CRÉATEUR is a Creative Lifestyle brand founded by Aria Bird in 2020.

After moving to the Greater Seattle Area several years ago, Aria found herself immediately immersed in Seattle’s vast local art scene. Aria’s illustration talents took her through local art markets like Full Moon Market, Seattle collectives like Nomadia Creatives, art walks like Ballard Art Walk, galleries like Ghost Gallery, and artist showcases like RAW Artists and Conception Arts. By day, Aria has been working professionally in visual design and visual brand strategy for the past seven years.

Aria designed the logos, color palette, curated the photographic and texture style, typography choices and more that helped lay the strong foundation for the brand.

CRÉATEUR is a Creative Lifestyle brand founded by Aria Bird in 2020. After moving to the Greater Seattle Area several years ago, Aria found herself immediately immersed in Seattle’s vast local art scene. Aria’s illustration talents took her through local art markets like Full Moon Market, Seattle collectives like Nomadia Creatives, art walks like Ballard Art Walk, galleries like Ghost Gallery, and artist showcases like RAW Artists and Conception Arts.

Through these experiences, Aria noticed a missing piece. Realizing that each of these components of the current Seattle Local Art Scene had one thing in common. Taking money from artists. From vendor fees, to 50% or more of commissions taken, to the pressure of selling tickets or buying out all of them. Something did not sit right. After taking a step back from Seattle’s art scene for a while, Aria decided she was going to start something for creatives of all art forms. Something that was non-exploitative, held more depth in supporting creatives, and provided resources at no cost.

This brings us to the three main components of the CRÉATEUR brand. The primary component being CRÉATEUR Zine where 3 chosen Seattle artists are featured over the course of 3 months (aka a season)––including spotlights on social media, the opportunity to join CRÉATEUR Club for free as a Featured Creative and being published in the annual issue of CRÉATEUR  Zine. The secondary component being CRÉATEUR Club where get inside of the box seasonal deliveries including the Creative Guide and 1 print from each of the Featured Creatives of the season, as well as outside of the box annual benefits including VIP access to events, exclusive Featured Creative content, and you may commission and curate work with us. The third and final component being CRÉATEUR Gallery, an annual in person collective of curated creative works from our Featured Creatives that have been featured in CRÉATEUR Zine over the past year. Uniquely taking no commission percentages, and asking for no vendor fees, or pressuring for ticket sales. An extended experience for our Featured Creatives to show their work and meet their creative community without financial pressures.

CRÉATEUR takes full responsibility for providing effortless resources to creatives in the Greater Seattle Area by producing income through Creative Partners, CRÉATEUR Zine sales, CRÉATEUR Member and Founding Member sign-ups, brand affiliates, and Annual Gallery events. What CRÉATEUR faces now is getting the word out and sparking creatives and the surrounding local creative communities' interest to get involved.

From the quarterly Zine publication, to the Gallery showings, and the creative lifestyle Blog–CRÉATEUR is your direct source to Seattle’s creative community. With a unique local approach, CRÉATEUR helps you put more meaning behind your words when you say ‘I support local art.’ Featureing three local creatives in each season, their journeys, ideas to work by, and recommended tools–the Zine can bring your local creative community directly to your doorstep and in local shops. Encouraging readers to not only discover new local creatives but to inspire or improve the creative lifestyle they love. 10% of all Zine sales go directly back to supporting the featured independent creatives within. Opportunities continue through the CRÉATEUR Partner Packet with direct networking opportunities and events for local creatives including Gallery showings and pop-ups. Local Seattle creative voices, news, recommendations, and events are heard throughout the creative lifestyle Blog. CRÉATEUR is here to support creations in ALL mediums, because here the words ‘art’ and ‘artist’ are taken out of the equation. CRÉATEUR believes not everyone may be able to call themselves an artist, but everyone can CREATE. Aiming to continuously cultivate an environment of limitless creative support, inspiration and opportunity. CRÉATEUR’s ultimate mission is to financially support independent local artists through a percentage of our magazine sales.  Our goal is to never financially strain artists in the community. Therefore, we do not ask for vendor fees, commissions of their sold work, or require that they buy out tickets if they cannot sell them themselves. In fact, we pay our Featured Creatives a percentage of our zine sales. When we hold CRÉATEUR Annual gala’s all the pieces are sold on a bidding base, so that the artists may retain 100% of their works price, and the event is ticketed to the public. When we hold CRÉATEUR Gallery pop-ups the hosts and venues must be willing to not ask anything financially of the artists showing their work. This is all put in place to align with our mission to place the responsibility back in the consumers hands to support working artists and to treat them as the working professionals that they are. We are redefining the core approach to supporting local artists. With a no tolerance policy for exploitative behavior. We vow to always conduct a personable working relationship with each artist we publish or feature, where there is collaboration, open two way communication, and autonomy for approval before moving forward with any commitments. CRÉATEUR resides foundationally as a magazine serving as your direct source to local creative communities. Solely located in Seattle, WA as of 2022 we plan to expend our efforts though in way of franchise. This way CRÉATEUR’s mission to redefining the core approach to supporting creatives can expand while also maintaining our local community goals. This way CRÉATEUR allows each local community it support to reflect and voice its communities own voice, aesthetics, and culture.

Aria created and wrote a brand guide separate from the comprehensive visual brand strategy specifically for the onboarding purposes of new staff and partnerships.

Over the years of being a creative in Seattle, Aria created and maintained a variety of relationships with local photographers. For the photography below you’ll find photographic work by to Etta Photo, Guy Larson Photography, Molly Hawkins, Guy Sybouts, and Jordan Obaya and his former team at Aperture Ocean Productions.

As Aria likes to put it, throughout this process she became an “Artist Wrangler” Not only hand picking the featured creatives from the artist submissions that came in, but also curating a collection of artwork from all artists to put on the Annual Gallery Gala event. Getting 120+ works, both 2D and 3D, and 30+ artists coordinated, on-time, and given clear guidance of their responsibilities for the event was not for the weak, but also incredibly fun! The response to the Gala was so great that Aria began creating seasonal Zine release “Pop-Up Parties” with her Zine sponsors.

The heart of this brand was the Zine. Aria’s first love of photoshoots, layout design, and writing inspired the idea to create something that included all that and more…a magazine. Aria believes the best brands start as one idea that continuously evolves and grows into it’s truest self, just as we do as people. She believes CRÉATEUR did just that. Aria grew and oversaw a team of writers, she herself being a contributing editorial writer, edited the magazine, and designed the layout of each one of the 12 that were published. All articles were then produced on the online blog.