Category: The Team

Behance Uses Rackspace and RightScale to Scale a Thriving Creative Community

With an abundance of visual work uploaded to the Behance Network each day, we need a lot of processing power and a hosting solution that can store a large amount of data while processing it rapidly. With that in mind, our CTO Chris Henry, determined that Rackspace and RightScale were the best match for all of Behance’s hosting needs. In a recent case study, Rackspace sites Behance as an example of a company that can rapidly scale, stores lots of user-generated content, saves time and money and allows developers to focus on building a better product instead of constant site upkeep.

Check out the full case study here.

A Personal Note On Behance’s Growth, Funding, & Progress

Dear Behance Community-

I want to share some news with you about Behance’s growth and recent progress, our first round of funding, and exciting days ahead.

For the past five years, Behance has been a bootstrapped enterprise. We’ve sold Action Pads, books, job postings, conference tickets, and even banner ads (horror!) to generate the income to build Behance. It’s been amazing, and we’ve developed as a team and company in extraordinary ways.

But now, more than ever before, we see a tremendous opportunity to take Behance to the next level as it grows by leaps and bounds. The community is showcasing and discovering creative work at a fast clip!

  • Users’ projects have received over 1 billion views, and over 75 million views in just the past 30 days
  • Behance now showcases more than 2 million creative projects – after passing our first 1 million project milestone just eight months ago
  • We’ve received thousands of testimonials from creatives being discovered (and getting jobs!) on Behance.
  • Visitors have appreciated projects over 22 million times, and Behance’s curation team reviews ~30,000 projects every week for consideration to be featured on Behance and our 15+ Curated Gallery Sites.
  • Users have created over 10,000 personal websites using ProSite, leveraging Behance’s massive reach alongside their personal brand

Given our rapid growth, it’s time for Behance to scale. We have an exciting product pipeline we want to make happen. So, for the first time, we debated the option of continuing to bootstrap vs. raising funds. Ultimately, the team wanted to kick things up a notch: We want the resources to do our life’s greatest work in serving the creative community.

We met with all sorts of investors, sharing our mission and the progress we’re making. Ultimately, it came down to finding partners who share our vision and values.

We’re thrilled to bring on Union Square Ventures as our lead (and first) investor in Behance. The USV team understands the role of the creative community in the world, and they have a tremendous history of advising network-based businesses, namely Etsy, Twitter, Foursquare, and Kickstarter among others. And USV’s culture aligns very well with our own.

We’re also thrilled to have a few other people we admire help fund Behance, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (via Bezos Expeditions, his personal investment fund), as well as Dave Morin, Yves Behar, Chris Dixon, Dave Tisch, Dave McClure (via 500Startups), Alexis Ohanian, and Garrett Camp. These thinkers and investors have a history of changing industries. It’s a dream team for us.

Quite simply, we want the wind at our backs as we tackle the biggest problems facing the creative industry.

The creative world needs better attribution for creative work to yield more opportunity. We need to combat spec contests, middlemen, and commoditized marketplaces with better ways to find top talent. We need to boost efficiency in showcasing creative work and collaborating across disciplines. …Lots to make happen!

No doubt, Behance is still in the first inning. Our team is more excited than ever before to listen, learn, and serve the creative community in meaningful ways.

Going forward, you can expect a faster, more effective Behance and an unwavering mission to help you get organized, take creative control and make ideas happen.

Much love and respect.

Scott & Behance Team
Alex K, Alex L, Alison, Bryan, Chris, Clément, Dan, Dave, Dmitry, Florian, Jackie, Jenn, Jess, Jocelyn, John, Malcolm, Matias, Matt, Mell, Nami, Nina, Oscar, Raewyn, Sarah, Scott, Will, Zach

PS: Join us on this journey! We’re building a world-class team that wants to serve the creative world in extraordinary ways. Here are a few positions we’re hiring now!

 

 

Explore great interface design at the Art of Apps Exhibition

 

 

 

 

“Creating an amazing user experience for an app — one where the device itself almost melts away — requires a thoughtfulness and cleverness that can be hard to find.”
- Peter Rojas, Creator of Engadget, Gizmodo & RDRD LBL

In celebration of Internet Week, The Art of Apps gallery, hosted by Peter Rojas, is opening to the public for one day. The exhibition aims to showcase the “greatest user interface designers of our time,” including Behance designs from our Chief Designer and Co-founder Matias Corea.

The show opens on Monday, May 14 at the Soho Gallery For Digital Art, 138 Sullivan St., New York, NY

RSVP and learn more about the other exhibitors on The Art of Apps site, produced by One Clipboard on Splash.

 

Creative Tools for Creative People: Action Books

Did you know that Behance actually began with paper products? Back in 2006, when our small team was imagining ways to help organize the creative world, we knew that we needed to start with ourselves. So, before launching the Behance Network, Action Method or The 99%, we created a series of action-focused paper products – and, now we can’t imagine life without them! Here are a few snapshots from our design team’s idea-filled Action Books:


‘What is your next big idea?’ Matias Corea, Behance’s Chief of Design, brainstorms cards for Action Method cards in his Action Book.

Clement, Behance’s Senior Designer, sketches interface designs in his Action Book before they make it to the screen.

 

Israeli Design: Capital Holon

This is a guest post by Behance Curator Oscar Ramos who recently visited Holon, Israel to attend the iconic Design Week. Here’s what Oscar had to say about his experience and some of the great artists he met along the way:

Holon is 6 miles south of Tel Aviv with over 200,000 inhabitants and its mayor, Moti Sasson, was recognized as one of the top ten mayors in the world by Monocle Magazine. In the last few years, Sasson has introduced five new museums into Holon, including the Israeli Center of Digital Art, the Israeli Cartoon Museum, and the Design Museum Holon. Designed by Ron Arad, the facade of the Design Museum is formed with bands of Corten steel at different states of oxidation, creating a gradient of oranges that curve voluptuously to become the iconic building that hosted this year’s Design Week Holon.

The initiative, which focused on Israeli design, brought more than fifteen design week directors from all over the world to see the work of local creative professionals through exhibitions and one-on-one meetings. Designers Plus Ten, curated by Galit Gaon, presented 42 Israeli designers, each represented by one piece from the beginning of their career ten years ago and one from this past year.  One of the participants in the exhibition was Adital Ela  who teaches sustainable design in neighboring Holon Institute of Technology. Adital’s mentor, Daphna Yalon, have developed a compression process for earth and straw, based on ancient techniques and new study of materials. Adital introduced the Terra Stools, which are made in this manner.


Terra stools by Adital Ela.

Yael Friedman  makes wearable rings of dry vegetables or converts them into toys, in the form of  engineered puzzles.

Read more →

Behance on the Importance of Internet Freedom

Check out this Google-sponsored video that will go to all senators and congress emphasizing the importance of Internet freedom. The Stop Online Piracy Act, better known as SOPA, is a bill that grants power to the federal government and copyright holders to take actions against sites that promote copyright infringement, thus threatening to take Internet freedom away. Behance is out front on this issue in many ways – and we will continue to do everything we can to stand up for our medium. Please support Stop the Wall and take a minute to share the video.

Introducing the Behance Campus Ambassadors

Meet the first class of Behance Campus Ambassadors. A few months ago, we asked students on the Behance Network to help us build and inspire our student community. Our Ambassadors promote Behance by hosting events on campus, meeting with faculty members and running marketing campaigns at their schools.

We encourage you to get in touch with your campus ambassadors to connect and collaborate. If you don’t have an ambassador at your school, reach out to us and apply to the program. Enjoy learning about our campus ambassadors below!

Luis Domingo, Parsons The New School

Luis hails from the Philippines, grew up in California, and is now at home in New York. He does not like to be limited to certain fields, but interests himself in the development of ideas and imagining possibilities.

Currently, he is working on his thesis animation in Parsons. Feel free to challenge him in any video game you want.

See Luis’s Behance Profile and Join the Parsons Student & Alumni Group

Steven Williams, The Academy of Art University

Steven Williams is an art director, professor, soldier, and husband. Steven has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Indiana University. Currently, he teaches graphic design at the Art institute of Indianapolis and is pursuing an MFA from The Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

Steve believes that as an artist, one makes art that has a meaning or a purpose. That’s what draws him to advertising. A good advertisement is just like a piece of art: it has meaning and purpose.

See Steven’s Behance Profile and Join the Academy of Art Student & Alumni Group

Kevin Jan William Wansa, The Art Center College of Design

Kevin Jan William Wansa aspires to inspire and empower a new generation of freethinkers. He has worked with discipline on a number of music videos, short films, and Webisodes. With a keen focus he has a number of feature concept scripts, while working on pitching his written feature Booms. He currently studies Film at Art Center College of Design. Every new day validates the last.

See Kevin’s Behance Profile and Join the Art Center Gallery

Emma Bäcklund, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

At sixteen years old, Emma lived abroad in Italy and since then, she has taken every opportunity to take part in international interchange. To date, she has lived in eight different countries. Emma previously studied wild life photography and advertising in beautiful surroundings in Norway, and now resides in Melbourne, Australia, finishing her bachelor’s in advertising.

Her specialties are working with non-traditional advertising and design. She believes that advertising in social media should not be forced, but can be achieved through stunts in the public space. Emma can’t wait to hit the market as a freshly produced creative.

See Emma’s Behance Profile and Join the RMIT Student & Alumni Group Read more →

Announcing The Behance Student Ambassador Program


The Behance Network is the leading platform to showcase and discover creative work. The Behance Student Show shines a spotlight on the next generation of creative talent, and is a program exclusively for students on the Behance Network.

Help build a global brand for Behance by becoming a Student Ambassador and expanding the Behance Student Show network. Behance Student Ambassadors (BSAs) are responsible for one simple, but important goal: inspiring other students to share their work with the world. By joining the Behance Network, students get unlimited exposure and recognition their work deserves. Membership is free.

Ambassadors will gain leadership and professional experience working in the epicenter of the creative world with the Behance Team. Equipped with the Student Ambassador Toolkit and a deep knowledge of Behance, our team of BSAs at schools around the world will act as an extension of the Behance team and as liaisons to the future creative professionals of the world. BSAs will be eligible for mentorship and career opportunities through the Behance Team and our contacts.

The program is open to any student enrolled in a college or university during the 2011-2012 academic year.

For more information about the Behance Student Ambassador Program, including a full list of responsibilities, qualifications, benefits, and details on the application process: download the PDF.

Once you review these materials, you may apply here.