New Brand, Website, and Initiatives for Artists

Celebrating 25 years of championing artistic freedom

In 1999, Creative Capital was founded as a nonprofit organization to support artistic freedom of expression after the majority of federal grant programs for individual artists were discontinued. Over the past 25 years, Creative Capital has fundraised to provide $55 million in critical grants and services to 1,010 artists creating new work across disciplines. Today, Creative Capital remains unwavering in its commitment to champion freedom of expression by uplifting artists of all backgrounds across the entire landscape of America through its open call, national grant program and artist services.

New grant initiatives

This year, Creative Capital is expanding its Creative Capital Awards grant program to support the creation of new works in every discipline (visual arts, dance, theater, jazz, opera, film, literature, and socially engaged forms) with the launch of the State of the Art Prize, a new initiative to recognize and support one artist in every U.S. state and territory with a $10,000 unrestricted artist grant. The goal is to uplift more regional and rural artists, to invest in grassroots creative economies, and to foster a vibrant cultural ecology across the nation. The new cohort of Creative Capital Award and State of the Art Prize recipients will be announced in 2026 coinciding with the 250th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

“Celebrating the art makers and creators in our local communities across our nations and territories illustrates the strength and diversity of this great nation,” Reginald M. Browne, Board Chair, Creative Capital

“This is the time when artists’ original voices need to be amplified and the professional practices of artists need to be supported. We continue to be inspired by the innovative ideas of artists who will carry us into a more plural and dynamic future,” Christine Kuan, President & Executive Director, Creative Capital

New artist resources

Creative Capital is also committed to providing a sustainable, national scaffolding for artists. We launched the Creative Capital Artist Lab, a new online, self-paced professional development curriculum for artists working in any discipline at any career stage. In addition, we offer Artist Opportunities, now a searchable database of fellowships, grants, residencies, and other career-growth opportunities for artists. Last but not least, we are building out a new online artist archive to better enable artists, researchers, curators, and experts to search, browse, and discover the growing collection of projects we have supported. Beginning this summer, we will invite Creative Capital Awardees to refresh their pages with updated biographies, new project images, videos, and quotes to better amplify their voices.

New brand and website

As we approached our 25th anniversary, we invited Madeo, an independent creative agency with a focus on social impact, to partner with us on reimagining our identity and website to better express the risk-taking, inclusive ethos of our organization.

“We thought, what if we turn the logo into a dynamic call-to-action? The logo expands to ‘Creative Capital for Artists’, reflecting Creative Capital’s support for artists, and invites us all to join in advancing that mission.” said Ramy Nagy, Madeo’s Founder and Creative Director.

Each word in the new logo is stacked on the other, in a modular yet flexible way that reflects the organization’s stable yet unrestricted support for artists to fully pursue their vision. The animation of the logo shows the words physically coming together, referencing the unique collaboration and sense of unity among our community of artists.

We invite you to explore our new website and programs for artists, and we welcome your support in our work to foster artistic freedom for future generations.