25 July 2024

Kaybug Kollective

A thought-splatter about my time running Kaybug Kollective

It's late 2022. I had just had what I could describe as one of the worst years of my life mentally, and also one of my most hopeful years of my life. I had gone through a breakup the year prior that haunted me the entire year, and I picked up graphic design again after first learning it in highschool. Through my exploration of design and art, I had found a lot to love, and a skill I never knew I had that I could really take pride in. I wanted to do something with this skill to help empower others, I had just about reached my first 1k followers on twitter, and took this as a sign to start something. I'm not one to take the spotlight, I didn't fancy the idea of opening a discord server in my name, but I wanted a way to spotlight other artists using the influence I had and was gaining.

I had collabed with a few other artists at this point, Ghostmemory and Nobonus being two who had reached out to me and had a good rep with. I thought, hey, why not reach out and see if they're interested in starting a little design club so we can boost eachother up? Quickly after the name "Kaybug Kollective" stuck into my head and wouldn't leave like a catchy song, and the others agreed it was a neat name. We called ourselves the "Founders" and started work on what would be our first collection; Growth. Fitting for everyone in the moment, as the purpose of Kaybug was to help everyone grow, and to showcase the growth we had all gained over our time as artists. When creating Kaybug Kollective, I was inspired by other collectives and groups, such as desktopGeneration and Arte et Labore, however it was clear from the start that we didn't want Kaybug to be a business entity of any sort. We wanted to create and inspire everyone, and make our art as accessible as possible. During our first collection, we brought along lunar polygon and Nthercyte, two amazing artists who helped make Kaybug's first collection the kickass beginning we needed to ensure we'd make a splash on the scene.

Now, I won't go over our entire history here, as I don't really have the time while writing this but it's safe to say that Kaybug Kollective has really changed my life. The people I've met, the friends I've made, and the experiences I've had while running this small collective has been amazing, and I wouldn't change it for the world. We're still operating at the time of writing, and I don't see us stopping anytime soon. From our somewhat regular member collections, to our occational Community Collection, it's been a blast cultivating this positive and awesome community of artists, designers, and creators who've come out and messaged me telling me how much they look up to the work both me and the entire collective does. How it inspires them, and drives them to create more and better artworks. That's why we started this, to boost eachother, to inspire others, and to make this community of ours a positive and awesome place.

I also wanna quickly touch on a question that gets asked in the Kaybug discord or DMd to me every so often; "How do I join Kaybug Kollective?". I don't wanna crush any dreams here, but since the start we've kinda been running on an internal "Hey this person looks like they'd be a great fit, lets send them an invite!" and so far, that's been working out for us! Right now we're happy with our offical member numbers (16 at the time of writing) and we're not looking to expand any further, rather cultivate and boost our existing members. But if you still wanna get involved, that's what our community collections are for! They're a chance for artists of all skill levels and styles to submit something for a Kaybug Kollective collection. We feature it on our socials as normal, and tag the artists in the hopes it gets more eyes on 'em! In my eyes, the community collections are a big pillar in what makes Kaybug Kollective what it is.

Anyways, I've been typing for too long about all this. I don't know if there's any central point to this blog post, I'm just really happy to see what we've all accomplished as a group. I'm so proud of y'all!!!! Keep at it, and I'll see ya in the next post ;3