We Have a New Look! What Does it Mean?

In April, Creative Generation celebrated its first birthday. When I started this work, the first seed of Creative Generation was planted as a research initiative. That research grew into findings, and those findings sprouted legs into four approaches to challenges within the fields of arts/culture, education/youth development, and community social transformation. Last October, we got serious, organized, and completed all of our necessary paperwork to enable our programs to support young creatives and their adult counterparts across the U.S. and around the globe.

It has been nothing but organic, filled with trials and tribulations, numerous adventures, amazing colleagues and partners – and a whole lot of impact.

However, as we approached and surpassed our one-year anniversary, we looked back and reflected: it was time for a refresh.

Now, as we sit here today in August of 2020, we took the time to meet with our partners, constituents, team members and more to refine what we are doing and refocus on what matters. I am thrilled to share this with you – check out our new look and discover our refined purpose.

What’s in a Name?

The “creative generation” is what we have been and will always be about. This concept, which I explored through our foundational research throughout 2019, has provided us a meaningful definition for the group of people (Gen C) that we work to support everyday: young creatives and those who cultivate their creative capabilities in order to catalyze creative social transformation.

As such, we have refined our vision, mission, and goals and now summarize our work like this:

Dedicated to the development of thriving communities and a more just world, Creative Generation works to inspire, connect, and amplify the work of young creatives who catalyze social transformation, and those who are committed to cultivating their creative capabilities.

Those two other terms, however, haven’t been talked about as much: creative capabilities and creative social transformation. Unless you read one of our peer-reviewed academic papers, you probably didn’t see them in the past – not anymore!

Say them with me – 

Creative Capabilities: The inherent dimensions of creativity within every person.

  • Creative Thinking: the ability to identify challenges, and employ creativity to envision solutions;

  • Cultural Consciousness: the process of understanding of one’s own cultural identify and a developing a respect for, and often participation within, other diverse cultures;

  • Connectivity: a commitment to remaining engaged with peer or social groups regardless of time or location, through virtual and interpersonal means; and 

  • Concern for Community: acting as a servant leader, regardless of means, to strengthen the communities to which one belongs.

Creative Social Transformation: refers to the creatives process of change in institutionalized relationships, norms, values, and hierarchies over time. It is the creative manner by which individuals, communities, and societies changes due to active efforts of embed creative processes in order to reform from within.

These are the how and the what of the work we support. 

Artists, educators, community activists and others who work with young people actively cultivate these creative capabilities. In the coming months, we will be spending a whole lot more time talking about these capabilities and how to explore them within yourself.

Young creatives and other members of the Creative Generation use their creative capabilities (the means) to catalyze creative social transformation (the ends). This new (or slightly modified) approach to talking specifically about the creativity employed within traditional social transformation efforts is what we aim to amplify through the Campaign for a Creative Generation.

With all that said, you can expect a more explicit focus on both the “how” and the “what” in our reporting from the field. Our hope is that young creatives and their adult allies can learn from each other to improve their own practices and increase their creative impact.

What’s in a Logo?

As we have been updating, you may also expect to see some changes to our look and our digital presence on the web and social media. I am absolutely thrilled to share with you our refined logo below. Our team worked closely with Bridget Woodbury, our Director of Community and Engagement, to create a suite of logos for Creative Generation and each of programs that reflects our organizational values. Check it out:

I am super proud of this because it reflects who we are in three ways:

  1. We, inherently, are a part of the Creative Generation. We embody this work to our core and don’t need to be shy, cautious, abbreviated, or coded.

  2. We are forward focused and inclusive. If you haven’t seen our principles, yet please check them out. The arrow indicates our futures -orientation, and the curve represents our radically inclusive approach. The colors also have specific meanings.

  3. We are simple, clear, and concise. We have simplified all of our graphic representations and acutely described what we do in each. This goes for our font and our word choice.

I mentioned the meaning of the colors before: Creative Generation, as a whole, has accented our logo in blue because the color blue traditionally represents honesty, wisdom, and cooperation, which are values that reflect the way we work with the broader arts/culture, education, and community development sectors.

Check out the new look and names of our four signature programs:

The Campaign for a Creative Generation is dedicated to inspiring, connecting, and amplifying the work of young creatives and those dedicated to their creative development.

The Campaign is represented in blue because it’s inextricably linked to all of our work and is our opportunity to amplify knowledge from researchers, practitioners, and artists.

The Institute for Creative Social Transformation works to research, document, and contribute knowledge and understanding to the field of practitioners dedicated to cultivating the creative capabilities of the next generation in order to activate efforts of social transformation in thriving communities and towards more just societies.

We chose purple for the Institute to reflect its ambition and convey that its forward looking, with a focus on impact.

The Incubator for Creative Impact seeks to activate creative projects catalyzing social transformation by building local capacity through providing customized technical assistance and a professional learning community of artists, educators, and community activists.

The Incubator is green to represent growth and innovation — we’re both looking to these incubated projects as thought-leaders and supporting them in the nascent stages of their work. 

The Academy for Creative Leadership works to connect and develop the skills of artists, educators, community organizations, and young people who are catalysts for creative social transformation through the professional learning and signature curricula.

The Academy’s function is to grow, diversify and broaden inclusivity within the field, and we chose pink to indicate our aim to accomplish that in a way that serves the healthy development of the next generation of leaders. 

Over the coming weeks, we will be updating a lot of our webpages, social media profiles, publications and more. Please bear with us during this process.

We are thrilled to have you with us on this journey and continue to look forward to what is to come.