We were poking around in our stats and discovered that we recently passed a nice round milestone: More than 100,000 independent creators have funded their projects with Kickstarter.

Those creators come from every corner of the creative universe. They are documentary filmmakers, tabletop game developers, fashion designers, and open-source hardware tinkerers. They come from Provo and Malmo and Tulum. Some ran a single project that raised $100. Some have run dozens of projects. There are individuals like the designer Ji Lee with his Redundant Clock, and important cultural organizations like the Martha Graham Dance Company. Together they paint a picture of the independent creative landscape today.

How would you explain the diversity of life and culture on Earth to someone — or something — from a far-away planet?

In 1977 Carl Sagan and his team created the Golden Record — a collection of scenes, sounds, music, and greetings representing life on Earth — and launched it into space on NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 probes. Intended as a message for other intelligent life forms who might encounter these spacecraft and wonder about their origins, the record was also an exercise in self-discovery and reflection.

Four decades later, we’re still inspired by the imagination, optimism, and curiosity that went into creating this terrestrial time capsule. So we’re asking you to contribute to making something that represents life on Earth in 2017 by putting your own imaginative idea out there for others to discover. We know, we know — representing a whole planet is a huge undertaking. That’s why we’re inviting our entire community to take part. Combined, these projects will form a portrait of the Earth today: our accomplishments, challenges, hopes, and dreams, conveyed through a diverse collection of creative projects.

What can you create to represent your little corner of the universe? 

“[South Central L.A.] is a dream world. It’s beautiful. It’s powerful. It’s the most creative place I’ve ever been in the world.” —Visual artist Lauren Halsey

Through art, Lauren Halsey is working to challenge narratives of South Central L.A. Earlier this year, the she launched The Crenshaw District Hieroglyph Project on Kickstarter, a public art installation empowering residents of South Central L.A. to share their own stories. Once constructed, the installation will invite visitors to carve “hieroglyphs” into a series of blank panels, creating a visual archive of the neighborhood. The space will also be used to host community events — from outdoor concerts with local musicians to meetings that facilitate dialogue around the neighborhood’s rapid gentrification.

Some of the most inventive projects in Kickstarter history are back — with a twist.

3Doodler. Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls. Music for Cats. Chineasy. These are just a few of the iconic projects whose creators are launching new campaigns today as part of Kickstarter Gold. Now through July 31, a group of over 65 exceptional artists, designers, musicians, and makers will be back on Kickstarter, putting new spins on ideas from their past projects. Whether you’re just discovering their work or you’re a long-time fan, you’ll have the opportunity to support some of Kickstarter’s most inspired creators — and collect exciting rewards that aren’t available anywhere else.

More than 27,000 messages a day pass through Kickstarter’s messaging system. That’s a lot to keep up with, especially for active backers and creators. So we’ve rolled out something new on the Kickstarter site: a revamped messaging system that makes it easier to manage the flow.

You’ll notice that your message box has a cleaner look and some new features. A popup menu on the right lets you choose from different views of your messages — including new Spam and Archive options. And you can archive messages from here with one click.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. — Carl Sagan

For the fortieth anniversary of the Voyager Golden Record’s launch into space, we invite creators to launch new projects inspired by its scenes, sounds, music, and greetings. Read on for the details, and sign up to receive updates about the initiative.

 

“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”
-Thomas Edison

Have you ever looked at a brilliant Kickstarter campaign and gone, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Well, it’s time to put your imagination to work and invent something of your own. We’re collaborating with the how-to experts at Instructables to bring you the Invention Challenge, a chance to share your brightest ideas and invent something to share with the world. To enter, create something that completes a task, solves a problem, or just makes life more fun, then post an Instructable explaining how you did it before July 31.

To celebrate the most ingenious inventions, we’re offering some creativity-enabling prizes that got their start on Kickstarter. You could win a Nomad CNC mill, a Robo 3D printer, or a Teensy microcontroller — great prototyping tools to help move your idea forward. So brainstorm, iterate, and turn that proverbial pile of junk into something exciting and new. Maybe you’ll even feel inspired to take the next step and bring your idea to life on Kickstarter.

When the investors in Spa Night, Andrew Ahn's first feature film, unexpectedly backed out, Ahn was suddenly faced with the possibility that the project he’d poured his heart and soul into might never get made.

But he wasn’t about to give up on the story he’d been working for years to tell — an intimate, atmospheric exploration of immigrant and LGBTQ identities, set against the backdrop of Los Angeles’ Koreatown. So in October 2014, Ahn launched a Kickstarter project to fund pre-production. With the support of 592 backers, he raised $62,915 to bring Spa Night from script to screen.