electric angel /design for life

schools creative & media diploma

last night was the first public exhibition of work by the students on the schools creative and media higher diploma in the north yorks coast area and mighty impressive it was too. we’ve been in touch with the diploma since a creative coast event in 2008 which introduced the idea to the local creative sector. i’ve since been invited to be an ‘business champion’ which involves offering a working world perspective to the diploma and helping connect local creatives with the course so students meet practitioners and get a glimpse of what a career in the creative industries might be like. rachel and i spent an hour with them at the start of the year showing them our work on the railway art project.

the diploma was described in a nutshell on the exhibition guide as…

“…designed to teach young people how to work creatively; they work in groups and alone on a series of activities that will give them a good overview of the different things you can do in the creative industries. the diploma is not one subject; the students combine work in six of the following disciplines across the two years: photography, interactive media, film, television, music, drama, graphic design, 2D art, 2D art, animation, creative writing, radio and audio…”

i wish we’d had this opportunity when i was at school. last nights work was response to a brief to record the ‘distinctive atmosphere of scarborough sea front’. these students are year 10 (14-15 year olds) and the quality of work was excellent. here are some that particularly caught my eye.

the image at the top is of megan jepson’s ’scarborough/castle’ in which photos of the seafront are pasted on a foamboard model of scarborough castle. megan did a work work placement with us a few weeks ago so we had an idea of what her piece would be although i’m told the final construction happened rather close to the exhibition opening – we’ve all been there. it really exceeded my expectations – the scale (which doesn’t really come across on my photo) and use of colour were spot on.

the use of text in this oil painting by vanessa bannister (i think – will correct if i’m wrong!) reminded me of ‘we two boys together clinging’ by david hockney. creatively integrating text with drawings and paintings was a theme in several pieces.

and i was really taken with scott asquith’s ‘rolling’ in which a ball rolled and bounced the length of the sea front. it was inventive, nicely edited and great fun. a brilliant piece of work.

it’s a little unfair to single just a few out as all the students deserve to be proud of their work. congratulations too to spencer, their tutor. the only blight of the evening was that we didn’t get a better turn-out from local creatives who had been invited to come take a look and offer support to the coast’s next generation of creatives. obviously i’ve got my work cut out in this role.

sssshhhhhh….

uh oh, looks like there’s about to be some menacing on our blog. dennis is coming to town for scarborough literature festival. we’ll blog our brochure, poster [excerpt above], flyers and bookmark designs next week inbetween laying paving stones.

what is a creative?

synchronicity – you gotta love it. whilst on a short break in liverpool this last week rebecca and i visited the tate to see the seagram murals but also took a look at this is sculpture as seen it was on having no idea what would be exhibited.

you never leave work behind, even on holiday and i’ve had wayne hemmingway’s philosophy on designers being thinkers, not just do-ers in my head since he spoke at the opening of woodend. i imagine it’s his off-the-shelf speech but it struck a chord because electric angel is becoming more multidisciplinary with each passing year and a tightly defined perception of what a designer does or what medium he/she works in is increasingly irrelevant. you’re known by what you do, not by how you describe yourself. if you can think creatively about a problem, it doesn’t really matter if the end result is to be drawn, printed or built – you can learn a new practical skill or even better, utilise another’s expertise to help realise an idea, but the ability to design is nurtured over time and through experience.

wayne had curated one of the rooms in the sculpture exhibition (hence the synchronicity), complete with disco-funk soundtrack and colour-changing dance floor. has anyone told him he’s a designer and should stick to boots? not for years. he’d done a good job at the tate and brought his trademark man-of-the-people approach to the sometimes stuffy and clichéd world of art galleries.

so wayne’s philosophy was in my head as i wandered round and had a quick boogie, not least as i knew i’d be returning to a studio where the job list includes designing maps, concrete paving and school uniforms.

and posters and leaflets of course.

[image: sketches for possible uniform styles at graham & raincliffe schools]

updates-a-go-go

yep, it’s update night at the first creative coast of 2010 with news and opportunities from the north yorkshire creative network and on local projects. essential if you want to know what’s going on and how you might get developed or commissioned (courtesy of a new scheme offered by the north yorks network). rick of chrysalis arts and wendy of create will be spilling the beans. it’ll be nice to be back at the merchant too. 5.30pm. link to creative coast facebook group.

digital scarborough 2010

the shop of priceless things

our most recent public art commission – a collaboration with poet john w clarke. the shop of priceless things is in rotherham town centre.

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cc returns

we needed to quickly knock up some flyers for creative coast which kicks off again next week after a bit of a break and couldn’t resist this pun.

ironically all the effort into enterprising britain [2009 brochure here featuring scarborough] combined with a very busy 6 months for us and create meant that some of the things that won us the award have slipped – hence the almost absence of creative coast this year. but despite being quiet we have been busy behind the scenes making links and securing a little funding that will enable us to hook up with networks across yorkshire, sharing good practice and looking for opportunities.

the first of these is an evening with steve ding of bmedi@ in november, we’ll be sending a posse over to bradford in 2010 and hopefully get some kind of networking event sorted too. we have hook-ups with creative, IT & digital york for 2010 in the planning stages as well as having our sights on leeds and hull too. looks busy – we’re definitely spurred on by the two enterprise awards and looking forward to sharing our story. our ‘roadshow’ approach is also something of a pilot scheme that might be rolled out to other sectors with creative coast training organisations and businesses in scarborough how to get out there and share their story.

we’re also continuing what we hope are useful training/taster events, the first being ‘twitter night’ next thursday plus we’ll be bringing the creative sector on board with the CHART Scarborough project via a fun mobile phone treasure hunt in the dark. if you haven’t got hold of a flyer you can click on the second image above to view it large enough to read the text. looking forward to seeing folks on thursday.

how on earth did scarborough win
the european enterprise award?

if you’ve been asking yourself this, then get yourself down to the international business forum event at the spa today or tomorrow and pick up a copy of this brochure.

another award for scarborough – the international association of public participation project of the year – prompted this new piece of literature. alas we didn’t get to go to san diego for the ceremony, instead we had to turn a brochure around, from concept to delivery in two days. ok, so that was delivery to london and taken from there to san diego, but we think that’s pretty speedy nonetheless. the brochure uses text and a visual timeline to tell the story of scarboroughs’ renaissance over the last 7 years. it’s also pretty candid about the situation that scarborough faced and how the council was basically told to work in partnership or not get any more money.

although you probably won’t hear as much about this award, to my mind it’s probably the most important as it recognises that scarborough’s recent achievements have come through people working together with shared vision.

mapping culture

we tweeted it a few weeks ago, but are delighted to formally anounce that we have been awarded the contract in a competitive pitch to design the printed and web-based version of CHART Scarborough (formerly known as Scarborough Arts Trail). the first step has been to create a blog that will document the process as we carry out research and undertake trials with people using different methods of navigating scarborough’s cultural hotspots: www.chartscarborough.com

expect us going on off all sorts of cartography tangents on there. but we’ll pop the odd post on here as we reach milestones in the project. we’ve already come up with the name with project leader, dorcas taylor, and really looking forward to working on the rest of this project.

around your world in 80 days

we’ve been sent a travelling moleskine on the theme of ’stuff that makes you go ooh’. you can read all about the travelling moleskines here, but as a quick summary it’s a whole host of sketchbooks being passed around as part of the big draw and will result in an exhibition in september. there’s a flickr group for it here.

above is my contribution to the one that’s arrived with us. expect at least 3 more from us as it travels round the studio before we pass it on.