From time to time we may send you email messages showcasing our members and highlighting other on-site activity, as well as marketing emails, in order to keep you up-to-date with relevant activity on Creative Commission.

If you would like to fine-tune your email settings to control the types of emails you receive from us or to unsubscribe from all Creative Commission emails, you can manage your email subscription settings via your Account page.

When you follow a creative within the site it triggers the following; 

- You can direct message that creative via the site 

- The creative is added to your Contacts page so you can recall their profile and details quickly 

- Their work is pushed higher in the creative feeds

Creative Commission does not charge a fee or take a percentage for any briefs successfully commissioned via the platform.

Our 0% commission business model means that when the time comes for the creative to be paid fully and fairly for the pre-agreed budget fee, the payment is sent directly between parties.

As members of CC can be spread all over the world, please be sure to refer to local laws, taxes and regulations before any contractual obligations are agreed.

Kill fees, instalments and deposits

It is important at the pre-commission stage to agree the payment plan and outline at which milestones or dates during the commission that payment is due.

A common method to protect both parties during the commissioning process, is to agree a kill fee (also called a cancellation fee) up-front. According to The Balance Small Business, a kill fee is "a payment... to the freelancer when their assigned article is killed or canceled. It is generally expressed as a percentage of the total payment, and it's used to afford the freelancer with a certain sense of confidence."

Some designers may specify that the deposit, which is usually a percentage of the project estimate, serves as a kill fee. Lifewire explains: "a non-refundable deposit and cancellation clause protects [the creative] from having hours of uncompensated work during the critical research, brainstorming and conceptualization phase of a project."

With some video projects, it may require the fee and budget to be split across the life of the project so for example, half on being commissioned, (to cover costs for example) with the balance due on delivery of the video.  

You can connect with a creative in several ways on a Creative Commission, the main way is to post a brief which will outline your project, (deliverables, timeframes, budget) from there creatives on the site will decide whether its a project for them and pitch to you, (via the site). 

You can connect with a creative via an open brief which is a call out to creatives to share their work with you, you're then able to build out a network of creatives in that particular discipline and who meet your requirements.  

You can also follow a creative and once following you are able to direct message them via the site. 

Creatives are using their application to sell themselves and their work to you so the more specific you can be within your brief as to your requirements the greater the ability of the creative to establish whether it's a project for them.

A creative will apply with existing examples of their work which fits the style you are looking for, they will explain about themselves and their work history as well as video and image links - you can also link through to their profile which will include examples of their wider work as well as their social links. 

What you are looking to see from an application is the creative demonstrating why they are suitable for the project and confirming this with relevant examples of their work.  

There are two ways to engage your project with creative members within the Creative Commission platform, a premium brief and a free brief.

So what's the difference? 

A premium brief is a very specific need for a campaign, for example, a music video, this has a set budget, deliverables, references, shoot dates in mind, all the information laid out.  

A free brief is much less structured if you are regularly looking for lyric video animators in Canada for example or you know you have a project upcoming where you want to start getting creatives in place but the terms aren't quite defined then an open brief is open to call out to people who fit the broadly defined criteria. 

If you're not sure in which direction to go down please contact the team at [email protected] and we'll be able to advise how best to connect your project with your needs.

We recently launched our new service Commissioner+, we've designed the service to make it even easier to discover the right creative for your project and streamline the process of commissioning the perfect creative. 

The key benefits of Commissioner+ are; 

- A brief writing service, give us your headline information, budget, timeframes, references and we will turn this into a brief for you. We can also advise on budgets and whether your brief is positioned to get the best results. 

- Filtering applications, whilst we won't make creative decisions on applications we can filter them down based on the criteria you've requested, we will then bundle up the most relevant applications and send them to you on a shareable link saving you time going through applications which aren't a clear fit.  

- Commissioner+ is a concierge service so you will be provided with an account manager who will be on hand to help with all your creative and content needs and streamline the process of using the platform. 

- As we get to know your content needs we shall also send you new creatives to check out and content trends we have seen throughout our community. 

Commissioner+ is designed to ensure you get the most from Creative Commission and to make it simple and time efficient to connect with our global community of creatives.  

A Project is an example of work completed by a creative on the platform, we use projects within Creative Commission as a way for creatives to showcase their work.

It allows a creative to showcase their work that specifically fits what you are looking for within your brief, for example, if you are looking for 2D lyric video animators a creative will be able to apply and qualify their suitability with examples of 2D animated lyric videos they have previously worked on. 

As a commissioner, you are also able to search Projects as a way to discover new creatives and work. 

Yes, use the dropdowns on this page to search for new work or inspiration in each area. 

In order to help protect creatives' intellectual property when applying to briefs we are in agreement with the guidelines set-out by We Direct Music Videos:

For "concepts not selected, the ideas and executions herein are the property of the director. In the event the copyright to an artist or company’s pitch materials and treatments (the “Materials”) is assigned to a company through an NDA or other legally binding agreement, that company is free to use in whole or in part the Materials but must notify the artist and company in writing and pay a usage fee to be negotiated between the parties in good faith taking into account industry standards and norms."

Creative Commission supports We Direct Music Videos' mission for the music video pitching process "to be more respectful and transparent" and to minimise free work for creatives and therefore we ask that you only request full treatments from shortlisted applicants.

WDMV says: "The nature of music video production requires a certain degree of flexibility, so while every company will make their own decision as best suits their business model, these are suggested guidelines to make the process more respectful and efficient for everyone involved."

It suggests a "music video pitching process consisting of three phases that whittle down the pool of possible directors, so as to limit the number of directors committing time to write full treatments without compensation."

1. Interest Phase
   (gauge interest, gather showreels, check out styles and experience) - no full treatment
    
2. Concept Phase
   (reject unsuitable interested applicants and shortlist directors to invite concepts) - one page treatment
    
3. Selection Phase
   (invite up to 5 shortlisted creatives to treatment pool) - full treatments

Click here for more information about WDMV

The initial application stage involves creatives putting forward examples of previous work.

Based on their suitability we'd recommend shortlisting them ahead of moving to the next phase which might include putting forward ideas, writing a treatment or sketching out rough ideas.

A shortlist is also a good way to recall applications. 

Posting a brief on our platform is free and you can start right here. 

Follow the five-step brief process to submit your brief and jump on the live chat if you have any questions.

You can edit your brief until it’s published. Once the brief is live on our platform, only admins can make amendments so should you need to make changes please get in touch on [email protected] 

It's not essential to name your artist or you as a company within your brief. The most important information to include within a brief is the deliverables and expectations you have as well as references, similar work, things you like and critically, things you don't like, (so people can eliminate themselves).

This information helps creatives to get a better handle on your project. An artist name helps with interest but it is those references and expectations which ultimately creatives are looking to align to.

Should you wish to keep your brief anonymous please submit it as confidential within the artist field so we can treat your brief this way. 

Should you have any questions on posting briefs and keeping them confidential please drop us a line at - [email protected]