SAN DIEGO — When you walk into Miresball in Little Italy, you are surrounded by creativity, colors, and a quiet work environment, aside from the sound of them clicking away on keyboards.
Miresball is a creative agency working with brands across the country, and it is one of the more than 6,000 creative firms in the region.
"The creative industry is certainly folks like us that work for clients, but there is also lots of just like, individual artists and crafts people and just a huge, thriving ecosystem of people doing really fun work," said John Ball is the firm's Creative Director.
That "thriving ecosystem" is exactly why a new study was conducted.
The study identifies the impact creative industries have on San Diego's economy.
"What was really a surprise was the sheer size of the creative economy in San Diego. It's 10.8 billion dollars. I mean, that's huge," said Daniel Enemark, the Chief Economist at the San Diego Policy and Innovation Center.
The group commissioned the study alongside the City of San Diego.
A graph in the study shows 2022 was a big year for local creative industries.
Although there was a dip in revenue in 2021, Enemark says that is a small set back in the grand scheme of things.
"In fact, it's kind of surprising that the creative economy was so resilient during the pandemic when a lot of other industries, ya know restaurants, retail, other things that are place based, really suffered," said the economist.
Tuesday was Miresball's first day officially back in the office since the pandemic.
Enemark says the information in the report will be used by the city when making decisions regarding creative industries moving forward.
