Insights
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10 Creatives Share the Truth About their Creative Degree
Creative degrees don’t always prepare graduates for the realities of building creative careers. We spoke directly with art school graduates about what they wish they had known before starting their degree – from the value of work experience to the challenges of turning creativity into a career.
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Hiring the Right Awards Coordinator
Finding the right Awards Coordinator can make or break your programme – the wrong hire leads to stressed staff, disappointed applicants, and damaged relationships. This complete guide includes job description templates, interview questions, and cost analysis to help you make the smartest hiring decision for your awards programme.
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Turning Industry Connections Into Your Most Powerful Awards Marketing Channel
You’ve spent months crafting the perfect awards marketing campaign, yet entries aren’t flooding in. The problem isn’t your messaging – it’s that professionals no longer trust marketing channels for career decisions. Here’s how successful awards programs activate trusted industry voices who already have their ideal entrants’ attention
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Why Public Voting Can Transform Your Awards
“I wanted this to be more of the people and not just from a small group of individuals,” explains one awards organizer who made the switch. The results speak for themselves: increased reach, enhanced credibility, and stories that “go a teeny bit viral” because they’re relatable to broader audiences.
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Your Programme Failed, Now What? (Free Template)
So, your open call didn’t go as planned. Maybe entries were lower than expected, the timeline slipped, or feedback from artists, judges, or partners wasn’t as positive as you’d hoped. But this isn’t the end of your programme. It could be the turning point where things become clearer, stronger, and more aligned with your mission.
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How to price your Award using AI: Prompts for every program
Setting the right price for award submissions is a delicate balancing act. Charge too much, you limit applicants; charge too little, you risk overwhelming costs. Discover powerful AI prompts that create pricing strategies perfectly tailored to your awards program.
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The Absolute Guide to Running Awards
Download our free guide to master award management! Learn to avoid 5 common mistakes, market effectively, engage judges, optimize pricing, and create a smooth experience for entrants. Perfect for competition hosts looking to elevate their events.
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Online forms vs. Submission management platforms
While many event organizers start with a simple online form, as competitions grow in scale and complexity, a dedicated award management platform can provide a more structured and streamlined experience. Many organizers struggle with resource constraints, needing a solution that doesn’t eat up so much of their time, but how do these two options compare?
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Choosing the right awards management platform for staff recognition awards
Managing Employee Recogition Awards can be overwhelming without the right tools. This article introduces 7 tools that simplify submissions, judging, and voting to help you focus on creating meaningful events.
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Real engagement begins when your open call ends
Hosting an open call is truly an enriching experience. It allows for you to discover new talent and support them, create connections, and foster creativity. However, once the opportunity is over, the real challenge—and the true potential for impact—emerges. This can allow for the nourishment on meaningful relationships and the growth of your community.
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How To Check If An Opportunity Is Legitimate
We try our best to ensure opportunities listed through us are legitimate and ethical. We show all previous opportunities held by the organisations and make sure they are transparent with any fees and what you can get in return. However, it is important to always check an opportunity you are applying for, whether on Zealous or…
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The Questionnaire Conundrum: Unraveling the Complexities of Audience Data
Capturing data is vital. It shapes our programming, informs our funders, and, ultimately, determines our impact. Yet, with increasingly stretched resources, it is a time-consuming and expensive endeavour for organisations. In this article, we’ll unpack the purpose behind audience questionnaires, explore their limitations & explore alternative solutions.
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How To Make Creative Networking Work For You
‘Networking’ is a word that can make introverted creatives feel uneasy. But in the creative industries, connecting with others is really important for building a successful career. Even if you prefer spending time alone, networking can lead to exciting collaborations, fun experiences, and helpful connections that push your creative journey ahead.
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Mastering Social Media with Carmela Vienna
Navigating the world of social media and creating an online presence can be tricky. Bethan sits down with marketing coordinator and social media whizz Carmela to get the intel on how to run a social media page successfully and get all her top tips for creatives.
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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 convince candidates you are legitimate.
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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 on!
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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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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 appeal to judges you would like involved in your programme.
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Establishing the perks for your competition
The only reason applicants will take the time to submit is that there’s something in it for them. Defining what’s in it for those selected, and understanding what you have available to you, could allow you to run a competition on a very tight budget, and still make a great success of it.
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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 words to your practice.
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Creative Resources: Where to Get Your Grant
Every discipline comes with its own set of requirements and costs. It can be hard to filter through the plethora of opportunities to find the perfect one suited to your project and its needs. We’ve put together a selection of grant initiatives and competitions that stand out as being particularly suited to specific disciplines.
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Defining the purpose of your programme
Purpose is powerful. It allows you to inspire people to take part and measure your goals effectively once your program ends. Without a clearly articulated purpose, marketing your offering and getting candidates to submit will be an uphill struggle.
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Making the perfect writing award application
Writing awards can be daunting, particularly for those new to the craft. To help you navigate the process, we asked three industry professionals: ‘what do you look for in a writing awards application?’ These firsthand insights will equip you with the knowledge that you need to take the plunge, and submit to that opportunity you’ve…
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Creative Resources: Self-Promotion
Many creatives shy away from self-promotion fearing they’ll be branded arrogant, but their fear is misplaced. If you don’t tell people about what you do – and why you do it – how will they know? If you want to create a sustainable business then you’re going to need customers, supporters and champions. Self-promotion will…
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Creative Questions: How Do I Get My Name Out There?
We’re tackling those all-important questions asked by our creative community. In this article we explore: how to get your name out there. Three arts professionals share their wisdom to provide you with a series of valuable insights.
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Creative Resources: Studio Spaces
The right studio space can enable artists to develop their practice, network with other creative practitioners and gain access to opportunities which stem from their environment. We have compiled a list of studio resources to help you find the perfect workspace to suit your needs.
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Creating opportunity in adversity
our months ago, the rules that governed society turned inside out. This left communities isolated, lead to freelancers losing their income and forced organisations to reinvent themselves. Cambridge City Council Supporting communities by commissioning talent With schools closed, parents working from home and the elderly under lockdown, families have either found themselves alone in isolation…
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Embracing Creativity as an Agent of Change
How long will it take before we return to normality? Is the world of yesterday really the world that we want for tomorrow? And in this period of change, how do we make sure we are able to cope with so much uncertainty, both as individuals and businesses?
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Creating purpose in isolation
This is our time to prove that arts organisations are there for them even in the most adverse of times. Here’s how running a competition can help support our communities now in isolation, give our team a shared purpose and ensure, that when our doors open once again, our audiences return to us and our…
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Part 2: Building Relationships with Art Spaces
We’re tackling those all-important questions asked by our creative community. In this article we explore: how to build and maintain a relationship with art spaces (more specifically galleries). Two arts professionals share their wisdom to provide you with more valuable insights.
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Creative Questions: Building Relationships with Art Spaces
Part 1: We’re tackling those all-important questions asked by our creative community. In this article we explore: how to build and maintain a relationship with art spaces. Three arts professionals share their wisdom to provide you with a series of valuable insights.
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11 Life Lessons If You’re A Creative
Being a creative can be tough. For all the time you spend doing what you love, you’ve got to put in the same number of hours trying to get others’ attention and making the money you need to sustain yourself. These lessons will help you along the way.
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6 Books To Read In 2020
The winter break is the perfect time to reflect on the past year and prepare for the challenges of 2020. It’s also a time of frantic Christmas gift buying, where the stresses of inspiration, finances and expectations collide; leaving us clueless on what to get people. To kill two birds with one stone, I’ve compiled…
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Creative Questions: Curating a Festival
Completing an application can be daunting; particularly when it comes to arts festivals that are often on the look out for new and engaging work. To help you navigate the process, we asked three festival organisers: what do you look for in an application when curating your festival?
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Creative Questions: Approaching a Gallery
We’re tackling those all-important questions frequently asked by our creative community. In this article we investigate: what is the best way to approach a gallery? We spoke to five gallery professionals who have drawn on their own knowledge and experience to provide you with a series of valuable insights.
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