Season 8 Recap & What’s Next

Season 8 marked a big shift for Render Weekly. For the first time since we started, we weren’t limited to Instagram. We launched our web portal, something we’ve been wanting to do for a while, and it completely changed how we run things.

The new site gave us a direct line to the community and made the entire submission experience smoother and more reliable. It’s been a game changer, and we owe a lot of that to Kohlmann Kearley, who joined us as a development partner ahead of this season. He’s played a huge role in making the site what it is, and continues to be one of the most valuable people on our team.

We couldn’t have done this without him. If you’re looking for a solid web developer to contract on a project, we wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him. He’s led development on both this Render Weekly platform and the Sample Studio site - a super talented designer and developer.

While Instagram has been a big part of Render Weekly from the beginning, it’s no longer where the core of the platform lives. As many of you have noticed, Instagram and its hashtag system have become less dependable for collecting and organizing submissions. We’ll continue to use it as a way to feature work, but going forward, the website is where all submissions will take place.

Over the course of Season 8, we saw some incredible moments. The Utility Blade prompt led things off and hit a sweet spot of a familiar object, strong engagement, and a clear way to kick off the season. We also ran several standout collaborations, including the Wood prompt with Visune (with a free asset pack from Liam and team), and Pasta with Linda Bui.

We also partnered with Vizcom for a prompt that explored Birdhouses through AI visualization. That one opened up some heavy, but constructive, dialogue about where AI fits into the design process. It helped us clarify our own perspective and gave space for the community to do the same.

We also ran the Render Weekly Derby, which felt both fresh and nostalgic. It was one of our favorite runs in a long time. We’re hoping to bring it back annually, or maybe every other year. Eventually, we’d love to run a real-world derby event.

What We’re Doing in the Offseason

Even though Season 8 is wrapped, we’re not going away.

This offseason, we’re testing a few new things and staying more active than usual. The biggest focus is something we’ve been thinking about for a while: building an archive.

Render Weekly has been around for almost eight years. Over that time, the community has created an incredible amount of work, but right now there’s no easy way to see the history of what’s been done. No real record of past prompts or submissions. So that’s what we’re starting to work on.

We’re opening up the full Render Weekly backlog for submissions. If you’ve participated before and want your work to be part of the archive, now’s the time to send it in. You can make an account, use the submission editor, and submit to any past prompt. As new work comes in, we’ll do our best to feature it on the site and, when it makes sense, highlight it again on Instagram.

That’s part of how we’re thinking about Instagram now. Less as a submission tool, and more as a way to feature the best of what’s coming in through the platform.

So: submissions are open. Whether you’re filling in a prompt you missed, submitting something new, or joining for the first time, we’d love to see your work. The goal is to help document this thing we’ve all built together, and keep it growing.