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.

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/

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.

I was invited to present at this year's Creative Enterprise Conference 2011, which took place last Wednesday at The Studio, Birmingham.

2011′s Creative Enterprise Conference gathers together higher education academics that specialise in entrepreneurship within the creative industries, from across the UK and beyond, to discuss how the subject is taught and can continue to develop.

The keynote title was 'What it means to be entrepreneurial and innovative in the creative industries and in the current economic climate'. I spoke openly about the challenges and opportunites that Substrakt has faced throughout the last 4 and a half years, and also about my personal and professional development as a reflection of the company's growth. This included discussing my decision and the benefits of studying for a part time MA in Media Enterprise during the early days of Substrakt Limited.

(More details of the conference can be found on the blog http://creativeconference.wordpress.com/)

The conference was organised by Birmingham City University, who we work closely with on several other projects and initiatives. We have aligned ourselves with these projects to help us gain a deeper understanding of our industry both in the UK and Europe and work closely with the University, and other partners, who can help us to stay innovative and ultimately provide a better service to our clients.

European Creativity Vouchers

This is a fantastic scheme that helps businesses find European partners who can work together to improve service offering, access new networks and markets, share knowledge and skills as well as understand how to trade successfully in Europe.

A Substrakt sucess story that came as a result of this programme was a partnership with German based Hoppala. Hoppala specialise in augmented reality for the mobile, and Substrakt have been working closely with Marc from Hoppala to test and develop new applications for some of our clients.

Another case study result was with Dublin based data visualision experts, more on this here: http://substrakt.co.uk/blog/2010/08/09/dublin-data/

Creative Metropoles

http://www.creativemetropoles.eu/

I've been involved in this project for the last couple of years and have really felt like i've been able to feed directly in to the project outcomes from a creative business perspective. This particular project is coming to a close over the summer, but it sounds like there are more opportunities for similar studies afoot.

The two European visits that i've been on as part of the Creative Metropoles were written up on the blog previously:

http://substrakt.co.uk/blog/2010/10/12/amsterdam-picnic-and-other-things/

http://substrakt.co.uk/blog/2009/09/24/helsinki/

Speed Data

http://speeddata.org.uk/

BCU approached Substrakt to help run an event that focussed on open data and how public sector can understand and make best use of their datasets. We teamed up with Podnosh to help turn this event into a reality and saw our first successful Speed Data event.

More recently we were involved in an event called 'Making (and saving) money with open data' and Gavin Wray from Podnosh wrote about the event and the results.

We are excited about the Speed Data ethos and are continuing to take this forward with both BCU and Podnosh.

We have available office space for small companies or individuals at our premises in Fazeley Studios, Digbeth. Sharing with the Substrakt team and our existing tenants the space is suitable for anyone looking for a lively, relaxed, creative environment with appropriate levels of privacy, security and 24 hour access.

The Substrakt space itself includes meeting areas with AV equipment, kitchen, sofa area and pool table (with willing competition). A large desk, chair and storage space are also included for each tenant. Utilities, including high-speed internet are included in the rental price.

Fazeley Studios itself houses some of Birmingham's most exciting creative companies and has an on-site brasserie, impressive reception and outdoor courtyard meeting area.

Substrakt's studio tenancy also offers playtime with our own office dog, Dave, your guaranteed place in the tea round, and access to one of the most eclectic collaborative music libraries in the region.

Drop us a line for more information on pricing, availability and leasing terms at andy@substrakt.co.uk

If you happened to read The Guardian on Wednesday 6th April you may have come across the 'Centre for Science' supplement supported by Birmingham Science City. The four-page supplement focused on emerging low-carbon businesses in the city and the developing digital economy here. An article about the new Library of Birmingham mentions the Augmented Reality project that Substrakt is in early stages of developing with the Library team. I'm also quoted in another article, describing the benefits of having built a business in Birmingham.

I'm not sure why they used my beardy face on the front of the supplement, but it sure made me mum proud!

I was aproached by MADE (Midlands Architecture and Designed Environment) to take part in an all day workshop and evening seminar that focussed on the future of wayfinding and identity. The daytime workshop was organised by Birminghams's Local Education Partnership as part of an ongoing programme for artists who are working on Building Schools for the Future. The theme of the day session was therefore heavily focussed on wayfinding solutions within schools. It was good to meet the artists and see some of the great work they are doing with schools, from lighting solutions to very impressive stone carving to companies like cantoo who work on developing artworks for the public realm.

The evening seminar was billed as the following:

Discover interesting and innovative future approaches to wayfinding and identity in an evening seminar organised by MADE and Birmingham Local Education Partnership. This event will be of interest to anyone working in architecture, design, graphics, branding, the arts, schools and public buildings.

The evening seminar proved to be well promoted with over 80 people turning up for the 2 hour event.

Colette Jeffrey, a lecturer in graphic communication at Birmingham City University, led a master class in wayfinding during the day, as well as presenting in the evening seminar. Colette definetly knew her stuff and, amongst many other things, researched and co-authored the official guidance on wayfinding for NHS hospitals, as well as working on wayfinding strategies for Wembley Arena, Heathrow Airport and the Natural History Museum.

Jonathan Rez talked about wayfinding design in the context of service design - a holistic approach to visitor experience design and the design of public/private environments. Jonathan talked about the concept of thingfinding, more of which you can read here http://www.rez.com.au/notes/from-wayfinding-to-thingfinding.

MADE asked me to present on the subject of digital media in the built environment and as a tool for wayfinding. I thought this description (that I provided 2 weeks before the event and without too much idea of what I would present) would leave it fairly open for me...

Andy will be talking about the use of digital media in place and space, and how sharing data pertaining to location can be used to enrich user experience. As well as focusing on how this data affects visitors, he'll also discuss how the visitors themselves are now key to building bigger and better experiences, using digital technology to improve the data and navigate their surroundings.

I talked about four case study projects we are currently working on that use digital media and emerging technologies within the built environment, focussing on how linking data sets between buildings and spaces can start to create seamless user experiences that allow users to navigate from place to place efficiently and explore much richer content.

Trying to look to the future of wayfinding I talked about technologies including Augmented Reality and Near Field Communications and discussed possibilities of how these will be used more within the urban experience.

It was an enjoyable event, and the seminar was followed by some very interesting conversations.

We've recently re branded and developed a new website for Creative Alliance.

Creative Alliance is a group of experienced creative professionals working collaboratively to develop, support and train creative talent

It's been a great pleasure working with Creative Alliance, who are doing some really valuable work for the creative industries, notably their involvement with the creative apprenticeships programme.

Substrakt have also been working alongside Creative Alliance and Meshed Media on the all new Jobplot which went live earlier this week. More on this in a separate blog post soon.

Visit the new Creative Alliance website.