Photo by Mya Grant/The Atlanta Voice
Creative culture has taken on new meanings as it has evolved over time. Many projects, events, and collaborations wouldn’t have been possible without a creative on someone’s team. Creatives After Dark, a nine-year-old creative agency, is one of the many local collectives aimed at cultivating young creatives and elevating the community around them.
In 2015, Jacques Taylor founded Young Dreamers/Creatives After Dark as an opportunity to build up his friends’ passions. While attending Carver Early College before graduating in 2012, he met Demario Gay and mentored him to guide him into figuring out his next steps in life.
“We’re adults now,” says Taylor. “We don’t want to run the streets or anything like that, so we started a clothing line.”
What started out as a fashion brand and a small debut pop-up shop on Peter Street quickly led to connecting with others in the art, music, and film industries. Artists would personally contact Taylor to perform at fashion shows and have pop-up shops. It was then that Taylor decided to expand Creatives After Dark into a collective for young artists to have a platform.
While outlining the direction of the collective, Taylor and Gay reconnected to spark the conversation of managing brands and artists. Gay finished high school on a marketing track and wanted to expand his skills and talents. From there, they both started looking for venues to host and collaborate as their projects, clientele, and events continued to grow. Their search started off rough but then they came across 1677 Dorsey Avenue in East Point, also known as Blue Room Studios.
“The reason why it wasn’t hard for us to be convinced was because we knew what we were looking for,” says Gay. “And the video that was sent to us convinced us because it had that industrial look.”
Blue Room Studios is an independent, Black-owned studio that offers a space where creatives can work on their projects and collaborate with others. Described as an incubator for Black creatives, the 1100-square-foot building is equipped with backdrops, projectors, lights, and the allocated space to dedicate to your project.
Since its soft-launch opening in November 2023, all types of projects from films to music videos to listening parties happened within that space, as well as events and showcases organized by Creatives After Dark.
Project manager and creative director, Ebonee Bailey, was introduced to Gay during a podcast taping where they connected on similar work with managing artists. Since being apart of the collective, Bailey has had the opportunity to elevate the Creatives After Dark events and spotlight female artists and creatives. Her debut event, The Pink Room, had an extreme turnout, highlighting many female artists and the different nuances of women in creative spaces.
“Anybody can throw an event,” says Bailey. “Anybody can make a flyer but how are you doing it in a way that’s not just an event but it’s a movement?”
Community and development play a huge role within the creative culture and within the operations of Creatives After Dark. Taylor describes Creatives After Dark and Blue Room Studios as a community more than an agency or collective.
“There are people that come to these events who have come to the first event nine years ago,” says Taylor. “If you go through our Instagram and just look at recap photos, you’ll see familiar faces all the way back to 2015.”
With the month of February being loaded with events, Taylor, Gay, and Bailey look forward to the continued success of Creatives After Dark and Blue Room Studios. Collaborative classes with local colleges, bigger partnerships, and continued exposure of the talent in Atlanta are just some of the ideas we could see very soon.