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Creative Kind

Chicago, ILBrand · Retailer · Paper goods

Some people start businesses because they have a great idea. I started Creative Kind because I wanted to make friends. It was 2015. I'd just graduated, just gone freelance, and suddenly the built-in social infrastructure of school was just — gone. No hallways, no classrooms, no easy reasons to be around people. I needed a way back into community, and "making things" turned out to be it. Creative Kind grew from that need. It's an Arizona-rooted stationery and paper goods brand built around the belief that small, thoughtful gestures are one of the most underrated ways we take care of each other. Greeting cards, stickers, gel pens, bookmarks — things that say I was thinking about you in the quietest, realest way. A Little Lift, a social action card deck, came from the same place. Fifty prompts designed to help people take small, tangible actions toward the people and communities around them, because connection doesn't usually happen in grand gestures. It happens in the tiny ones we actually follow through on. I relocated to Chicago in 2025 — my second crash course in building community from scratch as an adult — and Creative Kind has grown with me: from a personal coping mechanism to a brand carried by independent retailers who believe the same things we do about connection, care, and the power of a good card. If you're a retailer, a gift-giver, or just someone who believes that showing up for people matters — you're in the right place.