Behance


Behance is a social media platform owned by Adobe which claims "to showcase and discover creative work".
Businesses like LinkedIn, AIGA, Adweek, and Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and schools such as Art Center College of Design, Rhode Island School of Design, School of Visual Arts, Savannah College of Art and Design, and the Maryland Institute College of Art have used their services. In July 2018, Behance had over 10 million members.

History

Behance was founded by Matias Corea and Scott Belsky in November 2005. The company initially relied on revenue, generating income by selling banner ads, job postings and later, 99U conference tickets. In May 2012, their first round of outside funding received $6.5 million from investors including Dave McClure and Jeff Bezos' personal investment firm, Bezos Expeditions.
The company was acquired by Adobe Systems for $150 million in December 2012.

Corporate affairs

Products

Users can sign up to Behance and build profiles consisting of projects. Both registered and unregistered users can "appreciate" any particular project, as well as comment on them. Members of Behance can follow other users' profiles. Co-founder Belsky compared the first version of Behance's online porfolios with "project" structures as providing an organised art showcase, in comparison to DeviantArt and Saatchi's digital community.

Adobe Portfolio

Adobe Portfolio is Behance's DIY web design application, similar to popular tools such as Weebly and Joomla. It is a personal portfolio side creation tool on the web and it syncs with a users Behance project. Adobe Portfolio can only be accessed by buying an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription

Served sites

Content from the Behance Network gets fed into a network of sites called the Served sites, which display work in specific categories such as fashion, industrial design, and typography. In September 2010, more were added, including branding, digital art and toy design. In April 2012, advertising, art, architecture and more were added as categories.

Action Method

Action Method is a productivity methodology targeting creative professionals. It includes a line of paper products and an online application called Action Method Online. Its purpose is to connect every event with a set of specific tasks which the user can perform, called action steps.

99U

99U is a consulting service and annual conference in New York City that focuses on marketing. The name 99U comes from the Thomas Edison quote that "Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration." In 2011, 99U won a Webby Award for "Best Cultural Blog."

Awards

When Adobe Systems bought Behance in 2012, some thought the purchase was so that the company could "track every designer's activity".