Created in Birmingham

From the Sustain fund but still, an award’s an award, innit?

Arts Council England has made a seventh round of awards from its £40 million Sustain fund for organisations under pressure as a result of the recession.

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra:

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s application met the Sustain criteria as the Orchestra has been adversely impacted by the recession. As such, we have offered a Sustain award of £388,000 to maintain the quality of artistic output and resolve immediate cash flow problems caused by loss of development income and touring income.

Warwick Arts Centre:

Elements of Warwick Arts Centre’s application have been judged to meet the Sustain criteria. As such, we have offered a Sustain award of £215,000 to help the organisation with the adverse impact of the recession by maintaining the quality of artistic output and resolve immediate cash flow problems caused by loss of income from box office, trusts and foundations.

Spotted via Audiences Central.

In other news, the Arts Council get their website redesigned and then go hiding all their information in Word docs, PDF’s and Excel spreadsheets. Irritating.

Birmingham based designer Adam Duffy has won the Make Your Mark Young Brits Entrepreneur Creative Award for his company ‘Looks Can Kill’.

The 26 year old won the award just over a year after setting up his business, which sells customized shoes. Customers can have their own name, photo or slogan printed on a trainer and delivered in a few days.

Adam puts the success of the business down to the creative control the company has, and not having to wait months for new designs to be produced, which is the case in standard footwear production.

The company has received support from both Business Link WM and Creative Launchpad, based in the Custard Factory. They currently employ two staff, frequently use part time staff and are looking to take on a sales manager in the future. Last year their turnover was approx £60,000 which is expected to dramatically increase this year with a concerted sales push as Adam has ambitious growth plans and is currently in talks with a number of large high street retailers.

Make Your Mark Enterprising Young Brits is an annual award set up by British Council that has been running for two years. Winners received a trophy and cheque for £1,000 from Chancellor Alistair Darling at a recent ceremony in London.

A team of computing students from the University of Wolverhampton and University of Birmingham have picked up the BAFTA ‘Ones to Watch’ award at the GAME British Academy Video Games Awards.

The team, named DarkMatter Designs designed Boro-Toro, a platform puzzle game which uses an innovative control system using Wii technology.

Since leaving University two members of the team now work for RockStar North, the British games company behind the hugely successful Grand Theft Auto games.

Guardian writer and professional grumpy man Charlie Brooker wrote a hilarious and unfortunately accurate article on the British Games industry this week.

…despite being about 10,000 times more successful than the British film and TV industries combined, the British videogames industry continually balances a pathological inferiority complex with a wounded sense of pride. Quite why it still wants validation from these older, fading forms of media is a mystery. It’s like a powerful young warrior disgruntled at being ignored by an elderly and irrelevant dying king.

Spiritual artist Mohammed Ali, known for merging graffiti style with Islamic art, has just won an ITV South Bank Award in the Arts Council England Diversity category.

Although aerosolarabic (aka Mohammed Ali) travels worldwide to create new work he is still based in Birmingham. Recently he has painted murals in the city addressing the recent Gaza crisis and is known for painting murals highlighting the plight of the Palestinian people. Worldwide politics aside, Ali has been at the forefront of the discussing local graffiti politics, as mentioned in a post back in Jan ‘08. On an international level he has managed to connect people of different communities through his art.

Overwhelmed at receiving the award, Mohammed Ali said:

“It’s an honour to accept a mainstream British Arts award. The art that I do is for everyone, it is universal. I truly believe that art enhances people’s lives and brings communities together and I hope that my work continues to inspire people from all walks of life.”

The awards will be screened on ITV on January 28th 2009.

Created in Birmingham has been officially announced as the winner of the Best UK Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards.

A HUGE thanks

I’d first like to congratulate the other finalists who took part (list here) and say thanks to the organisers for making things run surprisingly smoothly. I’d like to thank everyone who supported us and made this happen – ‘us’ being Pete Ashton, Julia Gilbert, Danny Smith, Frankie Ward, Stef Lewandowski, Kate Spragg and myself, Chris Unitt.

There are so many of you but I’ve tried to keep track of everyone who spread the word for us (especially online, which is easy enough to track if you know how) and have listed as many as I could find below. However, I know there are many who I’ll have missed – feel free to take a bow in the comments.

The important bit

What this means for CiB can be discussed elsewhere.  In fact a few blogs, linked to below, have already started chewing the fat and drawing lessons from this.

For me, what’s immediately apparent is that to foster a loyal community of people who will go out of their way to support you, you must first of all be generous. Give freely and give often. Expect nothing and you’ll be surprised how many times over you will be repaid.

In that spirit I’d like to quickly mention Baldy’s Blog. Written by Adrian Sudbury until his death, this blog was another of the finalists in the Best UK Blog category and has been described briefly as:

Young local journalist/web editor gets ill. Complex leukaemia. Starts Blog to describe and explain the disease and treatment. Bone marrow transplant is successful. Post transplant complications set in. Proposes on Christmas eve to long term girlfriend. She accepts. Wedding plans begin in earnest. Fiancee leaves him. Broken heart. Leukaemia comes screaming back. Terminal prognosis. Campaign begins to teach all 17/18 year olds about how simple it is to be a bone marrow donor. Huge petition presented to Downing Street. Support from Gordon Brown, Alan Johnson, Ed Balls. Many media appearances nationally to push campaign. Dies 20 August aged 27. Campaign continues…..and succeeds

Please read the blog. It’s quite amazing.

As a result of our win, and in Adrian’s memory, I’ve donated £50 to Leukaemia Research. What’s more, as soon as I can arrange it, I’m going to do something I’ve always told myself I couldn’t and give blood. I can’t tell you how much I’m not looking forward to that.

Right, that dealt with…

On with the thank yous!

The following good people used their Twitter accounts to spread the word. Apologies to anyone using Twitter who got hacked off with the number of messages flying around.

7breaths_ abbycorfan AdFundAl AlbertoNardelli AlexBermingham Alfie alncl anamilgram Andy383 andylockran annettenaudin anthonyherron Azeem_A b33god benga benjaminbrum BenjaminEllis benrmatthews bhampostjoanna bigdaddymerk BirminghamJazz blacklooks boofie BostinBloke bounder brianfitfriends brucel brumcityuni brumeastside campbellX CapsuleFilms carocharlton CathElliott catherinepope catnip chrisunitt citizensheep ClareWhite cmbainbridge coupde craig_fots createdinbrum crispeater crowdSPRING cyberwebmedia DanielBigCat danux davebriggs daveharte davidjstringer DavidLouisDsign davidnikel deplorableword digibrum_si digitalyw dilyan_damyanov discodrive Documentally dougald dracos dstrawberrygirl dubber duncautumnstore Ed_Hart editorialgirl edrussell ellielovell Enduring Essitam eunice007 ExpatBama exsanguinator FionaHandscomb foodiesarah frontrowphotos gabysslave garymuircroft gavinwray gecal genzaichi getgood giagia graphiquillan gtoss hackneye hanuman HarryJA helenbyrne hmobius Ianhlhm ianshepherd ihatemornings iheartjoan InBlogs jacksunday jaynehowarth jezs joannageary john383 johnbradford johnmostyn johnpopham jonhickman josiefraser kanter karenstrunks karlbinder karmadillo katchoo KatieSpragg kcorrick kerryfused kincowbag kristianc laurenceexigent lee_jordan leekemp leight leonardomorgado lexiconmark LightHouseMedia Lil_asha lisibo LittleLaura Lizlxer LloydDavis lowcarbondiary lylebignon m4rcuk marcreeves markmedia marksteadman martinwake martinxo matgb mediaczar MerseyMal midge_uk mikedunn Mizgrimalkin msemaj MyJQ mykitchenstore neil_raygun nickcarson NinaGleams Nosemonkey parboo paulbradshaw paulhenderson peteashton pezholio pigsonthewing podnosh politicspenguin practicaleq procrastinatrix puffrichie qwghlm regengirl ReTweetTrends rhubarbradio RichBatsford richpayne88 robotvsdinosaur RussL sambeckwith SamShepherd shanitomorrow sharl shuckle SickTrumpet sidlangley simonhowes sixball Sizemore sleepydog SoullaStylianou star_one stef stevechapman141 stevebridger stevegerrard SteveKubrick StevenTuck strix_aluco stuartfowkes sue_atkins supercoolkp taratomes TessyBritton theaardvark thestage tom_watson tombeardshaw Tweejay twofootedtackle urbancomms urbanfly Viscount_one winkysmileyface Yak101 yiannopoulos zurichstudios

Blogs (and other sites) that supported us:

Birmingham: it’s Not Shit
Pete Ashton
Podnosh and an earlier links round-up
Spaghetti Gazetti
The Deplorable Word
Graphiquillan
Joanna Geary
Parboo
White Like Milk
Citizensheep
Catnip
Chris Unitt
Nosemonkey
I So Wish (and again)
Digbeth is Good
Daily Mail Watch
Bob Piper
Nunovo
Bluemilkshake
Feeder
Rumproast
Dougald Hine
Blue Gal
Banditry
John Mostyn
Queersighted
The Sharpener
Pickled Politics
Film Forum West Midlands
The Stirrer
Medialens forum
Peter Bacon
Who Needs The Sea
Karen Strunks
Anthony Herron
Daniel Davies
Hanuman
Indymedia Ireland
Indymedia UK
The Birmingham Post
Liberal Conspiracy
Ógra Shinn Féin
Ordo Paginarum
Paul Henderson (great pic)
Never Trust A Hippy
Hippodrome
‘I’m Voting for Created in Birmingham’ Facebook group
Ewan Spence
Laura Whitehead
Local Democracy
Skyscraper City
Democratic Underground
Kebablog
Moseley Free
Amortize (another good pic)
Drum & Bass Arena
Rachel Gillies
Parboo
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst
Stumpy Moose
Haloscan.com
Clare Edwards
John Popham

By the way, CiB doesn’t necessarily endorse or condone the views espoused on a few of those blogs.

Thanks also to the Birmingham City Council webteam (screenshot), everyone at Culturedeluxe, the Birmingham Bloggers, Birmingham Social Media Cafe, Fierce, 4Talent, THSH, 7 Inch Cinema/Flatpack Festival, Creative Republic, Bostin, Gigbeth, BBC Birmingham and everyone who voted.

In case you’re interested, here’s some post-award discussion:

Nosemonkey
Pete Ashton
The Daily Dust
The Exile
Enduring America
Neil Clark

‘Codswallop’ by The Brothers McLeod has been nominated for a BAFTA in the category of Short Animation, pitching them against Aadrman’s Christmas TV big-hitter ‘Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of of Loaf and Death’.

The short had it’s first screening at a 7 Inch Cinema event back in September. Ian gave some context to the film:

Codswallop is based on a series of postcards Greg McLeod sent to his son, and it’s similar in atmosphere to their Spamland shorts. Some nice mucking about with splitscreen and stereo sound too, so we’ll have to make sure we don’t get our left and right mixed up.

Also, Ian Ravenscroft interviewed Greg McLeod for 4Talent and they discussed Codswallop.

If you want to see the short for yourself, go along to The Victoria on 14 March for the next Animation Forum WM event, Shorts on Walls (always recommended), taking place as part of the Flatpack Festival.

Here’s the film’s trailer:

It’s a heck of an achievement, so all the best to the Brothers on the night (8 Feb).

(Via Louis from Dice Productions)

Please click the pic and vote for Created in Birmingham. There’s no registration required and it’ll take two seconds, tops. You can vote once a day.

Someone has kindly nominated Created in Birmingham for the award of Best UK Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards.

It’s a public vote and we’re up against a few of the big politicos – as I type this we’re in 2nd and a Spectator-hosted blog is winning – so any support (votes, forwarding, re-blogging, re-tweeting, etc and so on) would be gratefully received.

It was about this time last year that CiB won the MediaGuardian Award, so I’m hoping I don’t let the side down in the award-winning stakes, especially as I’m passing the reins on in a few weeks. Speaking of which, I should also say that Pete Ashton’s blog has been nominated too, and rightly so.

and the winner is…

Johnny Doom from Kerrang Radio! Hoorah!

The final standings for the nominees are as follows:

1. Johnny Doom
2. Paul Murphy
3. Barbara Nice
4. Little Chris
5. Adam Smith/Steve Zacharanda
6. TWM Driver
7. Helga Henry
8. Pogus Caesar
9. Roshan Doug

Head over to Birmingham: it’s Not Shit for all the info and a nice message from Mr Doom himself in the comments.

And the winners are:

• Digital Native Academy Ltd – The Regional Outstanding Business Development Award
• Electric Cinema (vid via Pete Ashton) – The Birmingham Outstanding Business Development Award
• LHM Media – Innovation Award
• Fierce Earth Ltd (vid via Pete Ashton) – Outstanding Market Development Award
  (with a Special Commendation Award in the same category presented to D A Recordings Ltd)
• IE Design – The Best Brand Award
• Stan’s Cafe – Creative Industries Award

Fine winners all (with deserving nominees in all categories) so hearty congrats to all involved.

That’s the official business done, so now I’m going to get on my soapbox and talk about what I see as pretty fundamental problems with the Creative City Awards concept. My top 3 nominees are:

1. The emphasis on financial performance
2. Stagnation. Half the winners had won Creative City Awards before. Do the awards celebrate the city’s diverse and vibrant creative sector or the usual names?
3. Only 45 nominations across 7 categories were received and the Newcomer Award had to be withdrawn. I don’t know which to be most embarrassed about

The initial emphasis on the business side of things is understandable. Until last year the awards were only open to companies that had received support under the Business Support for the Creative Industries programme, so that was fair enough. That’s why the awards are for things like ‘business development’, ‘best brand’ and ‘market development’.

The emphasis is supposed to have shifted though – as Coun Neville Summerfield said (at 10 mins 50s), the awards are intended to serve as:

a fitting platform to publicly recognise the work that is being done by creative companies in Birmingham and the wider region

Which seems an almighty stretch given the restrictions in place. As Stef said “wouldn’t a better name for the event be the Creative Business Awards?“. That seems realistic at least.

The thing that really racked me off on the night (I was a guest of the Birmingham Post) was Neville Summerfield’s statement (at 6mins) that:

the Creative City Awards received over 40 submission entries, which is a great testament to the strength and depth of creative business in the city

Over 40? Across 7 categories? Is that all the city’s good for? As I discovered last week, the withdrawl of the Newcomer Award was:

due to the limited number of nominations and the fact that the nominated businesses had not been trading long enough to provide evidence of performance

If we’re relying on what the Creative City Awards tell us then that’s a shocking indictment of the city’s creative scene. Happily, we’re not and the lesson from this is that you should always apply for awards – there might be hardly any competition.

Still, despite all that, I do believe awards ceremonies of this type serve a useful purpose (and I only criticise because I care). They act as a focal point for the sector, bring people – both within the sector and outside it – together, provide a neat package that can be promoted outside the region and are a showcase for the winners and nominees.

I’ll end by quoting the wise words of James Yarker of Stan’s Cafe who has written about their latest success on their blog:

It’s easy to be cynical about awards (I have been many times myself) but if you take them in the correct spirit they can do a useful job for you. I hope that more arts companies may take our place next year. Although the awards are focused in a business direction it feels important that the Arts continue to be represented otherwise the City’s Creativity is in danger of being assumed to consist merely of Digital Solutions to clients various marketing/distribution/communication problems being found almost exclusively by young-ish white men sat in front of spanking new white macintosh computers.

Let’s put ourselves about a bit – the city would be too sterile without us

When the finalists for the Creative City Awards 2008 came out the other week I was left scratching my head a little.  A few people raised issues or left questions in the comments too, so I rounded them up and sent them off for answering.

Thanks to Mohammed Zahir at Birmingham City Council (Q1-5) and Kenny at Big Cat PR (Q6 & 7) for finding time to answer these:

1. How many applications were received for each of the categories?
   We had a total of 45 nominations from which we shortlisted 17 businesses across the various categories.
2. Will further information on the reasons behind the nominations be released?
   The shortlisting was based upon a rigorous assessment of each nomination in accordance with strict eligibility criteria, an application form and related financial information.  Each shortlisted company then had to make a 10 minute presentation to a panel. The quality of the applications from the shortlisted companies was good and the process was very competitive.
3. Has the Newcomer Award been dropped from the Awards? If so, how come?
   The newcomer award has been dropped due to the limited number of nominations and the fact that the nominated businesses had not been trading long enough to provide evidence of performance.
4. With so many self-employed and freelance workers in this sector, what scope is there for the Creative City Awards to recognise the efforts of individuals rather than companies?
   The awards are designed to recognise and reward business success. Individuals registered as self employed  are eligible and have not been excluded.
5. Of this year’s 14 finalists, 4 won awards last year – what does this say about ‘the city’s diverse and vibrant creative sector‘?
   The 14 finalists are of a high calibre, successful businesses and indeed benchmarks for success within the sector.
6. Who is on the judging panel?
   Simon Jelley (MCL), Julia Higginbottom (Aquila), Mohammed Zahir (BCC), Lara Ratnaraja (Business Link WM), Joe McConnell (Biztv), Ian Danby, Arts Council, Carol Alderson (BCC), Shasta Rashid (BCC)
7. Who was responsible for designing the logo?
   Jason Liggitt at Big Cat’s design studio created the logo.

Here are the Creative City Awards finalists, with thanks to Big Cat (who provided the list) and Dave Harte (who provided the links):

The Regional Outstanding Business Development Award:
Bubblequest Ltd
Internet Arrow
Digital Native Academy Ltd

The Birmingham Outstanding Business Development Award:
Electric Cinema
Substrakt Limited (blog)

Innovation Award:
Adwords Expert Ltd
LHM Media (blog)
IE Design Consultancy Ltd (blog)

Outstanding Market Development Award:
Fierce Earth Ltd (blog)
D A Recordings Ltd (blog)
Fused (blog)

The Best Brand Award:
D A Recordings Ltd (blog)
Violectra trading as Unison Strings Ltd
IE Design Consultancy Ltd (blog)

Creative Industries Award:
D A Recordings Ltd (blog)
Stan’s Cafe (blog)
Fierce Earth Ltd (blog)

The awards themselves are on 29 Nov.

Firstly, congrats to all the peeps nominated – no matter your opinion on awards generally, a bit of free publicity and a £2,000 cheque is reason enough to try and win one of these.  A few thoughts on the nominations though:

• Does SEO (Internet Arrow) count as ‘creative’ these days?
• Just how is business consultancy (Bubblequest) ‘creative’?
• Pay-per-click advertising (Adwords Ltd)? ‘Creative’? Eh?

3 of the 14 companies nominated (21%) have got me scratching my head and wondering why they’re there. No offence to the companies nominated, of course, but did the organisers not receive any more relevant applications? Is that why there’s only two nominations for the Birmingham business development award?

*Update* – Parboo (not her real name) has noticed that there’s been no announcement of nominations for the Newcomer Award.

Fireloop Creative, based in the Custard Factory, picked up a bronze Cream Award last week for their work on steakandbjday.co.uk.  If you’ve not encountered the concept before, it falls on 14 March – a month after Valentine’s Day.  I’ll let you figure the rest out yourself or you can visit the site.

Dave from Fireloop emailed to tell me about this and also said:

as we are a company the size of 2 people, we’d love to hear from any peeps out there, maybe running a similar size company, who thinks they might be able to collaborate with us on an ongoing basis.

We’d like to hear from anyone who thinks they might be able to work with us, whether they are designing, photographing, copywriting, coding, whatever it is, we’re simply wanting to meet people looking to do good work, really.

If that’s you then give him a shout – contact details will be on the Fireloop website.

Hurrah for gong-giving!  The Creative City Awards 2008 will take place on 29 November at the ICC.  The awards:

were created by Birmingham City Council to recognise and reward achievement from within the city’s diverse and vibrant creative sector

and, carrying on from last year, they’re open to all small, creative businesses in the Birmingham & Solihull area.

There are 7 categories:

1. Creative Industries Award
2. Innovation Award
3. Outstanding Business Development (Birmingham) Award
4. Outstanding Business Development (Regional) Award
5. Best Newcomer Award
6. Outstanding Market Development Award
7. Best Brand Award

and the deadline for entries is 17 October.  Good luck to any and all who apply – details and forms are on Birmingham Council’s Creative City Awards page.

There are just two weeks to go for submissions to the 4Talent Awards – the deadline is 29 August 2008.

4Talent acts as a talent spotter for the various arms of Channel 4 and the awards:

tip exciting individuals with the potential to make a difference, as judged both by commissioners and the leading producers who supply them.

It’d be great to have some Birmingham winners again – last year Polar Bear, Chris Keenan and Nathan Hughes-Berry won trophies – so have a look through the categories and if one fits you (and as long as you’re under 30 and meet the other criteria) then get your application in.

Gaynor Arnold has been nominated for the Booker Prize longlist for her book ‘Girl in a Blue Dress’ which will be released by Tindal Street Press in November.

This sort of thing’s getting to be old hat for Tindal Street Press, who had Catherine O’Flynn’s ‘What Was Lost’ longlisted last year.  Gaynor Arnold, on the other hand, has spent the past 40 years or so working as a social worker in Birmingham and took five years to write the novel.

Of course you may already be aware of all this – the Birmingham Post picked up on it first and the Custard Factory blog and BiNS both mentioned it.  Also, The Times have a short interview with Gaynor and the Guardian have also run a rather flattering piece entitled ‘Why Birmingham rules the literary roost‘.