A guild (German: Gilde) is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society. They often depended on grants of letters patent by a monarch or other authority to enforce the flow of trade to their self-employed members, and to retain ownership of tools and the supply of materials. A lasting legacy of traditional guilds are the guildhalls constructed and used as meeting places.

An important result of the guild framework was the emergence of universities at Bologna, Paris, and Oxford around the year 1200; they originated as guilds of students as at Bologna, or of masters as at Paris.

In pre-industrial cities, craftsmen tended to form associations based on their trades, confraternities of textile workers, masons, carpenters, carvers, glass workers, each of whom controlled secrets of traditionally imparted technology, the "arts" or "mysteries" of their crafts. Usually the founders were free independent master craftsmen.

Kathryn Felicia Day (born on June 28, 1979) is an American actress and singer, known for her work as "Vi" on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and for parts in movies such as Bring It On Again and June, as well as the Internet musical, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Day is also the star, script writer and producer of the original web series The Guild, a show loosely based on her life as a gamer. She also starred in the Dragon Age web series Dragon Age: Redemption, which she wrote. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Web Television.

Day began her acting career at the age of 7 when she starred as Scout in a local production of To Kill a Mockingbird. She studied operatic singing and ballet professionally, performing at concerts and competitions nationwide. Home-schooled throughout much of her childhood, she began college at the age of 16.

She was a National Merit Scholar (1995) and graduated as valedictorian of her class. An accomplished violinist, Day was accepted to the Juilliard School of Music but chose to attend the University of Texas at Austin on a full scholarship in violin performance. She double majored in mathematics and music performance.

Thebe Neruda Kgositsile (born February 24, 1994), better known by his stage name Earl Sweatshirt, is an American rapper and member of the Los Angeles based hip hop collective Odd Future.

Kgositsile was born to Cheryl Harris, a law professor at University of California, Los Angeles, and Keorapetse Kgositsile, a South African poet and political activist. He grew up in the Los Angeles area and is in his senior year at New Roads High School in Santa Monica.

Earl and his group have been featured in mainstream magazines such as Spin, Billboard and The Fader as well as on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. His debut studio album, Earl, was self-released March 31, 2010 as a free digital download on the Odd Future website. Most of the album was produced by Tyler, The Creator. Earl was named the 24th best album of 2010 by Complex. Sweatshirt's rapping style is notable for its dark lyrical content, multi-syllabic rhyme schemes, heavy wordplay and double entendres.

Despite overwhelmingly positive reviews, various sources indicated that Sweatshirt had stopped making music with Odd Future. Posts from Tyler, The Creator's Twitter and Formspring accounts seemed to indicate that Sweatshirt's mother would not grant permission to release any of Sweatshirt's music, although Earl later expressed in an interview that his mother sent him to Samoa not because of his music or lyrical content but because of himself getting into trouble. Earl attended Coral Reef Academy, a therapeutic retreat school for at-risk boys, located outside of the Samoan capital of Apia.

Malcolm McCormick (born January 19, 1992), known by his stage name Mac Miller (previously Easy Mac), is an American rapper from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is signed to Rostrum Records and released his debut album Blue Slide Park on November 8, 2011.

Malcolm McCormick was born on January 19, 1992, the son of an architect and a photographer, and raised in the Point Breeze part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father is Christian and his mother is Jewish; Miller was raised Jewish and had a Bar Mitzvah. Before attending Taylor Allderdice High School, Miller attended Winchester Thurston School. In high school, Miller decided to focus on his hip-hop career, later noting, "Once I hit 15, I got real serious about it and it changed my life completely ... I used to be into sports, play all the sports, go to all the high school parties. But once I found out hip-hop is almost like a job, that's all I did." Miller, a self-taught musician, plays piano, guitar, drums, and bass.

Before embarking on a solo career, Miller was part of rap group The Ill Spoken together with fellow Pittsburgh rapper, Beedie. The Ill Spoken released the mixtape How High in 2008. Prior to changing his name to Mac Miller, he was known as EZ Mac and released the mixtape But My Mackin Ain't Easy in 2007 at 15 years old. In 2009 Mac Miller released two mixtapes The Jukebox: Prelude to Class Clown and The High Life before getting signed to Rostrum Records.

Jed Tucker Whedon (born July 18, 1974) is a screenwriter and musician. Jed is from a family of writers: he is the son of screenwriter Tom Whedon, grandson of screenwriter John Whedon, and the brother of screenwriter Zack Whedon and producer/director/writer Joss Whedon. On April 19, 2009, he married fellow screenwriter Maurissa Tancharoen.

Alongside his brothers Joss and Zack and his then fiancée Maurissa Tancharoen, he co-created and co-wrote the parody musical Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. It was the subject of a salute by The Paley Center for Media and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class - Short-format Live-Action Entertainment Programs.

Prior to Dr. Horrible, Jed composed scores for video games, and was a member of the now defunct Los Angeles-based band The Southland. In 2010, he released an album entitled History of Forgotten Things under the band name "Jed Whedon and the Willing". Assisting him on the album were his wife, Maurissa Tancharoen and their mutual friend Felicia Day.