For Boise Creative Professionals
By Creatives. For Creatives. For Community.
Boise’s creative community is one of the best-kept secrets in the West. Designers, developers, photographers, videographers, illustrators, writers, marketers, and strategists are doing sharp, ambitious work here, and more of them arrive every year. We’re all part of the same ecosystem, and it gets stronger when we know each other.
This page is our way of pointing to that community. Below you’ll find other creative organizations worth knowing, free resources our members actually use, and a calendar of local events built around design and creativity. BCPC is proud to be one small part of a much bigger creative Boise, and we want to help more people find their place in it.
Creative organizations in the Treasure Valley
You don’t have to pick just one. Every group here serves the community a little differently, and most creatives benefit from being connected to several.
Boise Advertising Federation (BAF)
The oldest trade organization of its kind in Idaho, BAF brings together people in advertising, marketing, design, web, media, and public relations. It’s an affiliate of the American Advertising Federation and hosts the annual Rockies Creative Awards, the region’s biggest celebration of Idaho creative work.
Boise Design Week is an annual celebration of design, creativity, and innovation in the Treasure Valley. Through speakers, workshops, exhibitions, and community events, it brings together designers, artists, technologists, and creative professionals to share ideas, showcase local talent, and strengthen Boise’s growing creative community.
Boise Open Studios Collective Organization (BOSCO)
A collective of more than 125 Treasure Valley artists working across painting, photography, printmaking, ceramics, and digital media. Its annual Open Studios Tour each October opens artist studios to the public.
CreativeMornings is a free monthly breakfast lecture series for the creative community, and after a few years off, the Boise chapter is relaunching with coffee, breakfast, and a talk from a local speaker. Like BCPC, it is open to anyone in the creative community and always free to attend.
Side Project is a small group of people with one goal: create more community for creatives. They connect emerging creatives and entrepreneurs with opportunities to showcase their work, learn new skills, and build meaningful networks by hosting interactive events, workshops, and collaborative spaces once a month after the workday.
A Boise nonprofit focused on youth digital media arts education, teaching filmmaking, graphic design, and photography to the next generation of Treasure Valley creatives, taught by working industry professionals.
BCPC is proud to be part of this community. We're a free monthly meetup that's been bringing Boise creatives together for nearly two decades.
Resources
A running list of tools and references our community leans on. Have a favorite that belongs here? Let us know and we’ll add it.
Stock Imagery
findfreeimage.com
Search dozens of free stock photo sites at once and copy a shareable link or embed code for your search. Built right here by our friends at White Whale Web.
Unsplash
High-resolution photos from photographers worldwide, free to use with no attribution required.
Pexels
Free photos and video, all usable for commercial and personal projects with no attribution needed.
Color Inspiration
Coolors
Generate, tweak, and save color palettes in seconds. The fastest way to get from a blank canvas to a working scheme.
Adobe Color
Build palettes from color theory rules or extract them straight from an uploaded image, with built-in accessibility contrast checking.
Khroma
Trains on colors you like and generates combinations tailored to your taste. A nice starting point when you don’t know where to begin.
Photographers
Boise Camera Clubs & Photography Organizations
A maintained directory of Idaho camera clubs and photography groups, most of which welcome newcomers to a meeting or two for free.
Lenses & Brushes
A downtown Boise studio offering photography classes, a film darkroom, and workshops for photographers at every level.
BOSCO Artist Directory
Many of the 125+ artists in the collective work in photography, making this a good way to find and connect with local shooters.
Videographers
No Film School
One of the best free education hubs for filmmakers and video creators, covering gear, technique, and the business of the craft.
Motion Array Free Assets
Free stock footage, music, motion graphics templates, and editing presets for Premiere and After Effects.
Mixkit
Free stock video clips, music, and templates you can use in commercial projects with no attribution required.
Programming
MDN Web Docs
The reference standard for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Maintained by Mozilla, with thorough documentation and beginner-friendly learning guides.
CSS-Tricks
A deep archive of CSS guides and tutorials. The flexbox and grid guides are some of the clearest layout references anywhere.
Josh Comeau
Interactive articles on CSS and JavaScript that explain how things actually work, with hands-on demos you can play with.
Type Resources
Google Fonts
A huge open-source type library, free for personal and commercial use, with easy pairing suggestions and web-ready embedding.
Font Squirrel
Hand-curated free fonts that are genuinely licensed for commercial use, so you can use them at work without worrying.
Boise Creatives Event Calendar
This calendar is for everything creative happening in and around Boise.
Design talks, gallery openings, workshops, mixers, portfolio reviews, and meetups from groups across the Treasure Valley. We’re just getting started, and we want it to grow into the place Boise creatives check to find out what’s happening this week.
Right now you’ll see BCPC and Boise Advertising Federation events on here. If your organization runs creative events, we’d love to include them.
Submit Your Event or Organization
Running a creative event or leading a group we should know about? Send it our way. We'll add qualifying creative and design events to the calendar and consider new organizations for the list above. It's free, and it helps every creative in the valley find their people.