About

Have you ever suspected that it’s possible to build a sustainable creative business around what you love doing? Me too. And the more people I connect with who are on this journey, the more real this idea becomes. Creative.biz shares the stories of creative business people who are living this life, and some ideas and hard fought lessons that have helped them stay the path.

While creativity is often associated with artistic pursuits, I want to evoke it’s meaning broadly and inclusively. Creativity is about our human instinct for self-expression,how we give it form, and how we use it to connect with the world.

Creative.biz is also an opportunity for me to test out and share ideas that I have gathered in the ten years of running my own creative business. To ignite conversations around what it takes to spend your waking hours pursuing and building something worthwhile.

It’s also a damn fine excuse to connect with fascinating creative business folk, and capture their stories.

If you’re on a similar journey, please feel free to connect, either by adding your ideas in the comments section, or sending an email. And if you like the stories and ideas in Creative.biz, please share them.

Ryan Spanger

Thanks for checking out creative.biz. Here’s a bit of my story:

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” As I kid I found this question daunting and unfathomable. After giving it the deep contemplation it required I settled on the career of ‘ice-cream man’. I had in mind the old fashioned bike with the small ice cream fridge up front and the umbrella up top. You got to ride around, sell some ice creams. Stay cool. To a 5 year old it seemed unbeatable.

I loved writing as a teenager. The party trick of shoehorning a clump of disparate dreams and ideas into a coherent flow on a sheet of A4 felt intoxicating.

But there was something about the enhanced and distilled reality of film that I found seductive.

In my mid twenties I found the courage, commitment and sense of entitlement required to pursue a career in filmmaking. I studied documentary making at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Autralia, and then began work as a freelancer.

While I love the craft of filmmaking, and uncovering and sharing stories, I have discovered an equal passion for the business side of creativity. Partly out of the necessity for finding a way to make a living out of an activity that feels worthwhile. But equally as a way of testing and getting to know myself.

For the past ten years I have run a video production company called Dream Engine. The business helps clients communicate their educational, promotional or training message through video. It’s a good feeling creating work that helps people communicate more effectively and be better understood.

I hope you enjoy Creative.biz