It is without any doubts in my mind that I can say Jacksonville is a great city. All too often, I’ve heard our coastal home understated, praising New York, L.A. and Chicago for perceived creative superiority across the country. While each city has their merits and troubles, I want to emphasize that Jacksonville has a beautiful soul, and a much stronger design landscape than people give it credit for.

It’s easy to get lost in the national commentary or focus only on what pops up on services like dribble and behance; but where these can be very helpful tools to experience design at large, it is still very important not to overlook the talented and creative people right here in Jacksonville. As local designers are  brought up, it becomes hard to keep track of who is in the city, or more importantly what they’re doing. Creatives are constantly changing the landscape in Jacksonville, and we wanted a fun way keep everyone connected beyond the traditional approaches.

To show our local designers their due praise and build a visual collection of our community, we launched the Creative Trading Cards at July’s Cocktails & Creatives. These cards exemplify the great talents we have right here in our own backyard, and their many accomplishments. The best part about these cards and Jacksonville, is there’s always more to be made with such a great base to pull from.

We launched series 1 with twenty cards, ranging from in-house and freelance designers to a screenprinting duo and One Spark founder. We pride  ourselves on the diversity of our creatives and want to showcase them on all levels, ranging from individual, group and even studios/firms as a collective. Our community is our number one priority and we look forward to continuing the project.

So with that said, we’d love to open up the floor to the rest of you while we build the next series. We’re looking for great designers who are doing great things. We’ve attached an InDesign template to fill out your own card, and each series will be chosen at random. As a community, we should encourage everyone to make a card—especially those who are going above and beyond in Jacksonville. We want everyone in town to know who we are, and why we’ll always be the  Bold City of the South.

Please email any suggestions, interests or questions to Brett at eventcoordinator@aigajacksonville.org.