New creative website links South African talent

The website is home to features such as a content exchange, creative database, find-a-creative, forums, local and international inspirations and a creative menu, set to cater for the various creative disciplines, including film, fine art, advertising, photography, design, illustration, tattoo art, music, writing and more.

Showcasing a wide variety of individuals

The intention is to showcase a wide variety of individuals, featured on a network that may be much broader than ones usual fan-base. SACN gives members the opportunity to promote their work, local events and competitions and provide a professional platform to open discussions or call for collaboration through the forums page. Furthermore, the database will serve as a resource for businesses or individuals looking to contract, or sub-contract creative work.

Creatives can join the network by subscribing to the mailing list or by submitting their work, press releases or creative reviews to be posted on the website.

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Founders

The co-founders of the concept are Artwell Nwaila and Graham Wiles. Nwaila is creative editor at Newsclip Media Monitoring. He was publications/graphic designer at Now Media and a graphic designer at Caxton Community Newspapers. Wiles is a junior lecturer at Durban University of Technology and studying towards his BTech in Graphic Design.

Both creatives met online and found it extremely hard to find a platform where they could read about local creativity whilst also being able to showcase current projects. The initiative is further inspired by the fact that brilliant local creatives share their portfolios on international platforms like Behance and Deviant art which often leads to the work getting lost in the clutter. Although SACN is in no way a portfolio platform, the aim is to bring these brilliant minds and creative thought leaders on one space so they can network and share with upcoming young South African talent.

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Nwaila and Wiles have teamed up with designers, artists, photographers and fashion designers from around the country in order to share a variety of skills and also to inspire the youth to enter these exciting fields.

How is SACN different?

According to Nwaila, SACN is different to ididthatad.com and 10and5.com in the sense that it is not only structured to showcase work but also market creatives. "The goal is for SACN to be the first place for potential clients to source their creative talent. And by offering the creatives free access to the database, we will empower them. We also allow selected creatives to share their personal opinions regarding their industry (closely monitored) and hopefully creating future thought leaders. We also have future plans to create collaboration works through the site."

At the moment SACN is not really focused on revenue. "We are mainly concentrating on creating a beneficial network for South African creatives. Eventually we will put together an advertising structure and partner in creative projects. For now its all about the network," Nwaila told Bizcommunity.com.