Art :: Page 6 :: millennialentrepreneurs.com

Archive for Art – Page 6

IdeaPaint

Posted by Joanie Brown

· Friday, December 4th, 2015

· 8 Comments

IdeaPaint is a dry erase paint company that was founded in 2002 by John Goscha as a freshman at Babson College in Massachusetts. According Goscha and its other founders Andrew Foley and William Gioielli, IdeaPaint’s purpose is to inspire and encourage everyone in their creative potential through their primary product which can transform almost any smooth surface into an erasable canvas, giving people the space they need to fully explore their ideas.

Back in their dorms at Babson College, these entrepreneurs would hang large sheets of paper on their walls to have a better space to think through their ideas. However, they would constantly have to tear it down and put more up every time they ran out of room and they thought, Surely there must be a better way. The team searched for this product but, to their surprise, they found nothing. So they set off on a six year journey to make this product commercially viable. Now they are widely successful and have been recognized by Mashable and Forbes. Goscha says “I look forward to the company bringing great products to market that inspire creativity and innovation in all of our customers for many years to come.”

8 Comments

Categories : Art, Blog, College, Decor, Great Ideas, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Technology

JackGap: Shed Session

Posted by Joanie Brown

· Wednesday, October 14th, 2015

· 4 Comments

Twin brothers Jack and Finn Harries have had a relatively distinct presence on Youtubefor several years now. With over 4 million subscribers on their channel titled JacksGap since 2011, it is no wonder that have some level of influence on the Youtube community. However, their normal content is not what I want to talk about. It’s a branch of their channel that they recently formed that has caught my attention. Shed Sessions is a strand of content where they showcase musicians playing acoustic music in their neighbor’s shed. Both loving quality music, Jack and Finn, are striving to expose start-up and small town musicians to a wider audience to benefit both the artists and listeners by giving them new content to listen to. While announcing the new project on their blog, Jack said,

“Music is something that I have always felt passionate about, in particular acoustic music. So it only felt natural to me to share it on our channel… There is something really exciting about being able to share music in such a raw and intimate setting. It is important to us to record Shed Sessions in one shot, with one angle. We want to capture the song in its rawest form.”

JacksGap has featured artists such as JP Cooper, Jeremy Loops, and We Were Evergreen. I myself have enjoyed listening to new artists and experiencing their music in such a natural setting. Jack and Finn recognized that no one with a significant Youtube following was promoting growing, talented musicians and so they took initiative. JacksGap has experienced significant success with Shed Sessions with views per video averaging around 1 million. The JacksGap channel continues to grow and explore new possibilities and it will be exciting to see which new avenues they will take over the next few years.

4 Comments

Categories : Art, Film, Music, Uncategorized, YouTube

16-Year Old Millionaire Necklace Maker

Posted by Jordan Hudock

· Saturday, October 3rd, 2015

· 4 Comments

Maddie Bradshaw is popular on the blog tonight. Like Grace, I researched Bradshaw for this post. I want to talk about her success from a slightly different angle, though. As you might have read from Grace’s awesome post, Maddie Bradshaw is a 16-year-old millionaire. She designs and sells Snap Caps, creative bottle caps that can be worn as jewelry. She has 25 employees and sells over 60,000 necklaces each month.

I found her story particularly interesting because she isn’t selling something that solves a huge, mind-boggling problem. In fact, she’s similar to Apple in that she’s giving people something they didn’t even know they wanted.

So, why are people buying from her? Anyone can make a simple necklace, and many companies do. What sets Bradshaw apart? She presents Snap Caps as the necklace that celebrates and brings out a girl’s unique qualities. Each necklace has a theme, whether fairytale or music or ladybugs or faith. Girls choose the ones they think fit their personality. Just like Zappos, she’s putting a bigger “why” behind a product most people don’t usually think much about.

Her approach fits right into the “conceptual age” idea we were talking about in class. To have a place in the market, products need to be more than just functional. They need to stand for something. Snap Caps stand for uniqueness.

Bradshaw’s success shines far beyond her net worth. She has appeared on multiple TV Shows, like The View and Shark Tank, and has even published her own book, You Can Start a Business, Too. Her biggest piece of advice to young entrepreneurs is to follow your passion. She says, “If you come up with an idea and you love it, chances are other people will, too.” I think people forget this a lot. They don’t work towards something they love because they’re scared it won’t interest others. That has certainly been true for me and many people I know. Bradshaw is a wonderful reminder that you can create a business around any passion. She took the risk most people wouldn’t have and it’s paying off for her in amazing ways.

(Image: The Toggery)

4 Comments

Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Art, Beauty, Blog, Fashion, Jewelry, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Millennial Entrepreneurs, Youngest Entrepreneurs

Tags : bradshaw, necklace

Angelo Sotira – DeviantArt

Posted by Zack Unkenholz

· Monday, December 15th, 2014

· 3 Comments

Back in the early days of the internet, a young business man named Angelo Sotira started one of the first social media sites that allowed artists to come together to upload and present people’s art. That site is DeviantArt.

Angelo Sotira is an American entrepreneur most well known for the creation of DeviantArt, but he was doing some big things even before that. At the age of 15 he created a music file sharing site called Dimension Music. Dimension Music was bought by Michael Ovits, the previous president of the Walt Disney Company. After Sotira had sold Dimension Music, at the age of 19 Sotira went on to create DeviantArt with Matthew Stephens and Scott Jarkoff. The three of them created DevientArt for people to share their photography, digital art, traditional art, literature, and filmmaking with a community of other artists.

DeviantArt is the 13th largest social network with over 28 million members who have posted over 265 million images. The site is sent around 140,000 submissions a day! To this day DeviantArt is still the largest internet art platform.

Through DeviantArt, Angelo Sotira has made over 75 million dollars. The website continues to thrive as more and more artists want to express themselves and get feedback from other artists. Sotira reached out to a market that had not yet been given attention on the internet, and it proved to be a worthy market to enter.

3 Comments

Categories : Art, Websites

Khoa Phan: 6 Seconds of Fame

Posted by Zack Unkenholz

· Monday, December 15th, 2014

· 1 Comment

Khoa Phan is an artist who started using the app “Vine” in 2013. At the age of 23 he started using the app to market his own skills and sell himself to marketing companies and advertising agencies.

Vine is a video making/social media app that allows people to take and upload 6 second videos to their accounts. Vine videos can be sent through sites like Facebook and twitter. Much like youtube, Vine has made a few people a lot of money. Many people have been found through Vine and some have been hired to be in movies and commercials. Khoa became an internet sensation with his stop-motion videos, a series of many extremely short clips or pictures put together to create one video. Using his artistic abilities, Khoa made a name for himself in the Vine community. Many big name companies approached Khoa for artistic ability and his internet fame to create commercials and ideas for how their companies could use vine to sell their products.

Khoa was named Mashable’s “Vine’s most creative stop-motion video maker” and named Forbes’ 30 under 30 for marketing and advertising.

Khoa has worked with big name companies like Snapple, Coke, MTV, UNICEF, HBO and even Peanuts to create stop-motion videos of Charlie Brown and Snoopy the Dog. This freelance Vine editor has made a name for himself, not just in the online community, but also in the big time marketing community. It will be interesting to see where he takes his stop-motion art and creative advertising next.

Here is a link to one of his videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhB_whIDwwQ

1 Comment

Categories : App, Art, YouTube

Daniel Knudsen – Filmmaker

Posted by Timothy Lowrance

· Thursday, December 11th, 2014

· 2 Comments

A discussion of innovation need not be limited to devices or services. Innovation is the driving force behind any human pursuit, whether it be industry or art form.

Making a Career out of Film

A particular young man who is a big part of bringing exciting and well-needed change to the film industry is Daniel Knudsen. This young man grew up in a neighborhood just outside of Detroit, MI. At age 17, he started working on film crews, and his passion for filmmaking was born. As Daniel studied the camera and lighting skills he would need in this industry, he began to realize that he wanted to be a producer/director.

This dream was fulfilled when Daniel produced his first major film: Creed of Gold, a thriller that was released in 2014. A link to the trailer is below:

http://vimeo.com/40611218

He took this movie to several film festivals, even premiering it in Milan, Italy, where it won an award.

The Company

Daniel Knudsen’s company, Crystal Creek Media, is dedicated toward producing movies that are positive, educational, and Christian in theme and voice. He has gone to great efforts to build a company from the ground, displaying remarkable drive and perseverance in a difficult industry. He has spoken at several Christian film events, spreading the message that audiences can be reached by Christian groups with powerful storytelling and good cinematography.

I took a class from Daniel Knudsen in High School, and he inspired me to study and experiment with this fascinating medium of communication.

2 Comments

Categories : Art, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Technology

Isabella Rose Taylor

Posted by Olivia Ebert

· Friday, December 5th, 2014

· 3 Comments

Shopping at Nordstrom’s, a fashion line designed by a 13-year-old is not something you would expect to see, yet there it is, Isabella Rose Taylor. In 2010 Isabella Rose Taylor the designer of the clothing line bearing her name became inspired to learn to sew and try fashion design. As her love for fashion has grown she has released several collections in her clothing line beginning in fall of 2013.

In addition to fashion, Isabella has a love of painting. While I personally do not care for her style of art, I can definitely appreciate her talent as some of her paintings are quite impressive, especially considering she is only 13 years old.

She has won several awards for her work in art, fashion, and poetry and has been featured in magazines and television including the Today show.

Using social media Isabella has been able to get the word out about her clothing line. She keeps Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts believing that social media is important tool for the entrepreneur.

Isabella demonstrates right brained thinking with her different creative interests. This right brained thinking will be quite helpful as her entrepreneurial spirit grows as she expands her work, continuing on in her successful fashion design career.

3 Comments

Categories : Art, Fashion, Millennial Entrepreneurs

artifact uprising.

Posted by Rebekah Fry

· Monday, November 17th, 2014

· No Comments

In Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she writes, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story.”

Jenna and Matthew Walker, co-founders of Artifact Uprising, would agree. Born from their desire to cultivate tangible story-telling, Artifact Uprising (a “design-your-own” photo book and photo goods business) required a great deal of perseverance, creativity, and a dash of serendipity.

In 2004, after pondering her recent desire to learn the art of photography, Jenna happened upon a discarded, yet intact, camera and lenses. After recovering from her complete astonishment, she took the blessed opportunity and soon fell in love with photography.

“We worked as professional photographers for 8 years–making permanence of experiences that move minds and hearts. As one click of the shutter turned to another turned to hundreds of thousands of photos, we realized our documented lives were sitting on our phones and computers with no true place to live on. It’s something we kept coming back to–‘What are we leaving behind?’”

The Walkers wanted to create an authentic business design that would allow each customer to share his/her life in a unique and sustainable fashion.

“Somehow – with a kind of serendipity much like finding that first camera – doors opened where there might have otherwise been dead ends. Sometimes the world whispers ‘Stay the course.’ And that we did.”

Like many entrepreneurs preceding them, Jenna and Matthew had to persevere in the face of failure, pivot, create, and redesign. They added products, features, and employees which has culminated into their own beautiful story.

From basement to business, Artifact Uprising is a poster child for the entrepreneurial mind.

If you would like to read the full story and or browse their wonderfully crafted products, please visit their website: https://www.artifactuprising.com

Creativity. Community. Authenticity.

No Comments

Categories : Art, Bootstrap Business, Great Ideas, Uncategorized

The Forager

Posted by Rebekah Fry

· Wednesday, October 29th, 2014

· No Comments

(V.) to wander in search of. Growing up as an architect’s daughter, I gained an early appreciation and love for aesthetically pleasing composition, form, etc – a simple joy in beautifully crafted design. In a recent conversation with Grove City College past student Delaney Kochan, I was made aware of a new publication venture, with which she is currently working, The Forager. Officially launching this fall, The Forager is a self-proclaimed “lifestyle brand dedicated to creativity, art, & design. Based upon the concept of foraging & rooted in communal creativity.”

Upon further research, I discovered that The Forager is an online publication looking to future print endeavors. With its minimalist, elegant, and clean branding, it offers a beautiful viewing space with thought provoking content.

Daniel Pink, in his book A Whole New Mind, addresses the importance of good design stating, “Cultivating a design sensibility can make our small planet a better place for us all.” The Forager not only grasps this concept but puts great effort into effectively communicating it to its readers.

The publication world is littered with countless periodicals; many of them not worth a second glace. The Forager, however, seems to combat the clutter by appealing to our design sense and society’s need for substantial subject matter. It also understands the technological age and is publishing first via the internet before moving into print form.

The publication’s focus on “communal creativity” is another innovative aspect as it understands the millennial generation’s need for community and participation. Our individualistic society is becoming more and more integrated as people realize the benefit of collaboration; or as Steven Johnson writes, “high-density liquid networks makes it easier for innovation to happen.”

The Forager, and those working to ensure its success, inspire me as I look toward future career options. It combines multiple communicative forms in one beautifully crafted package- appealing to my interests and passions. In a world where left brained professions often garner the most profit, I find it hard to justify my dreams. But when individuals like those who work for The Forager break through those barriers, my hope is renewed.

I am sincerely looking forward to the first publication and I hope you spend a moment discovering The Forager as well!

http://www.theforagr.com/

http://instagram.com/theforagr

No Comments

Categories : Art, Great Ideas, Online Companies, Uncategorized, Websites

Aaron Firestein – Bucketfeet

Posted by Zack Unkenholz

· Monday, October 6th, 2014

· 5 Comments

bucketfeet-40

Aaron Firestein(28) loved to draw designs on converse and other kinds of shoes. He would take out some sharpies and draw designs on shoes and sell them to his friends. After he graduated he took his sharpie collection and went to Argentina to learn spanish. While there, he met Raaja Nemani, a man who graduated as an economics major. They met while volunteering at a children’s home in Argentina. Firestein sold Nemani a pair of his custom designed shoes, a pair of hand-drawn shoes that would be the beginning of an amazing business. One year later in the city of Chicago they officially started “Bucketfeet.”

Bucketfeet is a business that sells shoes with designs made by street artists from all around the world. Each artist is payed $250 for their design and receives a royalty of $1 for each pair sold. The business helps artists to showcase their art to the world and to allow them to keep doing what they love. One artists from Brazil said “It is amazing to think that my artwork is being worn around the world. There are over 50 people in Japan wearing my design right now.”

Bucketfeet’s philosophy is that art is expression and that everyone deserves to express themselves in their own way. They believe art breaks cultural barriers, brings people together, and that it tells a story. The company shares the stories of their artists and encourage their consumers to find an artist that that they can connect with. People can express themselves through the designs created by the artists. Firestein and Nemani also donate a portion of their profits to children’s shelters around the world because children have always been important to them and because that was were there both met.

What started as a small college business has become something global because of Firestein’s love for art and culture. The business he started really expresses the idea that art is for everyone. He and Nemani have empowered artist everywhere to show the world what they can do. The business started in 2011 and in the year 2013 sales totaled about $1 million. The business is growing immensely now that they are being sold in Nordstrom stores across the United States.

5 Comments

Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Art, Fashion