A London-linked online network where creative people showcase projects, credit their collaborators and are found by employers; it was set up to open up the creative industries.
The Dots is an online community and job platform for people who work in creative jobs: designers, photographers, illustrators, editors, stylists, film-makers and many others. Instead of a normal CV, members post projects and tag the people who worked on them, so the whole team gets credit. Its founder has described it as like a community-run film database for all creatives. Companies use it to find talent, message people directly and post jobs. The company says members are mostly freelancers, since creative careers often move from project to project.
Pip Jamieson founded The Dots in 2014. She had worked in marketing at MTV in New Zealand and had earlier created a similar site, The Loop, in Australia. She has said that word-of-mouth hiring at MTV led to a narrow range of creative ideas, which shaped her belief that diversity drives better creative work. In 2020 she told TechRound the mission was to make the creative industries more open and diverse: "We all went to similar universities and had similar backgrounds, and that spelled the death of creativity". The platform says it is about "promoting and championing diverse talent and the work they create".
The Dots is a UK business serving UK creatives: a 2020 article said it had more than 300,000 members, around 10% of the UK's creative market, with 30% of the community outside the UK, and that employers such as the BBC, Google and Sony Pictures use it. Early users, according to Design Week in 2014, included Pentagram and Wolff Olins. We did not find a published office address, and the articles we read do not name a UK headquarters, though Pip Jamieson has spoken at London events and the platform is aimed at the UK market. Check the company website for where the team is now based.
On culture and people, the company's own figures from 2020 described its members as 62% female, 34% Black, Asian or minority ethnic and 16% LGBT, and said it supports disabled, neurodiverse and lower-income talent. Ms Jamieson said the search tool is adjusted so that diverse talent rises to the top of results. She is dyslexic and has spoken openly about it. These are the company's claims. She was named in the 200 Women Redefining the Creative Industry list in 2018.
Behind a platform like this are software engineers and designers, community and content managers, sales and account managers who work with employers, and marketing and events staff. People who are interested in creative careers can also use the site itself to build a profile, see what real creative jobs look like and meet people in the industry. The company website is the place to check for current openings and for whether the platform is still operating in the same form.
Website: the-dots.com
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