You know the famous phrase "New Year, new us"? Well, we're just over two weeks late to the party. Turns out a lot of changes take a lot of time. (who could've guessed?)
Blackout Studios is fast approaching the end of its second year of operations, and as the landscape that we operate in changes, so must we. We have enjoyed a nice stable year, that for business, has helped us continue to operate at a level that is safe and steady for our continued operation. But, in order to grow, we need to make changes.
In our second year, we saw Naomi release her first-ever line of creator merch (which I personally own with her gorgeous design work!), and the launch of two more albums from AViVA, which Blackout Studios helped, and continues to help with logistical and merchant support. We have established a logistics relationship with Besomorph, providing logistical and e-commerce support for his brand-new site and web store. We also saw Katie release her new single Thorns, and re-release her debut EP Seasons, alongside a brand new line of merch. Finally, we have already been talking to new creators, helping support upcoming artists both publicly and behind closed doors, and working with them to develop their work and build towards their first releases.
I am proud of what Blackout Studios has become, and I am so excited for the next step in growing what we have fostered for the last 18 months. What started out as a website for just selling little art prints, has evolved into a grand operation of providing countless numbers of services and solutions to those who need them, but most importantly, in a way in which they can continue to afford their own independence and autonomy.
As proud as we are of all of this, we still recognize that we cannot stop or become complacent. We are actively seeking to grow our roster of creators to expand our family and provide a better quality of service to our creator family, our partners, and our external clients.
I am personally working towards building new services and skills to offer, alongside learning a lot about what it means to run this business. It also becomes obviously apparent how difficult the hurdles are when you pride ethics and morality above profit. The pitfalls are deeper, the climbs are steeper, and every step feels much more personal.
This brings me to what's next, both for myself as a creator, and for Blackout Studios as a business unit.
I will continue to make art, create things and build new ideas, acting as a creator under Blackout Studios, alongside my dear friends Katie, Naomi, and Betty. With multiple projects in the works, including my work on The Dead Petal Club, my focus is being driven more toward what I love and being creative rather than doing paperwork and advertising. That's why my dear friend and fellow creator Katie-Saffire is taking over the responsibilities of creator outreach and social media management to help alleviate the stress of my current workload.
I will continue to manage creator/partner relations and handle the creative workloads presented by our clients and partners, whilst Katie focuses on finding more creators to work with us, either as partners or under the umbrella of our label.
We are also opening our services to a wider reach, and with the newly updated site, we are working on wider showcases to celebrate what we have achieved, and what we can offer others, with a focus on maintaining reasonable prices for smaller independent creators who would not normally be able to afford such things from other units.
If you want to enquire about any of these services, you can do so at info@blackout-studios.com
Finally, we plan on using this blog as a method of allowing us to maintain full transparency and contact with those who wish to be updated more frequently. We will be using it to talk about the services we provide as a studio, the projects we are working on, or have worked on (post-NDA), and highlighting the work of our creators and partners, and sometimes simply creators talking about topics that interest them in a format that would be too long for a Twitter rant. Once we are fully established into a production rhythm, we will also be opening the blog to guest writers both internally and externally.
If you want to enquire about guest writing, you can also do so at info@blackout-studios.com