Dropbox #CreativeEnergy at SXSW

Over the weekend, six up-and-coming artists painted three different murals—two artists working together on a separate piece every day—live at SXSW hoping to inspire the world to unleash its creative energy.

With the activation, Dropbox wants to “tell our story about helping people to collaborate, find flow and work together in a meaningful way,” said Carolyn Feinstein, Dropbox chief marketing officer. Agency 72andSunny worked with Dropbox to select three different themes, or “creative energies”: reimagining the future (day one; Rachell Sumpter and Shawna X), environmentalism (day two; Ben Sanders and Maxwell McMaster) and human rights (day three; Stacey Rozich and Matt Leines).

After the artists were paired and assigned a creative energy for their mural, the duos worked together in Dropbox Paper to collaborate on their final products. On their assigned day, they worked morning to night to bring their collaborated masterpieces to life.

Dropbox and 72andSunny worked closely together to select the six artists that would work on these murals. It was important that the two artists within each pair have styles that weren’t too similar, but also weren’t too different.

“These are artists with a passion around some of the creative energies that we believe that the world needs now more than ever,” Feinstein added.

The activation by Dropbox is a continuation of the brand’s recent creative energy campaign and rebrand, which launched in October of last year. "Creative energy is what helps you solve problems and think in inventive ways—and we believe it can be a powerful force for positive change in the world. Dropbox wants to make it easier for teams to keep their energy flowing by removing barriers, blockers, and obstacles. So we introduced our muralists to Dropbox Paper, a collaborative workspace where teams can create and share early ideas. "

“There are obviously a lot of topics at SXSW that are kind of joint passions of ours [as well as] the people who use Dropbox, so we want to be part of that conversation in a way that is additive,” said Feinstein.

Photos by Tony Ung and Dropbox