Creatively, a new job platform, launches to help designers and other creatives find work

For designers, illustrators, and photographers, LinkedIn just doesn’t cut it. That’s why Creatively was built. 

Co-founded by Stacey Bendet, the CEO and founder of fashion brand alice + olivia, the start-up, which launched Tuesday, bills itself as a job platform for creatives.

There are other sites that promise the same thing, including Dribbble and Behance. Many visual artists also depend on Instagram to showcase their work and make connections. But Creatively thinks it can stand out from the crowd.

“If you’re a creative person or if you’ve ever hired a creative team, you know the truth is other professional networking sites don’t properly serve the community and don’t allow you to easily discover talent or see their work. Creatively solves that,” said Creatively CEO Greg Gittrich. 

(Full disclosure: Before moving to Creatively, Greg Gittrich was publisher of Mashable.)

Yes, users can showcase their work, like they can on other platforms. But Creatively is trying to make it easier for brands to actually find and hire people for projects or positions. 

Here’s how that works. Say a company creates an ad. It can upload the video (up to 30 seconds) and tag the people who worked on it: the director, set designer, motion designers, etc. Those people are now connected to each other on the platform, and their involvement in the project has been verified. 

Creatively also features annotation tools, so that creatives can share insight into their work, or give credit to collaborators in more detail. Also, in a feature Instagram should pay attention to, Creatively lets users move around the tiles on their profile page to display their work however they see fit.

The original plan didn’t involve launching in May. But then COVID-19 hit. 

“We know what the creative community needs right now is work — and that’s why we made the decision to fast track the launch of Creatively by several months,” said Bendet in a blog post.

The beta version of the website and app are free to use.