A Denver Creative Sector Community Space

Hey there we're MATTER, Denver's only Black and Woman-Owned Bookstore, Community Print shop, and Graphic Design Studio.

For 24 years, the creatives who have worked here have been designing for local brands with great success stories and fantastic reach, branding for Stem, NOVO, Work & Class, Ophelias, and more. We work with non-profit cultural organizations like the Art Student’s League of Denver and we even do cool projects for the city. Our practice has thrived, allowing us to employ creatives and raise families in the city we love.

When COVID hit—with most of our graphic design clients in the art and creative sector—everyone was hit very hard. After joining forces with other small business owners, we started working together to create DIY kits for our clients and we even had a rooftop concert for our high-rise neighbors. We knew we had to quickly pivot into a whole new kind of work. Working mostly with what we had…we started leaning into our small specialty store (since 2007) with design and social justice books, a little stationery, and a few gift items on the ground floor of our studio at 2134 Market St.

By April 2020 we were doing curbside deliveries to our local customers, and by June, almost overnight, we were shipping packages all over the country, we even got on Oprah’s radar for a moment.

We’ve grown our side passion project into a serious bookstore and in the last few years, we have gotten to know the bookstore business pretty well. We now know that it’s actually impossible to just be a bookstore—we have to be so much more for our community. This brings us to the moment we are in now…

MATTER’s new adventure is all about community. All about cultivating talent, and a space for radical creativity for Denver in several areas simultaneously. We will be the home for live podcast production for Denver Orbit, hosting experimental musicians, film screenings, movement and dance, creative sector meet-ups, author signings, readings, and other creative ventures. And we’ll be hosting critical conversations on design, justice and access, self-sufficiency, and liberation, leveraging relationships we’ve established through our travels, workshops, and lectures.

To get the doors open, we need funds to finish the space with some fresh paint, seating, bookshelves, community tables, and AV equipment.

This project has to happen now. There is new momentum to ‘do creativity better’ in Denver, to lean into it, to celebrate it, to seek it, and to make sure it thrives. We’re going to amplify a creative pipeline in the city we love. As it turns out—even if we wanted to—we couldn’t do this alone.

And we want you to be a part of this.

The more people who pitch in the lesser the burden is to everyone.

We need everyone to know. Please share this video.

You can help us breathe life into this community asset. We are so excited to prove this concept. To bring the whole city together, to nurture, re-activate, and engage downtown Denver in a meaningful, sustainable way by truly supporting a vibrant creative community.

Thank you.

We are excited to do this. And we hope you are excited to help. We are grateful for all of our friends and our community out there. Click the link…Share…Let’s get this done!!!

Rick, Debra, Teagan, Vania, and the crew at MATTER