Last month, I participated in my second Crea8tive Club, a quarterly event founded by Portland agency Everybody Eats. The premise is simple, but the execution is anything but: a group of creatives from different disciplines—photographers, filmmakers, art directors, brand strategists, social media experts, graphic designers, and more—are paired with a local small business and given 48 hours to create a whole suite of brand assets.

There are no creative restrictions. Just a lot of brainstorming, teamwork, caffeine, and a willingness to figure things out as you go.

This was my second time participating, and I continue to love the energy of the project. There’s something really refreshing about being handed a problem, a very short timeline, and a talented group of people and simply being told: go make something.

It forces you to work within real constraints—time, budget, resources—and puts your creative problem-solving skills to the test. But unlike a traditional brand build, there’s very little time for creative ideology or endless rounds of discussion to creep in. You have an idea, you make a plan, and then you have to make the thing.

This time around, I was lucky enough to be paired with Jamie Jones, owner of The Garden of Wellness.

Spoiler alert: by the end of the weekend, we had completely rebranded her business—and renamed it The Institute for Athletic Aesthetic Wellness.

Jamie is a former athlete and nurse practitioner who found her way into the wellness space. She came to Crea8tive Club with a pretty clear goal: she wanted to reposition her business to attract more athletes, particularly professional athletes who have to be camera-ready at all times and whose skincare and wellness routines need to account for the unique demands of being constantly on camera.

While the rest of our team tackled the larger brand overhaul—including a new logo, website, brand strategy, and marketing strategy—I focused on creating the visual assets that would bring the new brand to life across the website and social channels.

After about 90 minutes of rapid-fire brainstorming that first morning, we landed on a few key visual directions:

• Clean studio portraits showcasing athletes with an emphasis on healthy, natural skin texture—even mid-performance.
• A portrait of Jamie that brought together her athletic background and medical expertise, with an editorial quality that felt appropriate for the kind of imagery we might create for one of her athlete clients.
• Product imagery for her branded under-eye patches.
• “Game Ready → Camera Ready” imagery that captured the transition her clients are constantly navigating.

Then came the slightly terrifying part: finding people to photograph.

With such a tight timeline, the talent search started immediately. Fortunately, our team collectively knows a lot of people willing to help out on short notice, so we called in favors, reached out to friends and acquaintances, and even recruited a few members of our own team to get in front of the camera.

I ended up with about four hours of shooting time total—two hours on Saturday and another two on Sunday morning—followed by a very manic retouching sprint.

By the end of the weekend, I had created roughly 30 images and two short videos for Jamie.

Not bad for a 48-hour brand build.

More than anything, Crea8tive Club has been a really rewarding experience because of the people.

I love getting thrown into a room with creatives I’ve never worked with before and seeing what happens when everyone brings their particular expertise to the same problem. Portland has an incredible creative community, and putting all that talent together in one very compressed, high-energy weekend is a pretty special thing to experience.

There’s also something refreshing about being reminded why we do this in the first place.

Creative work can be exhausting. Burnout is real, especially when you’ve been doing this for a long time and have moved through different seasons of your career. It’s easy to get caught up in deadlines, budgets, revisions, and all the less glamorous parts of making things.

Crea8tive Club cuts through a lot of that. For 48 hours, everyone is there because they want to make something good. There’s a lot of energy, a lot of generosity, and a genuine excitement about seeing what we can pull off together.

And it’s a pretty great reminder that there’s still a lot of creative energy in this city—and a lot of people who are here simply because they love making things.

Can’t wait for the next one.