There was Creative Friday. A weekly gathering of creative minds and kindred spirits who came together to present their crazy, wacky, inspirational creations to an open group for feedback and critique. Gatherings consisted of four to ten people, and if you were there you MUST present. That really was the only rule, outside of that everything was fair game.

This all started back when The Longhairs were Round Two Creative Group. During this period in our careers we spent a fair bit of time on 8th & G in downtown San Diego, affectionately known as The Block.

Occupied by various small creative startups and retail shops, the upper floor was home of big brother brands Product Etcetera and Westside Love, run by close comrades Jordan Stark and Tony Martinez.

The concept of these sessions started as a way for us to explore our ideas and ambitions beyond what we were doing for clients or a paycheck. It started slow and quickly grew into something very special.

Over the course of a year these sessions would happen weekly and bring in guests from all different professions and scopes of life. Quickly the core group knew that Creative Friday was something special. Almost every week there were powerful moments where someone would present something that would either bring us all to tears or blow our minds.

In fact Creative Friday was where the idea of Hair Ties For Guys was first pitched to anyone outside of El Moreno & El Rubio. It was from that first presentation we knew we were on to something. At the time we did not know what exactly, but through a few weeks of sticking to our idea and presenting revisions of our concepts, we eventually landed on The Longhairs.

Truthfully we have the participants to thank for the invaluable feedback we received, which pushed us. It was the collective group that challenged us to think bigger than a product, and forced us to think deeply about what this idea was really going to be.

Creative Fridays continued weekly, uninterrupted for nearly a year. As time went on, businesses changed, projects and people moved in different directions, and Creative Fridays peacefully went away for a time, but many ideas, creations and memories were made there.

Today, in the wake of the downtown revitalization project, the o’l building which hosted Creative Fridays is getting demolished. As a group we agreed that we had to take it back to The Block for one last Creative Friday in the magical space that had an impact on us all.

Just like in years past...it was something special.

If there is one thing we can all take away from our experience at Creative Fridays together, it is this: part of fulfillment and happiness in life is a product of creativity.

We are here to make. To put forth our powers. To create.