How Creative is Yorkshire?

This month's Creative Networks was a little different than usual and was in the form of a debate chaired by Yorkshire Forward, about the "state of the regions’ Creative, Cultural and Digital economies." We were both curious to hear what everyone had to say about this and apparently the debate would help inform a response to Central Government so we went along. The panel of experts (made up of people from Screen Yorkshire, Yorkshire Forward, Creative Industries Development Agency (CIDA), The Arts Council and the Leeds Initiative) each in turn made a presentation, then the discussion was opened up to the audience.

(image taken from http://www.creativenetworkswestyorkshire.co.uk/newsletters/cn_sep08_high.pdf)

The most notable points raised were that there needs to be more 'specialist' advice made available to creative businesses in yorkshire, that many excellent graduates are produced in this region but that there is a difficulty in retaining them, and that the cost of office space in Leeds City Centre is particularly high for those who have both creative and entrepreneurial tendancies.

The last point was made by an academic from Leeds College of Art and Design. He made several valuable comments such as difficulties posed to start-ups, their reluctance in using incubator space (and prefering to strike out on their own), but the lack of affordable office space in Leeds causing problems. Unfortunately one of the organisers interrupted and told him to let someone else speak!

Chris Bailey, the Dean of the Arts and Society Faculty at Leeds Met, made a good suggestion whilst the subject of apprenticeships was raised: course fees being 50% subsidised to reduce barriers to entry. This ties in with the pitch made by Rebekka Kill, Senior Lecturer from Leeds Met, earlier for the Creative Enterprise degree.

One member of the audience asked the panel if they could give three incentives why students should stay in Leeds after graduating. Emma Cheshire Head of Industry Development from Screen Yorkshire gave her suggestions: (1) The Art galleries in the city centre (e.g. Henry Moore Institute), Leeds Art Gallery) (2) Numerous creative companies to approach for employment (3) Many events held throughout the year. However, she also made a point about people being tempted to hop on the GNER and travel to London, earlier in the discussion so it could said theres a case for both?

The debate ran over time by 30 minutes and not surprisingly people began leaving (to be honest several people got up and walked out throughout the whole talk) but we hung on until the very end in the hopes that someone would shed some light on the topic, or provide some insightful information. We did gleem some useful tidbits in the form of these two weblinks from Emma's presentation:

Melt provides Research and Development funding to South Yorkshire based creative or digital companies or individual practitioners. Check it out: http://www.lovemelt.com/

"Creative Choices° is the first online service to provide the tools, knowledge and networks to support every individual and business to get in, and get on, in the creative industries and cultural sector...It’s for everyone who already is, and wants develop their career or business further."
http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/

Overall it was an interesting debate, but we had expected less presentations and more interaction with those who attended.

London Design Festival 2008

This year Kooji went along to this year's London Design Festival, an event that spans several weeks covering all kinds of creative work. Getting to London (by coach) was a chore but as soon as we arrived in Marble Arch a swift full english breakfast got us back to full health and ready to discover the festival's goings on.

Whilst there we caught some short film competitions, "The Smalls" and "Filminute", the latter being hosted by Selfridges and found completely by accident when the lift went down instead of up! There was a large darkened room where the 60 second movies were played, some better than others. Once we'd seen all of the entrants we headed over to the pcs at the back to vote. http://filminute.blogspot.com/

We both agreed that "Wall Street" by Gary Leib should win as it was imaginative, brilliantly animated and witty. http://www.filminute.com/2008/screeningroom/index.php?id=25

Afterwards we found are way into The Smalls, another film competition using small screen formats. iPods to be precise. The quality of the finalists' work was really impressive and we spent a good hour or so watching them all one by one!




"Come Wander With Me" by Director Phillip Van was absolutely stunning.

Designers block has been running in previous years with some cool exhibitions of product design work so this was next on our list. Finding the place was suprisingly hard at first until we realised that the friendly chap in Covent Garden had give us the wrong directions! If only we'd turned left instead of right! Embrassingly it was then blatanty obvious where it was. Somewhere below the gigantic posters shouting "DESIGNERS BLOCK!" on them. Ahem.

The artists were mostly on-hand to show off their new designs, a lot of which was brilliant. The highlight of the exhibition was the portable cardboard shelter for homeless people. The designer explained that he was seeking funding for these to be provided to those in need. We hope he's succesful. http://www.verydesignersblock.com/

Leaving the exhibition we had one thing on our minds, food. First we popped into a cool looking diner on Covent Garden but two rude waitresses later and were on our way to nearby mexican where we had learned there was a 2 for 1 deal going.

The second day was for relaxation before the dreaded National Express journey home and luckily the rare British sunshine made an appearance so it was over to Hyde Park for some chilling. Oh and Pizza by the ducks.

Next year we'll be heading down south again for Design Festival 2009, by train that is!

Had ourselves a right good GeekUp

Dom and Heather invited us along to this month's GeekUp after we bumped into them at Fantasia, Kirkstall Abbey last week. This is our first GeekUp but we've heard great things and it was a good chance to meet up with a few familiar faces, and meet a few new ones too, like Ashley Moran from PatchSpace Ltd. Ashleys a friendly guy who runs a Software Development and Consultancy business in Stoke-on-Trent.

We caught up with Sam Foster again too who was sipping on a pint and Deb Bassett from Urbanwide, who recommended taking a look at a website called 'Folksy.' It's a really cool site actually which matches up designers and crafters with you the art lover, take a look :) We also managed to chat with Mark Earnshaw properly, after we missed the last few GeekUps. Marks been asking if we'll be coming along to one of these GeekUps for a while now, so it's about time we did. We'll be sure to go along to the next one though, so see y'all there!

http://geekup.org/

Fantasia @ Kirkstall Abbey

Okay, so Mickey mouse and his army of broomsticks were nowhere to be seen, but we still had a great night out despite that. One of the event's sponsors, Carte D'Or, were dishing out free tubs of scrummy icecream and we even scooped ourselves up a free 'Proms Classics' CD. The highlight of the evening had to be bumping into Dom (The Hodge) and Heather on our way towards the exit. Thinking the night was all over after being spellbound for over an hour and watching a truckload of fireworks ignite, Dom kindly pointed out that it was only the interval and invited us back to sit down and watch the remaining festivities. A good job we did too as the rest of the show was spectacular. Cheers Dom :D

Kooji T-Shirts

Brian from Dragon Embroidery in Harrogate (who we met a few months ago on the set of Cinema of Horror) asked us if we could help him out by testing a batch of t-shirts using a new and highly top secret printing process. We eagerly agreed to be his test gerbils, lab hamsters and guinea pigs and provided him with some of our artwork to use. The good news is they arrived earlier this week and we've been sporting these snazzy Kooji T-Shirts ever since in an attempt to weed out any faults or minor errors. Obviously this means wearing them all day every day then firing them through the Kooji Washing Machines as often as we're able. The stench is almost unbearable but this is a risk we're willing to take if it means we're helping to develop new and innovative print techniques. Keep an eye out for us in highstreets near you ;)

Design Duo: Kooji Creative - Combining the artistic prowess of Johnathan Gallagher and the unrivalled determination of Katherine Moss. Together they harness the power of the most dastardley and cunning digital design skills the world has ever seen!