Explore Shutterstock’s partnership with CreativeMornings, showcasing inspiring talks, creative themes, and resources for creators worldwide.
Shutterstock’s partnership with CreativeMornings was a celebration of creativity, community, and inspiration. While this collaboration is no longer active, we wanted to ensure the wealth of ideas and resources shared during this partnership remains accessible. This blog consolidates highlights from the CreativeMornings series, preserving insights from inspiring talks, creative themes, and innovative projects that continue to resonate with creators worldwide.
In this post, we’ll cover:
- Partnership Announcement
- CreativeMornings Talks
- CreativeMornings Event
- Remixed Video Vignettes/Quotes
- Shutterstock Curated Galleries
- CreativeMornings Quotes as Inspirational Art
Partnership Announcement
Sure, mornings can be tough, but thanks to our latest partnership, there’s one more reason to get excited about hopping out of bed. Shutterstock is proud to announce that we’re now the official partner for Visual Inspiration for CreativeMornings, the much-loved breakfast-talk series founded by Swissmiss‘ Tina Roth Eisenberg.
Since she launched CreativeMornings in New York in 2008, Eisenberg’s inspirational brainchild has grown into a global phenomenon, now taking place in cities and design communities around the world.
Each month, local chapters select a speaker and organize an event based around a global theme, providing a forum for creatives to come together and share ideas (and breakfast), free of charge.
“Having Shutterstock as one of our first global partners will enable us to launch new cities, equip hosts with exciting tools, and better serve this international community of passionate, creative people,” said Eisenberg of the newly minted partnership.
Here at Shutterstock, we’re equally excited. “We’re thrilled to help expand CreativeMornings and support creatives from a variety of disciplines who come to be inspired, learn, and connect with others in their local creative community,” said Hani Hong, Shutterstock’s Director of Marketing.
With 57 cities already on board, CreativeMornings continues to expand, and we couldn’t be happier about joining in to help shape the future of the series. For a complete list of existing chapters, details on upcoming events, or information on forming a new chapter, visit creativemornings.com.
A Conversation with Tina Roth Eisenberg
On the first Friday of each month, CreativeMornings will highlight one of their favorite recent talks, and share a little about the speaker and theme.
To help kick things off, Tina Roth Eisenberg (aka Swiss Miss), the founder of CreativeMornings, was gracious enough to take the time to tell us about the history of the series.
CreativeMornings Talks
As CreativeMornings’ Official Partner for Visual Inspiration, we called on people to share their ideas for a better future—one that is built for and by creativity.
#InACreativeWorld: 6 Visionary Ideas
This month CreativeMornings is exploring the theme fantasy, so we’ve been thinking non-stop about crazy dreams, big visions, and powerful breakthroughs.
These six visionaries each have a specific focus—business, entrepreneurship, education, communication, comedy, and technology—but all of them offer something better and brighter to work towards in the future.
Read about their visionary ideas, then share your own ideas with us on Twitter or Instagram by completing the thought: #InACreativeWorld . . .
Casey Gerald: #InACreativeWorld Entrepreneurship Can Happen Anywhere
Casey Gerald’s vision is a world where entrepreneurship can take root far from NYC or Silicon Valley.
As cofounder of MBA’s Across America, Gerald traveled to rural communities, sprawling exurbs, and emerging cities—the places that truly need fresh ideas and new industries—to help entrepreneurs get off the ground.
It’s a revolution built on business, where purpose has replaced profit as the new bottom line.
Jacqueline Novogratz: #InACreativeWorld Creativity Can Disrupt Broken Systems
Jacqueline Novogratz’s vision is to address global poverty with creative and courageous entrepreneurship.
She is the founder and CEO of Acumen, a nonprofit venture capital fund that invests in businesses that change the lives of people experiencing poverty with unique and often disruptive approaches.
Through patient capital, or long-term investments, Novogratz believes in nurturing products and services that treat poverty with dignity, which could eventually serve as the model for public and private sector initiatives going forward.
Brad Jenkins: #InACreativeWorld Humor Is a Powerful Tool for Change
While political pundits and cultural commentators bemoan the apathy of younger generations, Brad Jenkins is busy breaking through to them.
Jenkins has a vision for activism built on humor, where laughter can be the starting point for meaningful change.
His work at Funny or Die DC has become an instrumental tool for increasing awareness around policies and issues that impact Americans, like the now iconic Between Two Ferns episode with Barack Obama that delivered crucial information about the Affordable Care Act.
Andrea Hunley: #InACreativeWorld the Entire Community Invests in Education
Andrea Hunley’s vision is a community where everyone invests in education, not just parents and teachers.
A good education impacts a child’s life in innumerable ways, but it also impacts the world around them: Graduation rates are directly linked to the economic wellness of a region in terms of tax revenue, job growth, GRP (gross regional product), and real estate prices.
With that much riding on education, Hunley believes a better future is built when community members invest their “time, talent, or treasure” in public schools.
Erika Hall: #InACreativeWorld We Have More Conversations
A long time ago, conversation was the primary means of exchange, but then writing was created and communication became increasingly complex.
In Erika Hall’s vision, we improve interfaces by restoring the simplicity and transparency of conversation to our online communication.
Interactive experiences, like texting, chatbots, a lost password flow, or even a simple button on a landing page require a new approach to “writing for the web” in which we’re not writing for the web at all—we’re just writing to have a conversation.
Brandon Harvey: #InACreativeWorld Information Is Literally at Our Fingertips
When Minority Report premiered in 2002, its huge haptic info screens seemed like a far-off technology. But, just 15 years later, it’s arriving.
As Director of Solutions at Oblong Industries, Brandon Harvey’s vision is creating the next generation of interface between humans and technology.
Oblong Industries creates enabled environments called “luminous rooms”—actually based on the prophetic Minority Report designs—in which the interface and the information is immersive and malleable at the fingertips of multiple users.
CreativeMornings Featured Talks
In this monthly series, our friends at CreativeMornings highlight some of their favorite talks, speakers, and themes.
Chase Jarvis: The Art of More
In this talk titled “From Ansel Adams to Macklemore: Grits, Guts, Gumption, and the Art of More,” photographer and entrepreneur Chase Jarvis speaks to a Seattle crowd on how to create more work and get it out there, and how that has been an effective path for his own career, as well as a diverse cast of others across the creative spectrum.
As part of the CreativeMornings bravery theme, Jarvis addresses how this is one of the bravest things you can be doing, but also the most rewarding.
Debbie Millman: Design Matters
This week, the series begins with a classic talk from “Design Matters” host Debbie Millman.
In this segment, Debbie offers up some tactical and practical advice for young and seasoned designers alike.
The talk is aptly titled “The Top 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Graduated College.”
Eric Cheng: Hidden Depths
Speaking at the Los Angeles chapter of CreativeMornings earlier this year, celebrated underwater photographer Eric Cheng took the stage to share on the theme of hidden and how it relates to the depths of the ocean.
Taking us on a visual journey into the deep, Cheng’s talk maps out his 13-year career shooting underwater, from when he owned his very first reef tanks to diving headfirst into the real thing.
After starting out as an amateur photographer, Cheng recalls the first moment he brought a camera underwater, saying: “It derailed my life.”
Since that day, he has won the prestigious Nature’s Best Magazine photo competition, landed photos in the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum, and had his photography seen in over 100 magazines and books worldwide.
In his talk (above), Cheng shares more on that journey, the thrill of discovering what lies beneath the surface, and some of the creatures he has photographed.
“There’s a rule for those of us who hunt for critters,” he says. “That rule is: Hairy is cool and rare. Anything you see that is hairy is going to excite a diver.”
From the hairy to the scary (not to mention just plain amazing), the photographer gives us a look at his work, offering stories from the field and his current endeavor of sharing that experience with others through Wetpixel Expeditions.
Jason Santa Maria: Take a Breath
In this two-minute presentation titled “Take a Breath,” designer Jason Santa Maria talks to a New York audience about taking a moment before responding negatively to work or people on the internet.
He advises us to take a breath and a moment to consider (maybe even re-consider) the words you’re about to use and what exactly it is that they are trying saying.
Laurie Frick: Making Data-Driven Art
At the Austin chapter of CreativeMornings, artist Laurie Frick speaks on our relationship to our data.
Known for her amazing installations, Frick uses self-tracking data to construct hand-built works and installations that imagine a time (not so far from now) when sensors track and even predict our behavior.
With a background in engineering and high-technology, Laurie is no stranger to big data and tackles it head-on.
As part of CreativeMornings’ global theme of hidden, Frick describes our data as: “This part of me that’s hidden, this part of me that I don’t notice or see that was maybe richer, and more complex, and more interesting than I could even remember about myself.”
Joshua Kissi and Travis Gumbs: Street Etiquette
Taking the stage at Brooklyn’s historic BAM Rose Cinemas last month, Joshua Kissi and Travis Gumbs spoke on the meaning of heritage in their daily lives. For the two menswear tastemakers, heritage is everything.
In their talk, Kissi and Gumbs share their experiences of growing up in the Bronx, figuring out how to maintain a connection to their African roots, and creating what they call a “new heritage” in New York.
Kissi recounts a story from his youth of being late to class after encountering people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, telling his teacher, “I’m late because of New York’s cultural exchanges!”
Those exchanges are what paved the way for Street Etiquette, a men’s lifestyle website that expresses this new culture—a melting pot of old and new urban perspectives.
These perspectives are embodied in the photos and videos that grace the blog’s homepage, depicting the way Kissi and Gumbs see the world around them.
“We started Street Etiquette because we felt that we had something to give back to the world,” explains Gumbs. “When we saw that people actually liked it, we thought that maybe this was something we could do [full-time].”
In this talk, the duo recounts lessons in learning how to price and present themselves, and how they hope to inspire their readers to be a generation of doers—people who don’t just inactively consume their content, but who also incorporate it into their own lives and help inspire a new way of living.
Cal McAllister: Be Pleasantly Disruptive
Cal McAllister speaks to the creative world on the notion of embracing the zany side of our creativity, despite the fact that “psychology tells us to look good.”
He goes on to say that “there are no loner rebels.” Support by at least a handful of believers is required to affirm whatever rebellious act one chooses to commit .
His six year old niece, Louisa, also wrote an incredible little bio about McAllister for the CreativeMornings website. It seems to summarize his personality and life in a simpler way.
Here’s part of it:
Uncle Cow is a man, and he is nice! He is a joyfle man. He has 2 neeses, and 1 nefuwe. He has soft scruffy hair. He has a nice wife named Amanda who takes showers 100 times a day. He has baby named Paige and a baby named Annie. He has a verey good tast.
CreativeMornings Event
After months of supporting CreativeMornings breakfast lectures, we knew we had to go all out as the hosts of a party for the first-ever CreativeMornings Summit.
The event brought together more than 150 CreativeMornings community organizers and hosts from around the world, kicking off a two-day conference in New York City with a celebration at our Empire State Building headquarters.
Many of the attendees were in New York for the very first time, so to celebrate both their sense of community and NYC, we focused on one of the biggest aspects of the city’s history—graffiti.
We created a 30ft-long “subway car” poster for the event, and asked each of the different chapters to tag it with a little piece of where they came from.
Using markers and paint pens, the attendees each crafted something to represent their hometown or country, with some drawing flags, others illustrating the name of their city, and one group making sure everyone knew it’s “Colombia, not Columbia.”
Check out the results of all that creativity, condensed into a time-lapse video.
Video Vignettes/Quotes Celebrating Creative Freedom
Shutterstock is proud to have teamed up with CreativeMornings, whose events unleash the imaginations of creative people the world over.
To that end, we’re sponsoring this month’s CreativeMornings global theme freedom, and celebrating the occasion with a series of video interpretations.
These videos highlight impactful freedom quotes from CreativeMornings talks, hand-curated by the CreativeMornings crew and produced by our own in-house design and motion-graphics teams.
Check them out, then see which Shutterstock clips were used to create them in our freedom clipbox, below.
Quote from Brent Dixon’s CreativeMornings/Austin talk, “Designer, Musician & Educator.” Designed and edited by Jordan Roland.
Quote from Josh Rose’s CreativeMornings/LA talk, “Commercial Art, Commercial Conversation.” Designed and edited by Niko Brown.
Quote from Jason VanLue’s CreativeMornings/Orlando talk. Designed and edited by Niko Brown.
Shutterstock Curated Galleries
As technology brings us closer to concepts that were once the domain of sci-fi movies and fantasy novels, there’s a growing opportunity to explore even more outlandish ideas. When flying cars and magic wands become reality, what will be the new beyond?
Beyond
For CreativeMornings’ April theme beyond, we’re crossing lines in the sand to see what comes next. Notions of the beyond—what lies outside our reality and what exists within our imagination—inspires so much creativity, giving us space to invent new notions and interpret new ideas.
Explore these six surreal photos inspired by CreativeMornings’ April theme. Then head over to our curated collection to see the entire set.
License these images via polygraphus, RomanYa, and Lightspring.
If you attend your local CreativeMornings this month, you may get to see these images projected on the big screen.
License these images via Edd Lange, JoffreyM, and Sergey Kudryavtsev.
Context
Throughout the history of photography, context has been central to how images distill narratives and frame our understanding of the world around us.
Today more than ever before, editing, sequencing, and larger curatorial decisions can play a critical role in this communication, from a gallery exhibition to an editorial story, advertising campaign, blog post, or even a meme.
For CreativeMornings‘ December theme context, we curated a collection of images that speak abstractly to this broad discussion.
License these images via Everett Collection, Alex Linch, and Ground Picture.
From nostalgic, science fiction-inspired images riffing on past projections of the future, to colorful pastel still lifes that transcend how we see fruit, candy, and other objects, this collection of photos, vectors, and illustrations will keep you guessing.
Equality
Equality is a force behind many of history’s biggest moments, from hard-fought battles for acceptance to sustained struggles for peace. These causes are never about achieving sameness, but about celebrating and respecting difference.
In the creative world, where diversity—in craft and creed—makes each of us unique, equality ensures that our ideas and our work are treated fairly.
In partnership with CreativeMornings’ July theme equality, we’re looking at the differences that set us apart and the humanity that ultimately binds us together.
License these images via Jozef Micic, yurgo, and Annette Shaff.
Genius
Genius means more than having a high IQ and being a card-carrying Mensa member. It’s the unique power and conviction to think differently and create masterfully. It can be innate, developed, and honed—or landed upon unexpectedly.
And though it’s uncommon, genius and its creations have shaped much of the world around us, from Shakespeare’s pioneering literature to Rosalind Franklin’s discoveries in DNA.
In partnership with CreativeMornings’ August theme genius, we’re looking at the creative power and intellectual prowess that shapes culture and changes the world.
License these images via jesadaphorn, Ground Picture, and Gumpanat.
Pioneers
Early photographers like Timothy O’Sullivan and Eadweard Muybridge used the medium to explore new possibility.
From O’Sullivan’s large scale view into the promise of the American landscape, to Muybridge’s motion study experimentations that used photography as a tool for new artistic—and even scientific—understanding . . . they were pioneers.
Today, as the world shifts, technology evolves at light speed and entrepreneurs set sail on game-changing ventures that hold the promise to move us forward.
In partnership with CreativeMornings’ October theme pioneer, we’re looking at photographs and illustrations that represent this range of possibility.
License these images via jamesteohart, Jozef Micic, and Tithi Luadthong.
Survival
Survival isn’t always about staying alive. Sometimes it’s about staying afloat—in a competitive industry, during an economic sea change, in the face of adversity.
License these images via Photobank.kiev.ua x2.
For creatives, it means doing whatever you can to make things that you believe in.
For CreativeMornings’ June theme survival, we’re looking at basic instincts and enduring spirits, from harsh moments of natural selection to the pinnacle of human triumph.
Tiny Revolutions
People often search for big ideas to change the world, overlooking small daily steps that could lead to monumental victories.
To highlight these quiet-but-impactful moments, we partnered with CreativeMornings to create “Tiny Revolutions”—a series of digital posters that display snack-sized steps to making a big impact.
Under the savvy minimalist art direction of CreativeMornings’ own Tina Roth Eisenberg, artist Bobby Jeffries designed these nine “Tiny Revolutions” entirely from Shutterstock images.
License these images via Carolyn Franks, pics five, pics five, Melica, RedDaxLuma, pics five, pics five, Jira Hera, and metwo.
Together with CreativeMornings, we’re hoping to usher in creative change by challenging you to sketch the impact you want to make on the world.
CreativeMornings Quotes as Inspirational Art: Rebel Wisdom
As CreativeMornings’ Official Partner for Visual Inspiration, we get pretty excited when the global free breakfast-lecture series decides on a new monthly theme: Rebel Wisdom. We’re honoring that theme with a special series of inspirational poster art.
To create these posters, we asked CreativeMornings to curate some of the best “rebel wisdom” from previous talks, then tasked illustrator Zach Higgins with mashing up those quotes with assets from the Shutterstock collection.
Check out the results below, along with a link to each of the talks they were pulled from. All previous CreativeMornings talks are available to watch online, so whichever ones pique your interest the most, click on through and keep the insights coming.
Snask (Stockholm)
In their Stockholm talk, Fredrik Öst & Magnus Berg of internationally renowned design agency Snask share some secret tips on how to be a creative entrepreneur
Sir John Hegarty (Paris)
A founding shareholder at Saatchi & Saatchi and the founder of TBWA, London, Sir John Hegarty is nothing short of a legend in the advertising realm.
His talk features a powerful story on creativity and advertising.
Jeff Lee (Montréal)
Rapidly becoming one of CreativeMorning’s more popular talks, Jeff Lee’s “11 Ways to Be Brave Every Day” was part of the recent Bravery theme.
The Montréal speaker is a former television host and producer, who reveals how he got his start and how he makes things happen.
Jodie Fox (Sydney)
In her inspiring talk, Sydney-based entrepreneur Jodie Fox discusses lessons learned from building a tech start up and creating a viral success.
Seth Godin (NYC)
At our New York chapter, Seth Godin speaks about a few things we have backwards when it comes to getting the work we want.
Monika Frech (Berlin)
Offering up a Generation Y perspective, Monika Frech reveals how she and a few friends built a creative agency in Berlin that bucks all the rules, in her talk, “Work That Works.”
Andrew Dickson (Portland)
As a man who has walked the line between design and fine art, Andrew Dickson of Wieden+Kennedy is rarely qualified to offer details and insights on the transition from making art to making ads and back again.
Łukasz Jakóbiak (Warsaw)
Having started a viral internet web show in his tiny apartment bedroom, Łukasz Jakóbiak speaks on discovering limitless space and endless possibilities with the right motivation. (Note: This talk is in Polish with English subtitles.)
Celebrating the Rebels in All of Us
Rebels think creatively, force art and tech to advance forward, and make the world a better place.
As a company that thrives on art, Shutterstock celebrates rebels who push the status quo, support creative communities, and raise the levels of beauty and happiness in the world.
License this cover image via Overearth.
