golan Levin, the duo saw their creative project funded on June 9 of 2013. Garcia, Assistant Professor of Contemporary Practices at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Levin, Associate Professor of Computation Arts at Carnegie Mellon University, are both avid Kickstarter supporters who experienced a very positive interaction with the platform.

“We like to think of NeoLucida as a disruption to widespread assumptions about art-making and art history,” Garcia and Levin said.

If you’re still under the impression that to have a successful Kickstarter campaign you need to have designed some extraordinary idea with a plethora of implications, here’s an example that truly has embodied the premise of a small project.

Michael Patrick of Chicago constructed the idea of the “Minimalist Keyring with Maximum Strength” that centered on the sense of being extremely compact, smaller than a pack of gum to be exact. Condensed, universal, customizable, expandable, durable, silent, and stylish, Patrick made sure to cover every base as he described each feature and how groundbreaking he felt this product had the potential to be.

From projects as big as Central Standard Time and NeoLucida to as small as the Minimalist Keyring, ventures of all shapes and sizes have experienced, successful funding opportunities as a result of capitalizing on the resources available through the Kickstarter campaign.

More Connected Than Ever Before

In a more globally connected environment than anything that has ever been seen before with todays advances in technology and access to information, creativity and new ways to fund those creative ideas have appeared. With platforms like Kickstarter and GoFundMe available for creative thinkers to take advantage of, countless projects have been funded and an ever growing community has been formed among artists around the world. The creative juices will continue to flow as technology offers up new and improved ways to think and construct artistically while crowdfunding platforms have bridged the gap for creative thinkers between their dreams and transforming those dreams into realities.

References