Who will you find featured on out Platform?David Morgan: local artist
Ruby Mint: local boutique Peyton Toledo: local influencer Jaslyn Ravenscraft: lifestyles blogger All professional photography on our site was produced by Sky Hellie Photography
Reach out to Sky on Instagram for inquiries |
Art. Fashion. Phoenix 602POPhx shines a light on local artists and designers within the downtown Phoenix area. Phoenix is home to many talented artists, yet they do not always get the attention and recognition they deserve. Our purpose is to give these artists and designers the chance to showcase their work and gain popularity. When first starting this project, we quickly noticed that downtown Phoenix has a passion for artistic vision. We decided to create this platform because we knew that Phoenix had an artistic vibe yet we knew it was largely unprompted. The city of Phoenix has developed and changed immensely over the past decade, adding more of a modern twist to the community. We also saw that Phoenix has had an active mural painting scene for quite some time, but it was not well cataloged.
Our goals is to help artists gain publicity, so we started by attending events in order to meet the talent. We also made 602POPhx business cards and handed them out at First Friday. This is an event held in downtown Phoenix every first Friday of the month which showcases local boutiques, shops, artists, designers, and much more. We quickly found there was a bigger art scene than what meets the eye. Once we got our name and mission out to the Arts Community, we decided to do some networking. Many artists reached out to us asking how they would get featured what they would get out of it, and more. We got to know one artist very well, David Morgan, who sent us a few of his pieces and we were able to interview him about his art. 602POPhx supports local artists and designers by giving you, or your team, a spot on our website that could include anything from an article, pictures of your work, or a video showcasing your business and/or work. After we had educated the public about who we are and our mission, we attended more events, including the Oak Street Alley Mural Festival. Through this event, multiple artists put on live mural paintings in an alleyway in downtown Phoenix. They were able to transform what may have been perceived as a drab alley to now a lively setting for locals to enjoy. Overall, artists have the power to change the city by creating a positive environment and bringing the community together through their appreciation of art. Phoenix also is a welcoming place for local boutiques and designers. The 602POPhx team found there are plenty boutiques in the Phoenix area. Rubymint General is a store that features handmade jewelry, stickers, and clothing items, making this place very unique. The store started off with only 15 artists and has grown to house and support over 120 artists. This store is the perfect example of what it is like to bring a community together and showcase locals work, just as 602POPhx strives to do. Another local designer brought talent to the table at a young age. TIT for TAT Clothing is one of the boutiques that attends First Friday. The Tit for TAT owner was only [years old] when she began making clothes from recycled clothing for fun and then realized that people were into what she does. Through online promotion and social media, she was able to build a platform and audience for herself where she is now running a successful online shop. 602POPhx has also used this strategy, using Instagram as our main platform. Through social media, we were able to reach a greater audience and explore different art/fashion through the internet. Another topic we feature on our website is an Influencer page. Influencers help promote products. The influencer on our page, Peyton Toledo, specifically helped promote local fashion in Arizona. Our other influencer, Jaslyn Ravenscraft, hosts her own blog where she discusses the latest trends and her exciting lifestyle. We decided to put an influencer twist on our page because they are also trying to showcase their own work while helping out the people they are promoting. We had also added a few podcasts to give our followers greater insights into who these influencers are and what they think about the fashion trends in Arizona. Throughout our site, we have had many different media types featured ranging from articles to montage videos and even podcasts. Each of these media channels tell a different story than the other. 602POPhx is unlike anything else because we try to showcase the talents that we feel are left in the dark, unprompted. When creating 602POPhx, we all knew that we were into pop culture and artistic vibes. Our team put together a list of ideas of what we could focus on and eventually ended up with local artists and designers in the Phoenix area. We chose the name 602POPhx because the number, 602, is the Phoenix area code. “POP” stands for the pop culture represented around the city and “Phx” stands for Phoenix. We wanted to make our website just as fun and creative as the artistic life in Phoenix, so we chose pink for our theme color. Overall, we wanted to create a platform that showcased the hidden talents of local artists and designers in the Phoenix area—the people who make Phoenix the artistic city it is today. If you would like to be featured on our site, don’t hesitate to reach out because we want everyone to see the many talents and beauty of Phoenix, Arizona! |