In April Cheltenham housed its very first Design Festival. Spread over three days the programme showcased influential figures from the design industry. Set with a Friday day ticket I prepared myself in a sponge like manner, to be inspired. Talks covered all design disciplines, with speakers from an impressive line up of creative backgrounds.

I'd signed up for four talks throughout the day (with a convenient 1 hour lunch break for afternoon tea!). Simon Kavanagh gave us an insight into The KAOSPilots, a school positioned half way between a business and a design school. Their values are based on risk-taking and they pride their programme on being in the real world with an aim to bring out "positive social change through personal growth". Students present their big idea and lecturers support them (no matter how crazy they are). Extraordinary achievements included the Baisikeli idea where a student shipped Danish scrapped bicycles to Tanzania where they're repaired/rebuilt and sold, with all profit forming the foundation for the creation of a sustainable bicycle industry in Africa. He asked us what our big idea was, I couldn't quite answer. But the prospect of one idea transforming somebody's life was quite powerful and it reminded me that as a designer, we all have the potential to shape lives.

(image credit - Peter Stanners)

Not as design led as I'd expected, it became clear the event was about all aspects of creativity. It delved into processes, responsibilities, and innovation, it made us question our roles and what we can do with them. Design is just a small part of that collaboration. I also learnt, that it was okay not to understand what's going on all of the time! Nick Jankel, a life and leadership coach discussed chaos and where progress is concerned - it pays off to go deeper into the rabbit hole, for better results.

Each speaker had a different story, a different perspective but the one thing that remained consistent was the vision. Creative thinking affects our daily lives and also ensures the development of our future. From Simon Waterfall discussing the Sat Nav sucker marks on windscreens (that dramatically increased car crime in a matter of weeks), to Steve Haggarty explaining the cultural shifts in Chinese markets with youth culture and brands. 

I think it was safe to say I left feeling exhausted, but truly inspired. It's quite exciting to think that with perseverance, the right tools and platform - what one individual, or collaboration are capable of...

A recent collaborative project has developed a new online learning resource for teachers delivering religious education in schools, launching in conjunction with a new national approach.

Taking place over the last few months this venture with Junction Media and Birmingham’s Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) has resulted in the website www.faithmakesadifference.co.uk to be used by teachers, parents, governors, local authorities and faith communities.

A new RE syllabus is already implemented in over 400 schools and Early Years centres in Birmingham and the new site will support that delivery. The site provides additional benefits to schools using the new syllabus with the way in which it offers materials.

The syllabus has a revised emphasis of learning about faiths, respecting one another and living by rules. The website communicates these themes and aids lesson planning for teachers. All the materials are easily accessible through key stage or faith and disposition, making the site easy to navigate and its straightforward user journeys, it’s simple to access what you need.

If a teacher wants further help, they can book a session with a specialist RE advisor through the online calendar and booking system built into the site. This site negates the need for teachers to call the city council requesting RE support and advice, either all the information relating to the nine major faiths present in Birmingham is online for them, or even if they want some more help, all they need to do is book a session.

The site needed to provide information quickly for teachers and have all the new syllabus material reflected and easy to access. With a large amount of learning material available, teachers can easily access learning matter for their classes and with the way the site is developed with straightforward user journeys material is simple to find.

This post deviates from our normal digital media and graphic design related articles, and is in reference to our working environment at our Birmingham headquarters.

Substrakt started, and have grown up, in Digbeth. We opted for this area as we felt it had promise for regeneration as well as a respect for history and heritage, which is attractive to creative businesses like ours. We have enjoyed our time here, and have been housed within vibrant creative spaces of Custard Factory followed by our current home at Fazeley Studios. We've keenly followed public realm and architectual development in this area and the wider city.

I walked past Island House today, which essentially acts as a gate house to Digbeth and East side if you come down the Fazeley Street way. A good number of our team, and also clients, get to our studio from the city this way. To my horror I found that it was no longer there. I had heard rumors, but nothing confirmed... so this was indeed a surprise.

The re generation and activity around this area of Birmingham is exciting and mostly positive (bar the odd exception) with a new park and University campus as well as the addition of reputable organisations such as Birmingham Ormiston Academy arriving in the area. These sites are all new buildings. I'd like to know what the reasoning is behind the demolition of such a gorgeous building. From what I gather it was structurally sound, it housed the City Council arts team not so long ago, and didn't look too bad inside.

Was it to make way and create a view to the 'amazing' architecture? Was it just that the new hotel needed a car park? I'm not sure, but what I do know is that there must have been a way to keep this building standing. Are we so desperate to create a new identity for the city that we forget some of the old delightful buildings that have remained architectural pleasant for years and years.

I'm sure there is reasoning behind this and that someone will put me straight, but i'd like to hope that a huge amount of effort went in to trying to keep the building before the decision was made.

As a digital media business based in the Digbeth, an area named as a 'digital quarter', our desire to remain here has just decreased a little. No more surprises please!

Photo credit Brett Wilde

PS I've since found an article from Birmingham Mail that i'd obviously missed.

Last year a convo over a cuppa led to the exciting collaboration between myself and Birmingham Royal Ballet. Pointe Blank was born in May last year with a collection of works based on BRB's production of Coppelia, inviting 27 artists and designers to produce a piece of artwork to be exhibited.

With the success of the project I was pretty chuffed when Rob (my partner in crime at BRB) approached me back in December, inviting me to work on another Pointe Blank project with thorough support from all the company. It gave us an opportunity to really think about what the collaboration was about and what we were trying to do. The majority of the contributors had never been to the ballet before (me included) so we were really keen to tap into a new audience, the brief encouraging the designers to see the productions as a story, rather than a ballet. We felt that opportunities to collaborate were few and far between in Birmingham and with the use of a certain 140 character social media network we didn't have to search too far for talent!

This years production is Hobson's Choice. We were keen to keep the brief as unprescriptive as possible, allowing participants to be as creative as wanted to be. We filled the 27 spaces within a few hours with designers from Birmingham, London and Berlin!

We launched the collection on Monday 20th February at Birmingham Royal Ballet studios and it'll be exhibiting at 6/8 Kafe on Temple Row from 5th March. There's talks of a collaborative event with FAKE too, watch this space...

We've been back a couple of weeks now and are all fired up for a fantastic 2012.
Here's a sneak preview at some of the work we're doing this month...

In partnership with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Birmingham Architecture Association and the Birmingham Five Counties Architecture Association (BFCAA), Substrakt designed and developed an iPhone application and website to represent Birmingham’s finest architecture.

The objective was to create an application that appealed to both users who are interested in architecture, and the general public who either may have an interest in the buildings that they interact with on a day-to-day basis, or who are visiting and keen to learn more about their surroundings.

Information about buildings is available in list format, or viewable on a map. The app also uses GPS to filter buildings that are near you at the time.

A number of buildings are collated into tours within the app. These are themed, e.g 20th Century tour, and can be individually curated while building information can be tailored for that particular tour. Users can use GPS within the app to help guide them on the tour.

All the data (buildings and tours) for both the website and application is easily managed from a central web based database.  The application is built natively using Objective C.

Visit the website to download the app:

http://www.walkingarchitecture.co.uk/

Art Map Wolverhampton is an integral part of Project Dandelion, a public art project that enables new art commissions and projects to take place across secondary schools in Wolverhampton. Supported by Centro, Substrakt were brought on board to work alongside the students to produce a printed map and website showcasing art and culture across the city for visitors and residents.

We began the project by visiting the King’s CE school for workshops with the students. Over the sessions we introduced the students to various stocks, inks and finishes. We took samples to spark debate and presented existing maps to engage in discussions, using the feedback to work towards our design. Within their lessons, the students were producing artwork in response to public art within the city, which we were to incorporate into the map.

During the research the students realised they were keen to produce something that stood out from the other tourist maps; we explored different folds, introduced them to Pantone swatches and looked at various ways of illustrating Wolverhampton in a clean simple form that would translate into print and web.

We collated the students’ research and mapped out places of interest and public art onto a vector-illustrated map. Using tones of grey with fluorescent red and green we ensured a bold contrast, the grey representing the industrial city and brights celebrating the culture and vibrant art scene.

The result was 22k A2 art maps; 24pp printed black, Pantone 803 and 805 onto 130gsm uncoated stock.

The accompanying website is based on the visual style of the printed map, and expands on the initial idea and concept of Art Map Wolverhampton. Using the online version people have more information available to them, such as bus routes, transport type accessibility, links to further information on other websites and easily accessed directions through Google Map.

It's built on Wordpress to manage the content, Google Maps API 3 to generate, style and control the map & locations, and is responsive to the browser size & device being used. This means users on larger screens will see a scaled site, with larger images, larger maps and more info on screen, where as small screens still get to view the site at a scale more appropriate to their display. It also works with mobile, meaning people can take an optimised version of Art Map Wolverhampton with them to the art locations instead of, or as a companion to the printed map. www.artmapwolverhampton.co.uk

We first worked with Rare games earlier in the year designing vinyls for their new Birmingham office, so when we were approached in September to help out with their press day we were keen to get involved.

October was to see the worldwide release of Kinect Sports: Season Two and Rare were set to hold a press day on 8th September, inviting UK, European and American journalists to preview the game. Rare HQ, Twycross, was to be transformed, each new sport having its own area - stylised with artwork, character cuts outs, lights, bars and even an igloo!

Substrakt worked with Rare producing assets, large-scale prints and vinyls for each individually themed room spread across the site - in the building, marquee and igloo. Some of the deliverables included twelve 5ft character cut outs, large logo wall vinyls, material banners, designed flags and magnetic signs for the golf buggy.

During the installation, Andy and I also got a cheeky play on the darts and baseball, top stuff!

Thanks to Rare for the photos!

Substrakt are on the hunt for a creative web developer to join our busy and exciting team.

Initially we are looking to fill a part-time or freelance position, but with an ambition to move to full-time position in the future.

The successful applicant will need to have two or more year’s active developmental experience with Python (2.x). Experience with the Django framework is ideal but not essential. A good understanding of OOP and modern open source web development techniques and technologies (like Apache and SSH) is a must. If you don’t have any Django experience, any knowledge of Ruby on Rails or other MVC based frameworks would be very useful.

Other areas of experience would include:

• HTML5
• CSS
• JavaScript (and AJAX)
• an understanding of accessibility requirements and constraints
• solid experience with databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL

You will be reporting directly to Substrakt’s Technical Director and part of the wider team containing web design and UX design, graphic design and creative staff.

You will be required to work from Substrakt’s lovely Birmingham office at Fazeley Studios.

The right person for the job will be able to:

• Demonstrate previous experience of working as part of a team
• Work to deadlines and show examples of how they have managed time-sensitive projects
• Demonstrate an ability to contribute to the production of high-standard specification and written material such as wireframes or technical specification
• Show a good standard of client communication skills
• Have experience of the project management tools and methodologies used by agencies

Please send an email to team@substrakt.co.uk with a covering letter, cv and links to your work.

No agencies thank you.