Jacksonville, Florida once had a reputation as being a black hole for creatives in search of lucrative opportunities. This belief had resulted in a consensus among Jacksonville’s young aspiring creatives, that they would have to relocate in order to attain financial stability in a career they love. And while conflicting opinions abound as to the source of Jacksonville’s artistic brain drain, we believed the source of our fine city’s stunted creative growth was rooted in a lack of three essential things. Three things that Crux was created to provide: opportunity, business structure, and marketing support! The Crux Collective is a group of creatives ranging in skill sets and mediums that have come together to develop an efficient structure for offering a wide variety of creative services in one place. Our core team of artists have not only creative skill-sets, but also the business knowledge and client experience to manage large projects at a professional level. Our goal was to expand from a small core team to a network of young creatives, all benefitting financially while pursuing passionate careers. We can say with all confidence that we have achieved this goal. Aside from focusing on an ever growing client base to ensure lucrative opportunities for our members, the collective itself will serve as a space for members to work on personal projects and utilize tools within the space provided by the collective. Even though the collective is invitation only, we believe that supporting the creative and small business community as a whole is important for our city’s cultural and economic growth. That being said, we want to be involved in expanding our support as much and as far as possible. Crux Collective has been operating in Springfield’s Historic District since 4/14/2014, with an ever-growing network of creative professionals, providing screen-printing, web design, branding, photo, film, project management and social media management.