as promised in an earlier post here’s the launch brochure for yorkshire rural academy - a slightly unusual A4 landscape format [landscape - geddit…?] on thick silk art paper with a spot UV varnish on the cover images and logo. we’ll blog the exhibition stand designs tomorrow.

thanks to lara and claire at the art gallery today. lara gave us a tour of the current exhibition [art from st ives], some insights into the world of a gallery curator and a behind-the-scenes look at the gallery store. we’ve got ideas for the next ‘coffee for creatives’, watch this space…

the balance in our workload between design for print, websites and other creative stuff is always unpredictable. we’re currently busy with websites so i thought we ought to blog a few before there’s too much of a backlog. this is the website for mission network run - actually the first job we did for them, so it predates the print designs we’ve blogged about. we produced the design and html for a programmer at run to develop into a content managed site.

so to my secret life… run also invited me to write three articles a month for the sprint section of the website, a magazine section within the site. i review resources, offer a guide to what’s on the internet and surf contemporary culture for a series of ‘beginners guides’. the site launched in its new format over 2 years ago, so i’ve been making some of my living as a writer for a couple of years now - something i always forget to mention whenever people ask us what we do. in fact, there’s plenty of our writing in quite a lot of the design work we do and although we’ve never advertised that we do copywriting, people often see our stuff and ask us to write. alas, unless you’re a run member you can’t access to these particular articles but i’ll try and remember to post some examples of or links to our writing at some point.

working largely in the public sector means that, particularly on local projects, you are likely to have some emotional attachment to the work. this might be as simple as knowing your designs will be gracing boards, buildings and banners in your home town and being aware of the resulting impact on public space. with other projects you may have a much more personal connection.

when based in bradford we lived in the area covered by the newlands single regeneration budget. artworks were one of the main partners in delivering regeneration projects in the area and we experienced their work in three ways - through designing promotional material and reports; through being involved in the delivery of projects such as helping a community group design a logo or produce a website; and because rebecca and i were involved in youthwork at one of the churches in the area, through knowing some of the young people whose lives were given excitement and hope by the events artworks ran.

at the end of the newlands funding we were commissioned to design the independent report and the summary document shown here that evaluated what artworks had achieved, and crucially, how much more they might have achieved had some of the circumstances been different. it was purely chance that some of the photos we were provided with for the reports were of brightly coloured costumes and painted faces against the backdrop of drab rainy days. and although artworks did and do much, much more than painting kids faces, this seemed an apt metaphor for artworks work in newlands - bringing sunshine to rainy days. so they were the pics we chose to use.

at electric angel we’re firm believers in the power of art and culture to transform communities. we look forward to working, celebrating and on occasion commiserating with artworks and other organisations with similar aims in the future.

this is an idea that we had prompted by the problem that creative coast’s regular meeting time excludes some people, especially those with young children or who regularly teach early evening. so we thought, why not have some casual get-togethers in the day. the idea is that we meet up every now and then and one of us shares something we find inspirational - it could be a painting, a piece of public art, a building, a view, a book - anything they’d like to share. and then we all go for a coffee somewhere. babies and children are welcome (although not essential).

we thought we’d do this different to creative coast, more casual, ad-hoc, organic and just see where it goes. so no logo, no flyers, we’ll just publish details on here and use word-of-mouth.

for our first meet lara goodband, curator of scarborough art gallery has invited us to the gallery on tuesday 30th october at 10am. lara will be sharing and then we’ll stay for coffee in the gallery’s cafe area. it’s also a last chance to see the st ive’s exhibiton. everyone welcome - spread the word.

part of the run visual identity we’ve been developing. these were effectively freebies being cut out of the spare card from the run flyers/cd holders. run use them as comp slips, give-aways and, of course, as postcards thus constantly reinforcing the organisations values and visual style.

these are the tips that came out of last night’s creative coast. they’re intended for artists, designers and other creatives but i suspect they’re pretty applicable to almost anyone. thanks to darrell, helen, nick (by proxy) and shirlie (who came up with a couple at the drop of a hat) and apologies if my paraphrasing of these have lost some of the original insights.

1. do it your way
   don’t feel you have to take on a smart-talking-suit-wearing-firm-handshaking-deal-clinching personae to network successfully. for example, if you’re the sort of person who walks into a networking event and feels totally out of place, then look for someone else equally ill-at-ease - you’ll have some common ground to start a conversation. and if you’re more of a meandering conversation type rather than a hand-out-as-many-business-cards-as-possible person then be assured it’s ok to do that. discover how you feel comfortable at networking events - once you’re at ease and being yourself you’re best placed to talk about what you do.
2. define your own measure of success
   it’s a fallacy that networking events are about clinching deals. instead set some realistic targets, especially if you’re not too confident about networking. go with something achievable such as talking to 3 people you didn’t already know. if that works well, congratulate yourself and up the ante a little next time.
3. always have something to give away
   the more attractive the better. business cards are your basic tool, but how many end up forgotten in a drawer? if you work in a visual field have something visual - a postcard or photo that someone might feel worthy to pin up near their desk. it’s not unknown for artists to receive a phone call months later as a result of an image hanging about and being there at the right time.
4. don’t leave without someone’s details
   networking is a two-way process. always get someone’s card, phone number or website address. plus… if you ask for theirs, they’ll most likely ask for yours.
5. be passionate about what you do
   if you’re not enthused about it who will be? so always try and communicate the passion you have what you do - it’s infectious.
6. be generous
   people respond well to free advice or insights. be prepared to give away a little knowledge - it could make a lasting impression and shows that you understand what you do.
7. don’t expect instant results
   forming partnerships involves trust and friendship and can take 2 or more meetings before hitting it off.
8. remember that people buy people
   it’s fairly unlikely you’re the only person who does what you do so quite often decisions are made on personality and whether people think they’ll be able to work with you. be yourself and don’t be disappointed if you seem to be getting more attention than your work - it’s probably a good sign.
9. understand what potential customers want
   don’t bang on about the minutiae of your work if it’s not relevant. for example, if someone’s looking for a website they need to know that you’ll deliver one with the minimum of fuss, they don’t need to know how html works - otherwise they’d build one themselves.
10. ask questions - that’s how conversations work
    the easy way to chat to people is to ask them stuff. the problem is that the british aren’t always good at this. so take a leaf out the americans’ book and when chatting with someone, ask away.
11. make the connections
    or, identify the ‘net’ in network. it’s often the links that connect people that’s the most valuable information you gather from networking. if you come away seeing a bigger picture of how people relate to each other, that could be useful in making valuable further connections.

ok, so there’s eleven.

if you’re not at creative coast tonight, you could do a lot worse that check out the first of a new on the edge series at the university of hull scarborough campus. i have divided loyalties tonight as on the edge presents barrowcliiffe stories - an interactive film by local filmmaker claudia nye. claudia’s work has been screened on the bbc & channel 4 and we screened her film captian pedro and the three wishes at digital scarborough last year. we designed the promotional material and packaging for the film, plus the on the edge flyer [above and below - printed with orange and metallic silver ink] is an electric angel design too. so apologies to claudia and jo at the uni that we’ll be in the merchant with creative coast tonight.

a quick reflection on captain pedro - it followed the progress of a family leaving cuba on a home-made raft to reach the promised land of the usa. whether they found it to be filled with milk and honey is left for the viewer to decide. it was an absorbing and thought-provoking film and so i’m particularly miffed it’s the second time i haven’t been able to get to a public screening of barrowcliffe stories. inspired by augusto boal’s theatre of the oppressed, the film was made with young people from scarborough’s barrowcliffe estate and the audience get to choose how the film progresses.

something i’ve heard mentioned a few times in the past months has been that many children and young people living on scarborough’s estates have never seen the sea. that’s a big challenge to scarborough’s renaissance initiative and certainly a contrast to the rather comfortable creatives-by-the-sea image we blogged about yesterday. for tonight at least, ‘on the edge’ has a new resonance.

centrespread from this month’s renaissance news [download it here]. nick, the renaissance manager, asked if we’d like to do a feature on electric angel in the newsletter but we thought there were more stories out there than just ours. so we put a shout out to the creative coast members for anyone who’d moved here in the last few years to share their story too. gordon [sneakytrick], sarah [sarahphotogirl] and nick [emily edwards creative] were those who got words and pics to us before a rather pressing print deadline. but there are still stories coming in so there may be a ptII to this piece…

this issue of renaissance news was issued to everyone who attended the ‘looking back, stepping forward‘ event over the weekend so it was great timing being able to spread the word about scarborough’s creative scene to lots of visitors from other renaissance towns.

creative coast, this wednesday, 6pm at our regular haunt, the merchant on eastborough is ‘bingo networking’. as well as a friendly and fun networking event (no power suits or crushing handshakes here) we’ve also added ‘top ten tips for networking newbies’ to the evening. so if the idea of entering a room full of people with whom you’re expected to talk shop and promote what you do fills you with fear - then have no worries, you’ll be amongst friends this wednesday.

want to know a little secret? although people have observed that i’m a good networker, the idea of ‘networking’ fills me with fear too. i just wasn’t born to do that stuff. for that reason alone i thought i ought offer a couple of my top tips on how to sidestep the fear and make it work for you. also offering tips on the evening will be nick from emily edwards creative, and darrell and helen from IT & digital/creative york (who actually get paid to network…). i’ll try and remember to jot them all down and publish them on here later in the week.

everybody’s welcome so come on down. there’s even a prize of a bottle of bubbly…