“The fan art community became my creative outlet” : Ben Whitesell

We always love hearing about what our talented creative community is up to. We were thrilled to read this Q&A with illustrator Ben Whitesell, who recently worked on the poster for Moonrise Kingdom, where he mentions that experimenting with fan art on Behance sparked his interest in poster illustrations.

‘When I was first getting into the poster and fan art scene, I was a member of an online community on the Behance Network that specialized in creating re-imagined ‘minimal’ movie posters. Each month a new actor/actress name would be sent to the group and you would choose a picture from their filmography to create a poster around. The fan art community became my creative outlet.

…you can’t beat the creative community on Behance, and the level of exposure you can get through their service. I have also had amazing interactions with team members including the founder and CEO; Scott Belsky is a real advocate for creatives and is highly active on Behance himself helping to promote people’s work.”

Read the full article at Creative Bloq

See more of Ben’s work at Be.net/benwhitesell or on his ProSite, benwhitesell.com

Union Square Ventures hosts a Talent Audition on Behance

Behance hosts competitions for organizations and brands that wish to celebrate and engage creative talent. Creatives can submit past projects , avoiding any spec-based crowdsourcing, and an expert panel of judges select finalists from there. Competition winners receive a variety of prizes and job opportunities in addition to being recognized publicly. To check out upcoming competitions on Behance visit be.net/competitions.   


Union Square Ventures, the investors behind companies like Twitter, Foursquare, Etsy (and Behance!), is hosting a talent audition to identify five designers that will be commissioned to update their firm’s identity. Designers can submit their best brand or identity work from their existing portfolios to participate.

This competition celebrates excellence in brand and identity design, and serves as a “talent audition” to identify 5 designers that will be commissioned by USV to update their firm’s identity. (Note: this is NOT a “spec contest,” just submit a past project that best exemplifies your brand/identity work). The top 5 projects will be deemed “winners,” and their owners will be invited to take on USV as a client, proposing a new identity for USV, with a $1,500 guaranteed payment for responding to the brief. If your initial proposal is selected, USV will provide an additional payment of $12,500 for the completed work.

Visit be.net/competitions/USV for more info on the competition and to submit.

 

New Page Celebrates Behance Success Stories

Everyday, career-changing connections are made on Behance. Whether a creative lands their dream job, gets picked up by a high-trafficked blog, or finds the feedback they were looking for to take their work to the next level – twe want to celebrate these inspiring stories.

In that spirit, we just launched the “Behance Success Story”  page to bring these testimonials to the surface. We hope you find inspiration from these members, and that you share your own story with us!

Announcing the National Design Awards Gallery

Behance powers custom networks for creative organizations like Adweek, Vice/Intel and more. We’re thrilled to announce our newest custom network for the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards.

The National Design Awards celebrate design as a vital humanistic tool in shaping the world, and seek to increase awareness of design by educating the public and promoting excellence, innovation, and lasting achievement in American design. Now you can explore the incredible work of the winners, finalists, and jurors of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards in the gallery.

 

 

⌘ Developer’s Toolkit: Mike Klein

This post is part of a series where Behance developers talk about the various tools they use to get things done and make ideas happen.

1. Who are you, and what do you do at Behance?

Hey! My name is Mike Klein and I help make ideas happen here at Behance. My role on the team is Backend Developer and spend most of my days dabbling in PHP. Over the last few months I’ve worked on some awesome projects like social signup for Action Method Online, image service restructuring and project editor for the Behance Network. Besides coding, I also enjoy listening to music, collecting instruments and playing guitar.
Read more →

Most Appreciated Projects on Behance

Appreciations are a way to send genuine kudos to another creative professional on Behance. This is our community’s way of curating the network, so that the best projects gain the most exposure. Here’s a look at two of the most appreciated projects on Behance this week:

San Diego-based brand agency, BASIC, recently shared the rebrand and enterprise launch they crafted for Flud. Flud is a socially-driven tech startup that allows professionals to share news easily. Their identity needed to be clear, professional and attractive, take a look!

“A visual virus of 50.000 fluorescent stickers infected the street, pavement, windows and buildings during De Wereld van Witte de With art festival.” Check out this incredible public installation here.

Portfolio Review Week Prepping

Behance Portfolio Review Week is approaching, and hosts around the world are preparing for the big event. Check out some beautiful snapshots of kits received!

Many cities are hosting in the US and around the world! Look for an event near you at Meetup.com/BehanceReviews

Meet the team: Sarah Rapp

Who are you and what do you do at Behance?
Hello! I’m Sarah Rapp – sometimes referred to as “Social Sarah” here at Behance (why yes, I do handle social Media here). As the Director of Community & Engagement, I (along with our 2 other Community Managers) think of myself as “the eyes and ears of Behance,” so everything I do relates to making sure our members are happy, and that we’re offering up the best, most engaging experience to them we possibly can.

Most days, this involves a lot of listening (through social channels, emailing with members, and analyzing behavior on our site) and making improvements based on what I hear. The other half is talking back to our community, in ways like: maintaining our social accounts (especially the mega-account @Behance), planning offline events and programs for them, blogging at the Team Blog, Newsletters, and much more!

I also squeeze in things like test-driving the latest social platforms and technologies & keeping tabs on our metrics. And always, collecting stories and anecdotes from our members to share with the world!

What are three desktop tools you can’t live without?
1) Sprout Social – this is what we use to Tweet from @Behance and the 6 or 7 other Twitter accounts we maintain. A few months back we did a big audit of all the best social media management tools out there, and Sprout is our pick – well-designed, with lots of visualized data about your fan base at your fingertips.

2) Mac’s “Hot Corners” tool – Not exactly an app, but this is my favorite Mac feature. I often have about
10 programs open at once, so each of my corners is programmed to do something different to help me
stay organized. With one move of the mouse, I can clear away all the open programs to find something
on my desktop, or go to another corner to get the birds-eye view of everything I have open. It annoys
the hell out of anyone who tries to use my computer, but it’s worth it!

3) Gmail Multiple Inboxes – I swear by this Google Labs tool that lets you reorganize your inbox to
create several inboxes on one screen. My top inbox is for new/”to deal with” emails, the one below that
is starred emails that need more attention, and below that I have emails all related to one project. It’s a
lifesaver.

Read more →

Behance’s Project Uploader – Brand New!

This week we unveiled something big – a redesigned, streamlined way to upload your projects to Behance. We’ve been collecting your feedback for months to help us create the best experience for you, and we’re excited to help you make projects as quickly & simply as possible.

A few of the updates:

  • A quick way to add all your files at once
  • A simplified, improved Text Editor
  • Ability to control spacing & dividers between all media with one click
  • Streamlined settings
  • Improved privacy options

We hope you enjoy! Check out the demo below to see some of the new and improved features.

Can’t wait to get started? UPLOAD A PROJECT

 

How To Upload Work on Behance from Behance on Vimeo.