a masters project that turned into a community project
There’s a version of creative success that looks like all those big agencies we’re familiar with. It’s the ability to take on clients anywhere, work from anywhere, and above all – be recognised anywhere. For a long time that felt like the goal. Build something that follows the trajectory of the big shops so you can see your name in those big, bright city lights.
I started recreative + co. in 2015. It was built in a basement in NYC, then moved to Connecticut, and now, for the last six years, we’ve been based in Kittery, Maine.
Kittery is a cute little town on the very bottom of Maine’s coast, just over the bridge from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. People mostly visit it for the outlets on Route 1. But Kittery is so much more than that. Though it’s not a huge design and creative hub, there’s a small (but mighty) creative community but the closest ‘big cities’ for meetups are an hour in each direction. What Kittery does have is an awesome walkable main street, a collaborative community of independent business owners (who are mostly women), and residents who are lifers. Once you move here, the chances you’re leaving are slim.
Kittery inspires that sort of deep dedication to a location because it’s remained a sort of speakeasy town, where people know of it and word spreads, but it’s not widely talked about or a destination. Actually, it’s situated right between two of the largest tourist destinations in the seacoast, Portsmouth NH & York Beach ME.
Over the course of our eleven years in business I learned a very large lesson, your community has the ability to feed or hinder your creativity.
What “community” actually means
The word community gets used a lot in creative circles as a kind of flag to welcome everyone to something you can’t quite put your finger on. I used to lean on our location as a selling point too, it wasn’t meant to be cynical, but it wasn’t real either. When we existed in Connecticut, I touted that we were a part of the Northwest Corner. I even joined the board of a local business, but I never really immersed myself. I knew it wasn’t my community, even if it was a great one.
What made the idea of community real for me was moving into our current office space in Kittery Foreside. Ever since moving to Maine and discovering the Foreside, I knew this was where I belonged.
When my studio moved into this space, I felt that sense of belonging immediately. I knew a few folks in the building already but when we moved in it became something else entirely. When you become a part of something that fits so well, you get to make work for people you actually know, whose restaurants you eat in, whose events you’ve taken part in for years, who you knew before you knew. You’re no longer just providing design services, you’re contributing to something you live inside of.
That shift showed up very visibly in the work we put out. When I photographed The Wallingford Dram, a bar I’d go to every Sunday to doodle, well before we ever worked together, I wasn’t starting from the ground up. I knew the bartenders well, I understood the atmosphere, the regulars, what made the place feel like itself on a Wednesday night versus a Saturday. That comfortability in a space isn’t something you can brief into a photographer who hasn’t experienced the space. It’s earned through genuine love for a place.
The accidental experiment
Earlier this year I launched VisitKittery.org, a destination website for the town, built as part of my master’s degree in Graphic & Digital Design through Barcelona School of Art & Design. It was a project for our web design course, and since I had both the means and love of the place, I decided that we should build it to ‘lift all boats’. You see, Kittery Foreside is a bit hidden, and over the past few years has had a hard time pulling the tourists in who are visiting nearby destinations. I wanted to build something for the community that I loved that would help the community without weighing on them.
What happened next was genuinely shocking and weeeellllllllll outside of my comfort zone. I reached out to local business owners, some of which I knew already some of which I had never met before, the response was overwhelming. A few people were wary, but generally speaking the majority were so excited to take part… Not because I was wildly polished (I can assure you, I was not), but because they either knew me personally or knew someone who knew me and trusted that I gave a sh*t about the town just as much as any one of them did. The website came together in record time.
Could someone who didn’t live here build that website? Sure. Would it look just like Kittery feels or have been as community driven if they didn’t? Likely not.
Actual connection creates better work
The more local my focus became, the better the work got, and the more the work got noticed beyond the region. The photography we took of Salty Spirits, Anju Noodle Bar, and The Wallingford Dram, three independent Seacoast businesses, recently earned Muse Creative Awards in commercial food and beverage photography. The Wilder website project received a GDUSA American Digital Design Award. None of this was the end goal, but there’s a clear (and positive!) reaction to the photography and design we’ve done for local brands. And that’s, I think, because of how legitimately engrained we are in those companies.
Work made with genuine interest and community comes across differently. It looks like home, and how each of those businesses were actually meant to be.
What this means for you
I’m not arguing that you should limit your ambitions geographically, shoot for the moon my friend. I’m also not arguing that working with local clients is inherently more meaningful than working with clients elsewhere. What I am arguing is that depth of genuine human care and connection in a community and in relationships that predate the project produces better creative work than breadth of reach does.
A few things that have shaped how I think about this:
Arrive because you want to be there, not because you want something from others. The business owners who trusted me with VisitKittery weren’t doing it because of our portfolio. Likely, they hadn’t even seen it. They were doing it because I’d been around. As a ginger, I’m relatively visible, and despite me desperately trying not to talk to people, I’ve been told I have a very friendly face. Attend things, support friends and locals, have opinions. And do it because you want to, not because you think you should. Fake support comes across as just that, fake.
Let the place inform the work, not just the creative brief. A photoshoot for a Seacoast bar should feel like that bar, not just any old place. A website for a Kittery destination should feel like Kittery. Regionality isn’t a constraint, it can be the difference in making the work memorable or letting it blend in with all of the crap on the internet.
Build relationships because you want to, not because you want to sell something. Easier said than done, right? As a new business owner you’re likely looking to gain clients wherever you can but selling to someone who doesn’t want or need it is never going to get you anywhere. Most of my strongest client work has come from an actual connection to the business owner and that’s because it was a genuine connection, I didn’t want anything from them, I just genuinely enjoyed being there and that turned into something magical down the road.
The longer game
Ten-plus years in, the clearest thing I can say about what makes this small creative studio sustainable are the relationships I’ve made and nurtured. It’s the genuine connection between a person and the place they’re in. It’s whether the people around you trust you and understand you’ve got their backs and businesses.
Ever since I moved to Maine, this is exactly where I knew recreative needed to be. It is our perfect place and the work really reflects that.
The place you’re from is not a limitation to grow out of. For most of us, it’s the most honest brief we’ll ever get
