As lockdown begins to ease in the UK, the creative community approaches a milestone moment of reflection. With the end of the pandemic now, hopefully, in sight, we have the opportunity to look back on the true impact of the past year on our creativity.

Synonymous with rebirth and rejuvenation, Spring is already a natural time for contemplation. It therefore feels fitting that so much positive change has occurred during this time of the year. March saw the government pledge over £300 million to the arts and cultural sector, a much-needed cash injection into the creative economy. This, coupled with the exponential vaccine rollout and even the improving weather, all add to a growing feeling of optimism about the future.

Indeed, the past year has been, as so many people like to call it, unprecedented. The creative landscape is now almost unrecognisable. From redundancies and furlough schemes, to closed studios and the rise of remote working, the sector has been among the hardest hit by the total upheaval to our working lives.

Yet, anyone who knows a creative is confident in our ability to face adversity with our thinking caps on. Ardent problem-solvers, the creative community were never going to take this lying down. When working from home made brainstorming difficult, we didn’t stop collaborating. We evolved. From using tools such as Miro and Teams to socially distanced meetings in the park, we’ve found ways to recapture the exchanging of ideas which is so central to our creative process.

But we’ve achieved far beyond simply reforming our ways of working. After all, our skill lies in looking at obstacles from a fresh perspective, employing our creative minds to turn challenges into opportunities. In spite of the many creative drawbacks of lockdown from stifled inspiration to brain fog, the community has nonetheless put their heads together to mobilise their creative potential for good.

Communicating a universal slogan

Take the ‘19 Artists versus COVID 19’ initiative, for example. When the NHS was in crisis, many of us felt the only way we could help was to stay home to alleviate pressure on the health service. Inspired by the simplicity of the ‘stay home’ idea, graphic designer Álvaro López teamed up with paper manufacturer Fedrigoni UK to challenge 19 artists with creating a poster that communicated this life-saving message. This universal slogan has been vital in slowing down the rate of infection throughout the pandemic, a message that continued way into 2021 when the world experienced record-breaking cases during the start of the year.

Raising over £20,000 for the NHS, the posters come together to convey the range of emotions that people have experienced throughout pandemic. From the loneliness of self-isolating to the frustration of social distancing and the struggle of daily routines, the posters also demonstrated an appreciation for key workers, a positive outlook on our future and the hope of overcoming this crisis.

Despite intending to raise money for the UK’s health service, the campaign had a global reach, with international artists including Alejandro Paul and Matt Willey contributing their designs. That’s the thing about the pandemic; while erecting obstacles between us on one hand, it has simultaneously united us under a shared struggle not seen previously. Remote working and virtual collaboration has broken down so many of the global barriers of the creative industries, meaning that, in some ways, we are able to design for a collective cause more effectively than in the past.

Uniting international artists

This is equally true of the ‘Designers Against Coronavirus’ campaign, similarly uniting international artists, but in the collaborative effort to raise money for the Italian Red Cross. In solidarity with one of the most affected countries in the early days of the pandemic, the global creative community contributed to design studio Carosello Lab’s initiative to counter fear and misinformation through design.

The results were striking. Across the 272 works that were collated in the archive, artists from across the globe conveyed messages ranging from ‘Let’s be careful’ to ‘Let’s stay united’. More than just a charitable gesture, the book served as an encouraging tool for hope and resilience to waver the storm of the pandemic.

Public art initiative In Good Company took a different approach. While public interaction was prohibited, the Leeds-based organisation encouraged people to create their own art from home. The ‘Posters for the People 2.0’ initiative provided templates created by Supermundane for people to download and colour in, encouraging donations to Frontline19 in the process, a charity supporting the frontline workers fighting tirelessly against the virus. The result was a powerful social media campaign, #postersforthepeople which collated all of the artwork in a cohesive, visual representation of people’s creativity during lockdown.

The therapeutic benefits of creating art are well-documented. By fashioning a space for people from any background to create their own art under the stifling conditions of lockdown, In Good Company found an innovative way of facilitating better mental health, all in the name of a worthy cause.

Evidently, the pandemic has far from extinguished the creative community’s power to collaborate. It may have even empowered it. From communicating life-saving messages and uplifting to providing a tool of creative escapism, innovators across the globe have rallied together over the past year in ways never seen before.

While we all look forward to the end of the pandemic, let’s not lose our drive to find bigger and better ways to collaborate going forward.