The 'flue

About the 'flue

The 'flue is a community website, but not only a community website.

The ‘flue is a site about inspiration, and doing something with that inspiration. It’s about creativity. Visual creativity, and creativity in all forms. The ‘flue is more than just a website, it’s a family and a community. Community, respect, and responsibility all come into play because this site is about its people. You’ve heard that dozens of times. It’s true here.

While the ‘flue generally concentrates on the visual aspects of creativity, this is a function of the primary strengths of our membership. We are graphic designers, illustrators, art students and photographers. There's a sculptor, because there always is. It's not his fault, and we don't hold it against him. Some are musicians, some are writers. Some aren’t. That’s the best part of the ‘flue – it doesn’t matter.

We have members scattered across the globe, on just about every continent. Many European countries are represented, most notably Germany and the UK. Canada, The United States, Australia… the ‘flue is everywhere.

Central to our role as an inspiration engine is a sense of responsibility. Environmental responsibility has headlined the news for the last twenty years, but it’s not the only kind of responsibility. Accountability. Recognizing that what we do can have an impact on the world, and planning to make that impact a positive one. Political responsibility without any particular political affiliation or bent and social responsibility are close to our hearts too. Not on a grand scale. On a small, personal scale.

It was a conscious choice to build the site around open source software. The systems make efficient use of server resources and allow us to provide a fast, enjoyable website experience while minimizing the load (and thus the power consumption, network usage, etc.) on our server. See? Responsibility on a small scale. It’s relatively painless. And it’s important.

It is this sense of responsible creativity that the ‘flue represents. A small, personal commitment to inspiration and creativity and responsibility. The hope that through our creativity, our daily lives, and our thoughts, we can make some small positive change.

We hope that you find the ‘flue at the very least useful. Our membership is our most valuable asset (every site says this, but you’ll find it more than true of the ‘flue) and everything we do is done with our membership in mind.