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...

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...

Pointe Blank is a collection of original images inspired by the story of Coppélia. In a first-of-its-kind collaborative project for Birmingham Royal Ballet, 27 artists and designers have been invited to produce individual pieces of artwork based upon the tale of toymaker Doctor Coppélius, and his attempts to breathe life into his most prized creation.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on a rather exciting personal project with Rob Lindsay from Birmingham Royal Ballet. Rob got in contact at the end of April to discuss a collaborative design project he’d been thinking about, so over a good cup of tea we sparked off some ideas. Often people decide a show isn't for them as soon as they read the third word of 'Birmingham Royal Ballet presents...' But sometimes people will take a chance if they already know the plot of the piece. They're not actually coming for the dancing, they're coming for the story. Rob wanted to reach the ballet out to a wider audience, collaborating with other creatives to design something around their recent production, Coppélia. Birmingham Royal Ballet were 100% supportive.

"The appeal of Coppélia for such a project was that it’s got a lively and colourful story, but one that’s not already been told in hundreds of different ways, like Cinderella or The Sleeping Beauty. Even as a ballet, it’s not quite crossed over into the public consciousness in the same way that The Nutcracker or Swan Lake has. So it meant – or at least I’d hope that it meant – that the artists could interpret the story with very few visual preconceptions." - Rob Lindsay, Birmingham Royal Ballet

After a few meetings we’d cracked a concept and entitled our project Pointe Blank. I put together a list of artists and designers I admired or had previously worked with and we wrote the brief. We explored options for a physical exhibition too, an opportunity to bring the creatives together, as opposed to an online presence only. The brief given to the contributors did not require them to present Coppélia as a ballet, only that ideally, they include some reference to Birmingham Royal Ballet. Production images were available, but not initially provided in an attempt to keep the brief as unprescriptive as possible.

We launched the collection at the Hippodrome on Monday 13th June to the artists and invited guests. It was a great evening with my friend Nat tickling the ivories and Lewis being our photographer. David Bintley, the director of Birmingham Royal Ballet did a speech too – it was great to hear his genuine support and excitement over our project. We also launched the collection online that evening and received over 2000 views on the Tuesday alone!

www.pointeblank.co.uk

Artwork shown above from Substrakt's Ryan and Claire :)

Over the last 12 months, Substrakt has noticed a very positive trend in the West Midlands - organisations learning the value of digital data and using it to empower and encourage local people to make the most of the places and spaces around them. Our most recent completed work, the Radiu5 Project, is a great example of how this can work really well as a collaborative and engaging initiative for young people in particular.

Radiu5 is the brainchild of Sampad, a dynamic development agency for South Asian arts based in Birmingham. It has a particular focus on youth arts projects, encouraging young people to grow their skills and experience and further them whilst taking part in cultural education opportunities. Radiu5, a key Sampad project for 2011, saw volunteers collecting digital data which highlighted the creative and arts opportunities available within a five mile radius of mac Birmingham for young people, with the intention of inspiring wider involvement and creating a lasting online archive.

Substrakt's job was to design and build a digital way of showing the data that the young volunteers had collected.

From the start, the project was fun and hectic to work on for all the team. The 30 young adult volunteers had some fantastic ideas of groups of information they wanted to collect, from Birmingham's graffiti art, venues for band rehearsals and affordable places for groups of friends to meet. We worked with them in groups, helping them decide on how they wanted to see this material come together, and importantly, how it can be connected to create an overall story. The Substrakt team coached the volunteers in data collection methods and upload techniques, subject matter brainstorms and feedback sessions at every stage of the design process.

Front-end interaction with the exhibition was via a touchscreen which in turn powered a matrix of large displays. We had to think carefully about using animations that responded to touch, avoiding 'hover' effects. The specification of the displays was still an unknown at the time of design, so we opted to design an interface that intelligently scaled to the dimensions of any given display. This way users were able to play using any type of device. The data points bubbled up on the left of the installation, changing in radius depending on the popularity of the tagged content. Navigating through the bubbles brought similar 'linked' data points into view. Any content (images, video, audio, editorial) that related to the data points then appeared on the right. Content that was geotagged was displayed on a minimap. The whole interface was powered via jQuery & Ajax in order to maintain a smooth immersive experience, avoiding the need for jerky page refreshes.

We focused on ensuring that each visitor got a unique experience from playing with the visualistion, finding data that took them on an informative storytelling journey.

Substrakt trained the volunteer teams to guide young users around the exhibition and encourage users to upload new content of their own. The visualisation was also made available as a website for future use, with the project ending in May 2011.

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.

Last month I was invited to be part of B-Hive, sitting on the graphic design judging panel. B-Hive sees students and graduates from Birmingham’s universities and colleges pitch themselves and their work to the City's leading creative agencies, with the goal of securing themselves a four-week work placement. With myself, Lee and Jim all joining Substrakt straight from university a 3-4 years ago, we were really keen to get involved as we know how difficult the industry is, and how tough the competition can be! A four-week paid placement is an invaluable opportunity for gaining experience in a real studio environment.

The candidates came from the fields of digital, PR, graphic design, marketing and advertising, with a placement up for grabs in each discipline. All briefs followed the same campaign, each having their own objectives. Entries had be whittled down to 12 students who presented their ideas to our panel, including designers/directors from Orb Creative, Viva Aspire, Seal, Tomorrow People and Chosen. Think Dragons Den - with less dragon-like dragons.

The overarching campaign ‘Eat Birmingham’ was to position Birmingham as gourmet capital, communicating its diverse culinary offerings whilst improving perception scores of the city with great restaurants and bars. The graphic design brief was to unify it under one umbrella identity; a name and logo mark that can easily be displayed at participating restaurants to promote their contribution to Birmingham’s culinary diversity.

The level of work was really impressive from the students, five of which were given two two-week paid placements at two of the agencies involved. We went to the presentation evening in Zellig at the Custard Factory where the winners were announced. We are pleased to have Joseph Heeley (BCU) who will be joining us in June and Nathan Matthews (Met) in July who both impressed me with their unique approach and direction on the brief.

Photos courtesy of B_Hive, Taste Birmingham artwork by Joseph Heeley

When anyone goes on a trip for more than a few days, it's customary upon return, to say things like "this time last week..." Well, this time last week, Andy and I were busy packing for our flight back to Blighty.

_{Photo by Robbie Beak}

And where were we? South by South West, of course! Along with a contingent from the West Midlands, Andy and I repped Substrakt at the SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, attending panels and keynotes, making great new contacts and of course attending the many parties that help make SXSW the legendary event it is.

Ryan Carson, in the most recent Think Vitamin Radio podcast, described the panel-based content at SXSW as "stupid", suggesting that, at least some panels are cobbled together at the last minute. Now naturally this has nothing to do with Carsonified (the company for which Think Vitamin is a popular blog) organising potentially competing events ;) But in fairness, Ryan isn't that far off the mark in some cases. Some panels, like the Accessibility for the Visually Impaired talk that I attended, was pretty poorly put together and presented by Creative Director Genevieve Wilkins, but was redeemed in part by Michael Cooper of the W3C. The HTML5 panel Andy and I sat in on also felt woefully mistitled and had only one redeeming speaker, the refreshingly sensible Emily Lewis.

Sunday's keynote by Christopher Poole of 4chan also fell flat, and also entertaining, Bruce Sterling's closing speech was a tad bizarre. However what many of the people I spoke to thought to be a valuable presentation (which to my mind should have been a keynote), was Gary Vaynerchuk's. Feulled with energy, fierce rhetoric and a mouth that would make a sailor blush, his talk on the "thank you economy" (which, by complete coincidence also forms the title of his latest book) was engaging, fun, and peppered with more than a few sensible and applicable ideas. We also checked out some useful presentations on geotemporal visualisation, personal data in the cloud, product design and more.

The Trade Show shone some light on a few UK and US startups like DAD and Twonky, which both provide media streaming for the home, and Solvate, a website that matches freelancers with potential clients (think Jobplot US, but not as cool ;)). The parties also brought new faces and new business cards to exchange, but any attempt at listing the people I shook hands with would end in me inevitably missing someone out.

I would however like to thank everyone from the West Mids who flew out with us, shared a house with us or joined us at periodic moments, for making my and Andy's first SX a massive blast.

And if you want to see some of the notes and images we gathered, they're still available on our Substrakt @ SxSWi blog.

On Monday I took part in Covers Wars at The Queen of Hoxton, London as part of Yarnfest. The challenge was to illustrate our interpretations of the book Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi. Having not previously read the book I spent the prior three days speed reading all 284 pages (go me!) and came up with a few ideas where I would have 20 minutes to illustrate at A2 scale on the night!

"YARN is a brand new festival celebrating story and storytelling – showcasing film, theatre, music and literature and providing a platform for mixing them all up! It’s all about fun and exploration, devoted to letting the imagination run wild."

Representing AMMO Magazine I took the stage against three talented illustrators: Jamie Littler from Soupa, Robyn Boyden from Paperfox Press and Hidden Dingbat Collective. For the first ten minutes, the author Hanif Kureishi read out excerpts from the book whilst the audience watched and listened. It was the fastest 20 minutes of my life... Thanks to Jim and my friends for support :) On the judging panel was the author, Jon Gray and Miriam Rosenbloom from Faber & Faber. It was a great night and lovely to meet such talented people, congratulations to Hidden Dingbat who won with their fascinating paper cutting techniques!

Today Andy and I schlepped down to the City as a Platform conference, which was hosted by Screen West Midlands and held at Aston University Business School. It featured panels and breakout sessions by a number of great minds from the likes of Digital Birmingham, Mudlark, In Cahoots, the Library of Birmingham and loads more. Oh, and um, me!

I gave a talk on Urban Lens, our massively exciting new geodata project, tying it in with our exploration of open data, as part of a breakout session of that name. Nick Booth of Podnosh chaired the panel which included Adam McGreggor from Rewired State, and Rattle's James Boardwell. We talked about the value of open data - culturally and financially - and explored some of the challenges around helping people fall in love with data.

Other discussions included procurement, the NESTA Make it Local fund and a resulting project, and new developments with the Library and its archive. There's more info and a live blog on a Posterous site setup by Chris at Meshed Media, and Alex Jones of Meshed also took a whole bunch of photos:

[flickr_slideshow tag="cityasaplatform2011" user_id="33811709@N03"]

Thanks to everyone who emptied their brains throughout the day, and asked me questions on my panel.

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.