Thanks for your interest in Canvas. We receive a lot of questions about what Canvas is, why it exists, how to join and how to best use it. I hope these answers below will be useful to answer those questions and more.
If you have any other questions you’d like to ask our team, please post a comment on this article, or email me at mark@tacchistudios.com any time!
— Mark from Team Canvas
Canvas is an online network for Tokyo’s creative community.
It’s a place for professional and amateur creatives to show their skills, make new connections and find work.
That means that as a member you can use Canvas simply as a social network to show your work and meet new creative people. But if you work (or want to start working) as a professional creative, you can also use it to connect with people to work with or hire.
Visitors to the Canvas site who are not creatives can simply discover cool things that are being made in Tokyo by our members, or use Canvas to discover creatives to hire for projects or jobs.
Canvas is made by Tacchi Studios, a mobile and web app design and development studio based in Shibuya, Tokyo.
We work with some of the top brands from Japan and around the world to make digital products that delight customers and meet real business needs. We do this by combining research, design, technology and lean business principles in meaningful ways.
If your business needs someone to help you create a high quality mobile app or website, we’re the people to talk to!
You can learn more about us at www.tacchistudios.com.
The Tacchi Studios team loves creativity in general, and Tokyo’s wonderful creative community in particular! We have made many good friends and colleagues in the community over the years.
We saw an opportunity to use our skills to help make Tokyo an even better place to be a creative. And so Canvas is our way of giving back to the people that have made Tokyo such a fantastic place to live and work.
In order to ensure that the members you see on the site are all in Tokyo, we currently support a two-tiered account system.
Non-Tokyoites, or non-creative Tokyoites, can create a Standard Account, providing limited access to the service.
Tokyo-based creatives are eligible to create a Tokyo Member account if invited by a friend, or can have their existing Standard Account upgraded by requesting an upgrade.
Please check our sign up page for more details.
No, Canvas is also a place for people who are interested in discovering creatives and their work. So if you're a lover of creativity, or are involved in hiring creatives, then it's also a place for you! You may find that a Standard Account is suitable for your needs.
Do you make things, or are involved in the process of creating things? This includes art, design, technology, music, film, business, communities, advertising and many other things. If so, you belong on Canvas!
No. We now support Standard Accounts so that anyone outside of Tokyo can join Canvas and engage in some ways. However, creating a strong local place for Tokyo’s creative community to gather online is really important to us, and so we’ve made Tokyo Member accounts invite-only for creatives who live in Tokyo.
Yes! Simply create a Standard Account now, set up your profile, and then request an upgrade from us when you arrive in Tokyo.
In order to be a true member of Tokyo’s creative community, we believe that you need to be here and contribute socially. Canvas is not a tool to help those outside Tokyo to easily build a network before they arrive.
Also, it is a bad experience for our users to see profiles for members who are not in the same city as them, as this breaks Canvas’ core concept.
Please respect our wishes to keep Canvas’ Tokyo Membership exclusive to those based in Tokyo, and do create a Standard Account instead of a Tokyo Member profile. Unfortunately we’ll likely have to downgrade your account to a Standard Account if we discover that you’re not based in Tokyo.
Is that something you’d like? If so, please email us at hello@tacchistudios.com and let us know!
Ask us! Just click on the orange circle in the bottom-right corner of the site and let us know! If your friend doesn't live in Tokyo but would like to join, they can now create a Standard Account without needing an invite.
You have two options — 1) Create a Standard Account, then request an upgrade to Tokyo Member 2) Get invited by a friend.
You can’t, sorry. We work hard to protect our members from recruiter spam. But please get in touch, as we're interested in finding a way to work with recruiters that is good for our members.
Honestly, we haven’t worked out a policy for this situation yet. In some cases it’s possible, so please get in touch and let’s talk!
We’re aware that this feature is very restrictive, and are working on a set of improvements to allow members to communicate more accurately the different skills they have.
Unfortunately it will take us some time to design and build a good solution to this. In the meantime, please don’t worry too much about this, and choose one profession. In the future you’ll be able to update your profession.
And of course, you’re welcome to share any kinds of creations you’ve made. It doesn’t have to be related to the profession shown on your profile!
There’s no specific number that we think you should share. It all depends on what you’re looking to get from Canvas.
If you’re hoping to find work as a freelancer or a full time job, we suggest sharing as many examples as possible of your highest quality work.
But be sure to write a good description! Businesses that look at Canvas to hire people are looking not just for beautiful stuff, but explanations of your process and how you work with other people.
We’d suggest that you don’t post too many creations at one time, however. We’d suggest one or two per day maximum. This helps keep you visible in the activity feed over a longer time period.
Make sure you select the Pro Editor when adding a new creation. This allows for more images and more control over the content of your creation.
We’re very interested in helping local creatives start their own mini communities through Canvas.
For example, we’d love to find a way to support someone with starting their own meetup about writing, music-making, filmmaking, acting, software development etc etc!
We’d be happy to discuss the use of the Canvas name for such events. If that’s something you’d like to talk to us about, please get in touch with us at hello@tacchistudios.com!
If you love helping the creative community as much as we do, we’d love to work with you! The collaboration must be appropriate to our concept and beneficial for our members. Please contact us at hello@tacchistudios.com and let’s talk!
Many thanks for reading! We hope you find Canvas useful.