Zealous Blog
All of our news, insights and inspirations in one place.
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How To Make Your Portfolio Stand Out
Making your portfolio stand out is something important for all creatives. We asked some of the organisations who are part of our community to give us some of their top tips.
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Making A.I. work for the creative industries
A deep exploration into the opportunities and threats A.I. poses for the creative industries, written by someone whose straddled both worlds.
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Collage Artists You Should Know
Although traditionally seen as a paper-based medium, collage is a technique which is constantly evolving. Whether working in a more conventional way, or expanding to the digital and three-dimensional realms, these 10 creatives are ones you should definitely be watching.
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Increase submissions to your awards through trust
If you are launching an award, it will be essential for you to build trust with anyone who might consider submitting to you. The longer your process and the bigger the submission fee, the more vital it will be to…
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Should you take award entry payments first or last?
Should you take payments upfront when candidates submit your award? The following article breaks down best practices when taking entry fees.
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LGBTQIA+ Artists and Artworks You Should Know
To continue our celebration of the brilliant LGBTQIA+ artists and creatives who explore gender identity themes both on and off Zealous, we have put together a list of 10 creatives that you should know.
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Celebrating Pride Month: 10 LGBTQIA+ Resources To Inspire Your Creativity
Pride Month is an exciting time to highlight LGBTQIA+ creativity, celebrate spaces of self-expression and proudly continue to fight for equality.
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Guy Meets Michelle, Director at UK New Artists
Our Founder at Zealous, Guy Armitage, had the opportunity to speak to Michelle Bowen at UK New Artists about their exciting programmes and managed to get some invaluable tips for emerging creatives too. You don’t want to miss this. Read…
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Artistic Resources for Working Class Creatives
Working class creatives have been constantly alienated from the arts scene.
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Top 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Organising Awards
Behind the glitz and glamour of an awards ceremony lies a meticulous planning process which, if not executed with precision, can lead to disappointment for all involved.
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Marketing Your Opportunity (Interview)
Looking back at Zealous Amplify: Mental Health and Wellbeing, community manager Bethan and marketing coordinator Carmela talk about all things marketing.
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The Black Experience
Zealous Amplify: Mental Health and Wellbeing 3rd place winner Charmaine Chanakira is a Zimbabwean-born, London-raised Afro Expressionist. As a self-taught artist, her collections are inspired by her experience as a Zimbabwean woman living in the UK.
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Writing An Artist Biography
As a creative, having an artist biography is something which becomes increasingly important. Viewers of your work want to know more about you and your journey.
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New Logo, Same Us
You might notice we’ve changed our logo. We thought it was important to share the reasons we made that change, and the process we went through before doing it.
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Creative Resources for Women’s Empowerment
Creative women have been breaking barriers for centuries.
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Hear My Cry
Zealous Amplify: Mental Health and Wellbeing 2nd place winner Jennifer Louise Martin is a visual multi-disciplinary artist from London.
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Founder Update 2023
Our mission to reduce the barriers to entry for creating opportunities for the creative sector has never felt so important. In 2023 we promise to do our part in building the creative world we wish to see tomorrow.
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Just Do It
Zealous Amplify: Mental Health and Wellbeing 1st Place Winner Adri São Bento is a Portuguese deaf interdisciplinary artist working with a variety of media including video, performance and sculpture.
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Winners Announcement – Zealous Amplify: Mental Health and Wellbeing
With the closing of the first iteration of Zealous Amplify, which touched upon Mental Health and Wellbeing, we are so happy to announce the winners!
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Grants For The Arts: A Funding Toolkit
You’re a creative, you have a vision for a great piece of art, but you can’t do it alone. You need funding for equipment and space.
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Migrating Zealous
Zealous is undergoing a complete migration of its data to a series of real-time databases hosted across Europe.
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Marketing your Award Effectively (even on shoestring budgets)
Without good marketing, no one will submit to your award/competition. Here are a few tips to increase exposure to your programme
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5 Creativity and Wellbeing tips
Let’s face it, we could all do better at taking care of ourselves. The pursuit of creativity is a journey which can be as thrilling as it is perilous…
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War Notes
Zealous Stories: Photography 2022 winner Mouneb Taim is a photojournalist who has covered life under siege in Douma, Eastern Ghouta, Idlib and Aleppo.
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Augmented Reality Murals
Zealous Stories: Design 2022 winner Luke Gray is a nomadic surrealist painter specialising in large scale paintings on walls and canvas.
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Choosing the best tools for managing submissions
Taking submissions can be a breeze or a nightmare; the deciding factor is your tools. Here are our top tips in picking the right ones for your needs.
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The Cut of Your Gib
Zealous Stories: Painting 2022 winner Amy Dury is an artist based in Hove, specialising in oil painting.
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Founder Update 2022
This year, everything changes for the better. In 2021 we strengthened our foundations. 2022 will be all about building.
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Supporting Growth Within Creative Communities
Now is such an important time to support one another. We’ve put together a list of organisations, individuals and collectives that pay an extraordinary amount of attention to fostering growth, equality and strength within the creative community.
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Maximising Engagement using Competitions
How to maximise engagement for your open call, create exposure for your brand, show support for your community & begin a meaningful dialogue.
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Imperfection I
Zealous Stories: Craft Winner, Carmen M. Castañeda is an artistic researcher and practitioner specialising in hand-embroidery techniques.
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Major Entries Upgrade
We have some exciting news! Based on all your feedback, we are rebuilding how you and your judges will experience processing entries from the ground up. Here is a quick preview of what you can expect very soon.
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Writing the perfect guidelines for your competition
Writing good guidelines can make or break your competition. This article covers best practices to guarantee candidates apply with the right content for your needs.
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Tippler and The Crow
Mason Matak is an illustrator based in Iran. His works have appeared on the pages of children’s books, beside Old Iranian folktales, as tattoos on people’s skin, and also exist online as NFTs.
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Burial Rites
Zealous Stories: Short Story winner, Yvette Naden, is an obsessive writer of poetry and prose.
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How to approach judges for competitions
Getting partners involved and securing high-level individuals to help you select winners is no easy task. But having someone recognisable on your panel is a big perk for candidates who want their work seen. Here are our top tips to…
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Voice Like an Insect
Zealous Stories: Print winner, Angelica Trimble-Yanu, was born and raised in Oakland, California and is an enrolled member of the Oglála Lakȟóta Nation.
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Drawing up your schedule
Timing is everything – opening your submissions at the wrong time or for too long could negatively impact the number of candidates who apply. Find out more on what to watch out for when crafting the schedule of your programme.
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Terminal B
Zealous Stories: Digital Art winner, Nigel Goldsmith, is a visual artist focusing on environmental issues and the Anthropocene.
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Planning the selection process for your competition
Seeing submissions reach into the hundreds then into thousands is a real buzz. But that euphoria can quickly turn to dread if your process to select successful candidates isn’t built to cope.
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Performative Drawing
Zealous Stories: Performance winner, M. Lohrum, is an artist based in London and currently working across video, drawing and performance.
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10 Questions with Guy Armitage
This year, Zealous celebrates its 10th Anniversary. In recognition of this momentous occasion, we’ve interviewed founder and CEO, Guy Armitage, to find out more about the company’s past, present and future.
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Sharing Four Lessons from Running a Business
Ten years have gone by quickly, and we are still learning. After a decade of building Zealous, we thought we should share some of our top lessons.
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We Are Not Ourselves
Zealous Stories, Sculpture winner, Svetlana Ochkovskay lives and works in Portsmouth, UK. Her practice explores ideas of identity, belonging and otherness: encouraging new perceptions of the world by taking the audience to a visual other.
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Celebrating our 10th Anniversary!
It is humbling to see an idea I had ten years ago develop into a network of over 45,000 artists and arts organisations. And although we should use our anniversary to celebrate what we achieved, this feels only like the…
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Perfecting Your Artist Statement for Awards & Submissions
Having a clear and compelling artist statement is essential for grant applications, exhibitions, open calls and residency submissions. To ensure you communicate what matters, we’ve compiled a quick and easy guide to help you tackle the daunting task of putting…
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Wee Muckers – Youth of Belfast
Zealous Stories: Photography winner, Toby binder, has been documenting the daily life of teenagers in British working-class communities for more than a decade. His winning series is a compelling exploration of young people in Northern Ireland, who often suffer the…
