Behance’s “Year in Review” – Highlighting the People, Places and Tools that Defined Creativity in 2015

The end of the year is a time for reflection and resolutions, lists of best songs and slideshows. But how do we look back and measure a year in creativity, with all the cutting-edge technology, artists and innovators pushing the industry in new directions?

Today, Behance is releasing our annual “Year in Review,” the creative industry’s time capsule of 2015. This year, we had more than six million members uploading thousands of projects every day. Better than anyone else, Behance captures the zeitgeist of the global creative community. We paused to take the pulse of this vibrant creative community and found some pretty incredible – and unexpected – things happen when people share their work. Here’s a snapshot of the people, places, tools and techniques that defined creativity in 2015:

The Talent: Our number one priority is to empower the careers of our members and help their work get exposure. We’re proud to share the accomplishments of Behance members like:

• Alexis Marcou, who posted her graphics on Behance that now decorate Nike’s executive office walls.
• Damjan Stankovic, who won the 2015 Red Dot Award for experimenting with the first clock with a liquid, ferrofluid, display. The Red Dot Design Award is an international design competition that honors the best in design and business.
• Patrick Seymour, whose illustrations were noticed by recording artist Usher’s production team and was asked to create custom illustrations for the singer’s next world tour (Yeah!).22
• A Behance member team whose retro-futuristic logos star in the credits of Sony’s “22 Jump Street.”

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The Places (buy your plane ticket!):

• Sao Paulo was the city with the most new members in 2015, with a 21% growth rate.
• The country with the most new members this year was Ukraine, with a 23% growth rate.
• 6% of all appreciations on Behance (nearly 2.5 million!) came from Russia.
• The Savannah College of Art and Design published the most projects of any other art and design school.

The Tools & Techniques:

• Nothing to do on a Tuesday – why not get creative? It was the year’s most popular day for publishing work on Behance.
• When creating, users found the most inspiration from bright red (#FF0000) coloring, which was the most popular hue in 2015.
• As for tools, Adobe Illustrator was the most used this year: the number of projects made using Illustrator grew by 57% in 2015.
• Interaction Design was the creative field with the most growth this year, at 52%. Look out for Adobe delivering a new tool for this exploding field in 2016, with Project Comet.

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We’re humbled and impressed by our members’ amazing work – and energized about these new developments in the industry. I’d love to hear what creative moments, people or places inspired you this year in the comments below or on Twitter, @behance.

Jeannie Huang, product designer at Behance, designed the Year in Review site and contributed to this piece.