i thought i should report back on the downing street visit - it was quite an experience, and having had time to reflect a few things still stand out:

surrealism: steve and i were ushered into a side room on arrival - privileged to be part of a select group of 5 out of the 150 present who had been invited to personally meet the prime minister and lord mandelson. (a blue sticker on your name badge indicated your special status) i remember turning to steve and admitting i was finding this all a bit surreal. he concurred. i have to admit it felt quite good to follow the PM out into the main rooms with everyone looking and rushing to shake his hand. we played it cool scarborough, we played it cool.

charisma: everyone asks what the prime minister is really like. as you might have heard elsewhere he is surprisingly charismatic, affable and witty in real life. his speech was delivered without notes and peppered with a couple of jokes about recession - perhaps a tad risky in a room full of small business owners but those assembled seemed to appreciate his honesty. he came across very well - the tv cameras really do hate him.

rush: it was also clear though that his life is probably planned to the second, with his arrival imminent we had to down glasses and (quickly! and in the right order!) line up ready and waiting. and he was ushered away immediately after his speech to vote in the new speaker of the house. it was clear that any hopes of actually having a conversation with him were a tad naive - our meeting was a handshake, thanks for what we were doing and small talk as we were photographed. but by the time the speech was under way steve and i were happily loitering at the back, glowing slightly and enjoying a glass of wine thinking what the heck - how many people get personally thanked by the PM?

message: but before it sounds like we just went down and attempted to drink some of our taxes back, be assured that we did make some serious effort getting scarborough’s message across to government ministers and staff. what was a real surprise was how genuinely nice the government people were and how much they knew about us. several people - including rosie winterton, minister for regional economic development and minister for yorkshire who recognised us from across the room - made an effort to come up and say how impressed they were with scarborough winning with european enterprise awards. we were made to feel rather special and certainly felt very proud to be representing the town.

art: after chatting with some other entrepreneurs (all equally bemused at their invitation) and after speaking to journalists we then wandered around looking at the state rooms and the art on the walls. an interesting mix - there’s a whole other blog post on that topic to come i suspect.

after: we did the obligatory posing for a photo in front of the iconic door and then steve and i went for a couple of pints opposite the houses of parliament and reflected on the evening. strangely i think my overriding memory of the evening will be the arriving. having to turn up without an invitation when everybody else had one (just say your name on the gate, they said), going through the security check and then being left to wander up downing street to the door of number 10 keeping a careful eye on the policeman with the machine gun just in case i looked as out of place as i felt. it was a bit like walking through the other side of a mirror.

it’s been one of those weird weeks with a mix of good news and high pressure in equal measures. so when rebecca took a phonecall mid-meeting and announced there was someone on the other end asking if i was planning on meeting gordon brown and peter mandelson for drinks on monday evening, i assumed it was a wind-up.

but it wasn’t. and so myself and steve bromham of scarborough IT-consultancy save9 will be turning up at no.10 downing street this monday. apparently the evening is to congratulate businesses succeeding despite the recession although our invitation is, of course, due to scarborough’s renaissance partnership winning the grand jury prize for britain in the european enterprise awards.

the situation became even more bizarre when i received another phone call late today saying that there were a few people the prime minister would like to talk and be photographed with specifically and could i email over a quick biography and photo so they’d be able to pick me out when i arrived. i am seriously wondering if they’ve got the right person…

still, it’s an honour nonetheless, not least to represent scarborough, the town that has been so good to me. i shall be encouraging the PM and secretary for business, innovation and skills to pay us a visit sometime. i’m thinking that surely it’s good for a government during a recession to be visiting the most enterprising place in europe… a coastal town in the uk? the invitation to downing street is also a good excuse for me and the family to make a short break of it and ‘do the sights’. sorry, no sense of urban cool here - we want to see soldiers in shiny helmets strutting about on horses in front of the queen’s house thank you.

hastily-written media release: media-release-ea-and-save9-at-no-10-v19-06-09

i took this photo for the next issue of renaissance news - normally an assignment james would take on. we’re missing his versatility! [he's back from thailand at the end of august]. anyway, just thought you might all like to see it. i think it’s still sinking in that scarborough won this - not least at a time when uk coastal towns are having a rough time and the country as a whole is in recession. my only concern with this is that as a town we’re not making nearly enough noise about it.

i left art college bang in the middle of a recession so i sympathise with those designers looking for their first job right now. my best advice in lieu of a job is to get as much experience as you can whilst design studios could probably use an extra [free] hand to see them through a rough patch. make a good impression and you’ll be well placed for when things brighten up - plus there could well be some freelance work that follows on from an initial couple of weeks you give for free.

so here’s how to stand out from the crowd and get those coveted placements:

- do your research. 10 minutes browsing this blog will give you all our names, just 10 seconds will give you mine. yet people ring up having seen us listed in the phone book not having a clue who we are. always get in touch with a specific person.

- do some more research. believe it or not, graduates ring us up not even knowing if we’re graphic designers, architects or kitchen fitters.

- do a bit more research. find out what your chosen design studio has been working on and remember which pieces of their work you really like. explain this is why you want experience of working with *them*.

- then ring [not email, not post - pick up a phone], use the name, use the info, state clearly that you’d like to work for free for a couple of weeks to gain experience and hope you’ll be of use. and that you love their work. you love them. and want, if at all possible, to have their babies too. designers are no less immune to flattery than anyone else.

- quick caveat: there’s no harm in sending something really nice in the post first [ie. something you've designed] and then ringing a couple of days later.

- and if you get a placement, seize the opportunity. be punctual. be enthusiastic. ask loads of intelligent questions. enjoy it. be yourself. and don’t listen to your ipod in the studio cos that’s just rude.

let me finish with an example. we had a couple of placements earlier in the year who were quietly enthusiastic, hard working and very competent. guess who we got in touch with when we needed freelancers to help us through summer…

best of luck.

also check out ‘giz a job‘. a blog post from two years ago.

[photo: our door. bit literal that one, although i'll use it as a reminder for graduates to actually find out where we are - you'd be surprised how many don't and turn up an hour late because they couldn't find us. oh c'mon!]

flyer for ‘on the edge’ spring 09 series at the university of hull.

i’m kneeling in a pool of seawater, getting wet shoes and jeans, taking photographs of mirrors stuck in the sand. was the likelihood of this mentioned when i first started down the path of being a designer? no it wasn’t.

but working with rachel at least gets me out of the studio. we might tell you what we were doing and why later in the year.

we would. we do. our studio-cum-gallery has been featured in the latest update of the culture vulture e-magazine/blog in their ‘who would work in an office like this?‘ section including an short interview about the gallery and scarborough.

i’ve also been invited to be a blogger on their site supplying tasty cultural nuggets from the east coast so if you follow me on twitter you’ll be seeing a lot more mention of that. in the meantime we recommend you pay the culture vulture a visit, sign up for their e-newsletter and keep an eye out for some cool competitions and freebies.

[photo by david chalmers. showing light box and window pieces by rachel welford]

‘how do we keep our annual report in people’s minds over the whole year?’ is a conundrum many organisations have. one idea developed with coast and moors voluntary action was to have the annual report also be a calendar, keeping the annual report on people’s desks through the year.

the front of each card in the plastic case is of a particular project with a quote from someone in the community. the rear has the annual report stuff on.

photography was by sarah photogirl, carl rudlinton and james here at electric angel - some photos are as they were taken, others have been manipulated to enhance the effects of a fish eye lens.

our first exhibition in the tiny gallery - new works in architectural glass by rachel welford - is over and we’re rather sad to see the lightboxes go although very pleased that the two window panels specially created for the exhibition have remained and are now in their new places at either end of our studio/gallery windows. they were in the background when we were interviewed on bbc look north last week. so you can still have a look if you’re passing.

we’ll also be keeping some of rachel’s work on the gallery website - the idea is to build up an online gallery of work for sale by artists who have exhibited with us.

our new exhibition opens on thursday evening [invitation above] and features work by local painter malcolm macdonald. do come along.

you heard it here first: scarborough has been awarded the grand jury prize in the european enterprise awards.

we were entered in the awards after wining the 2008 enterprising britain competition which was pretty much our life at electric angel for a month or two last year. we updated the material we produced for the national competition to go to the european judges and produced some new illustrations for scarborough’s submission to help explain some of the key economic changes in the town. so we’re well chuffed to have helped scarborough and great britain win this prestigious award.

the real congratulations go to everyone who has been involved in scarborough’s renaissance over the past 7 years - it has given the town reason to believe in itself again and that is why we won. well done everybody.