Shillington is the Original Graphic Design Bootcamp Graphic Design Bootcamp

12 Creative Slack Channels You Should Be Following if You’re in the Design Industry

12 Creative Slack Groups You Should Be Following

Since launching our Online Course in September, Slack has become an essential medium for students and teachers to interact in, learn, share and deliver feedback, collaborate and catch up. Not only is it great for the online classroom, slack is also a great networking tool. With the ability to follow as many channels are you like, Slack offers a great space to connect with people you work with and now even more than ever, make new connections in your community that previously would have happened IRL.

We figured it was high time to serve up a cheeky tasting menu of the awesome Slack channels out there which focus on design and the creative industries. Read on to discover and explore new platforms to connect with other designers and people in your creative community around the world.

United Designers

For those who are passionate about creating and looking to connect with a large international community, United Designers is a Slack group you should join. This global not-for-profit community brings together over four hundred designers and developers, with a wide range of channels that oscillate between serious design discussions and professional support, to more every day chatting and sharing of creative inspirations. Don’t be shy! They are open to students all the way to professionals, so pop over to their website and send them an application. All you need to bring is your curiosity and love for design.

Corvid

Corvid Community is an artist-only Slack group and creative home base run by The Jacky Winter Group, a team of seasoned professionals working in creative production and artist representation. While this is a subscription-only community, it is free to join and gives you access to a space dedicated to education, feedback and learning for commercial artists. This is a space to chat to and share tips with other professionals about commercial projects, pricing, exhibiting, industry tools, techniques and more. The Corvid team will also share articles, book recommendations, commentary and advice from their offices in New York and Melbourne. So head over to sign up and share your latest work or works in progress and get some stellar feedback from the pros.

Team Sketch

At Shillington our students get a ground up training in all the tools of the trade. When they kick start their skills as digital designers, they do it through Sketch. Team Sketch is a great Slack community for those designers who are also creating their digital design work through this software. So if you’re keen to trade tricks and chat with with other creatives who do the same, give this channel a follow.

43 Derby Street

A great one for the sole traders and small business owners out there. 43 Derby Street is a concept run by the team at JAC&, a Melbourne based design studio. This character-filled creative space houses the studio, as well as being a home and meeting place for other creative businesses, tucked away in a quiet nook in the backstreets of Collingwood in Melbourne. Much like the space itself does in real life, this Slack group offers an online forum for small business owners, event hosts and managers to share support and lend a helping hand to encourage each other’s growth. Jacinta Lippold, the founder of JAC&, runs and moderates the Slack community.

Where are the Black Designers?

Where are the Black Designers is a powerful, growing initiative and platform for Black Designers. This community is working to highlighting and counteract the considerable lack of diverse representation, particularly of black designers, in the design industry. Their Slack group is an online community space for discussion, networking, support and sharing of knowledge. As they say themselves, make no mistake, this is a movement, not a moment. So if you’re looking to connect with a community of amazing black creatives and designers, head over and sign up now!

Latinxs Who Design

Latinxs Who Design is a diverse directory of Latinx creatives working in the design industry. The platform’s mission is to offer a space for people in the industry to find outstanding creative people to follow, work with, seek as mentors, build connections with and be inspired by. They also have a thriving Slack channel offering people in the community to come together, share resources, chat, network and collaborate. And if you’re a bit curious, Latinx is the preferred gender-neutral alternative to Latino and Latina. By using this the community is working to move beyond the constructs of gender binaries and offer an inclusive space for all.

Women in Technology

Lady legends of tech, lend us your ears. The Women in Technology Slack Group is a safe space for women working in the various fields of technology to catch up, chat about work and life and share the support around. The one challenge with this Slack group is that it is invite-only and you’ll need a current member to request an invite for you. Despite this, it’s worth looking into as this space is excellent for any ladies who are new to the tech industry or have been kicking around on the tools for a good few years. And don’t let the name fool you. This group welcomes people working across a vast range of tech focused fields, from graphic design, project management, UX/UI, customer support and everything in between.

Queer Design Club Slack

With the tag line, “Slack is our clubhouse”, the Queer Design Club Slack offers a private community space for LGBTQ+ designers to connect. Here you can ask other queer creative professionals for advice on jobs, ask for feedback on one of your latest projects or share some amazing design that has caught your creative eye. This is a fun, safe space to kick back, meet new humans and talk to other queer folk who are working in the industry.

Aussie Designers Slack

The Aussie Designers Slack community says it all in the name. This is a Slack channel for Australian designers to get together, share ideas and connect with one another. So, if you fancy yourself a designer and are living and working Down Under, it’s time get onto it mate and connect with this community.

Designer Hangout

Designer Hangout is an invite only situation, bringing together a network of UX designers and researchers who work to share advice, discuss industry trends and insights, pass on opportunities and connect. For those of you making their magic in UX right now, Designer Hangout could be the secret weapon to pushing your career to the next level. It’s a space to ask the hard questions, be curious and seek out opportunities to grow and develop your skills. Time to pop in an application for an invite and join this huge global community of over 18,000 + UX practitioners.

Wellfed Creatives

Wellfed is a podcast for creative people, brought to life by designer Jon Sorrentino, who was seeking to expand his skill set and experiment with new mediums and then decided he wanted to share what he was learning with his community. As the podcast has grown, so has the community. Wellfed Creatives is a free private Slack group open to any and all like-minded creatives of any discipline. It’s a great space to ask for career advice, share some new work for feedback (or just because you’re a bit proud) and vent with your community about some of the stresses of every day creative working life.

Designer Slack Communities

This platform is an excellent international resource collecting a variety of Slack channels and communities, focused on design and similar creative fields. The site allows you to filter by type of creative practice and location, giving you access to a hefty library of Slack channels from around the world.

We hope that you’re well on your way to joining some of these amazing creative Slack groups and making tons of new connections with others in the design community. 

Are you keen and curious to join in on the design fun? Check out Shillington’s innovative graphic design course and become a graphic designer in three months full-time or nine months part-time in New York, London, Manchester, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane or Online.

Artwork by #ShilloNY teacher Jimmy Muldoon.

Want to win some amazing prizes and stay in the loop with all things Shillington? Sign up to our newsletter to automatically go in the draw.