I’ve often wondered why museums and galleries aren’t using their web presence in more innovative and useful ways.  I worked within a gallery for a number of years, and this gave me the unsurprising insight that many factors contributed to this: underpaid overworked staff, simply no capacity (in terms of time) to explore new avenues, gallery staff restricted to working within strictly defined roles with little room for experimentation, and those who do maintain the web side of things being under supported and in need of upskilling.  Plus above all, there are many challenges facing gallery collections (from conservation to valuation to interpretation and beyond) that the additional pressure of creating new ways of accessing that information sits at the bottom of anyone’s agenda, particularly when it could just end up as a copyright/intellectual property/Digital Rights Management nightmare.

Finally, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery have been brave enough to tackle these issues head on with the decision to publicly release their world-class Pre-Raphaelite collection, the largest in Europe, becoming the focal point for this work.  With assistance from JISC, BMAG appointed Birmingham-based digital agency TAK! after a five way pitch to design and develop a website application to achieve their goal.  And the resulting site is a beautiful, delicate and sensitive piece of design.  Visitors will be able to access high quality content which will enable schools, universities, and the general public to have a greater understanding of the collection in their own time, and in their own space – which in turn could encourage new visitors and raise the profile of the museum.

“TAK! have helped us create the largest online Pre-Raphaelite collection in the world” concludes Linda Suprdle, Project Manager at BMAG. “It’s a fantastic resource and provides an unparalleled level of access and quality to the works on display. Anyone with an interest in art should visit the site and discover the importance of the Pre-Raphaelites.”

I hope that this project will encourage other museums and galleries to consider making their collections accessible online.  They have the opportunity to create such valuable learning resources which could cross so many diversity and access barriers, and it seems a shame that the majority of artworks only ever see the light of day if and when a curator deems them relevant enough. Using online technology, all collections could eventually be available to view regardless of current exhibition theme!

If and when that does happen, I will be interested to see how the role of ‘the curator’ responds to that change.  The Pre-Raphaelite collection site already encourages users to create their own personal collections, so how far a leap would it be for people to share those collections and reasons for their choices with other users?  Imagine an itunes playlist or an amazon reading list – but for art, complete with personal interpretations, anecdotal thoughts, factual evidence and academic input.  THAT would be something I could become obsessive about!

© Adrienne for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | 3 comments |

The  items have been lovingly hand screenprinted by Kay Stanley at Cut Out Shop, in her WM based studio. She has used waterbased inks which don’t harm the environment printed onto EarthPostive tees and tote bags.

The t-shirts cost £15.00 and the totes cost £8.00. We have printed a limited edition run of only 50 t-shirts and 50 tote bags, and each item is individually numbered.

I wanted to take some swish pictures of the items being modeled, but have decided to let you do that for me! When you receive your tee or tote through the post, take a quick snap of you modeling it and pop it up on flickr, tagging it ‘CiBT’. Huge thanks to Kay Stanley and Kate Parry for all the help and support.

© Kate Spragg for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | 4 comments |

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

This initial one year contract will run from July 2009 until June 2010 and if the initial period is deemed a success BCMG will offer a rolling annual contract to the same agency without the need to re-tender.

Birmingham Contemporary Music Group is a very active musical ensemble, performing a year round programme of concerts in Birmingham, touring in the UK, Europe and further a field. BCMG occupies a niche market, commissioning and performing contemporary music by today’s leading composers.

Interested? Find more information here. (Thanks to Dave Harte for the link).

© Kate Spragg for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | One comment |

Past clients include: BBC, Ten4, Channel 4, NHS, Liverpool Capital of Culture, Connexions and University of Birmingham and exhibitions at the V&A and Selfridges. Her blog ‘Doodle & Waffle’ shows off her wide skill base and experimental, prolific work ethic. You can find Jane in person at the monthly Moseley Arts Market.

© Kate Spragg for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | Add a comment |

We have decided to money raised will go to a popular choice for a Birmingham based charity: Acorns Children’s  Hospice.

This is the first call for submissions and here is how it will work:

• Anyone can submit a design entry to the competition, as long as you follow the specifications needed for printing.
• From the entries 20 final designs will be chosen and made into 50 limited edition pin badge sets.
• One final design will be chosen and will be made into 50 limited edition t-shirts and 50 limited edition canvas bags.
• All items will be lovingly screenprinted by hand and sold online by Cut – Out, a fantasic DIY print company based in the West Midlands. All items will be printed with eco friendly inks and on top quality Earth Positive apparel.

The brief:

We want to make a t-shirt that people will really want to wear, so the brief is very loose. The emphasis here is celebrating creative talent in Birmingham and raising some money in the process. You could design something which reflects the creativity of the city, or just your own style, it’s up to you!

Submission guidelines:

• The design should work using one colour, if the image is a photograph it needs to be converted to half tone.
• The design you submit needs to be 300 dpi (usual print quality).
• The design should be no bigger than A3 in size.

Deadline: Friday 6th March 5pm. Send your design as a PDF or JPG file to Createdinbirmingham[at]gmail.com, and hang on to your originals.

© Kate Spragg for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | 2 comments |

The Destroyers certainly are an eclectic bunch, drawing influences from a range of traditions: klezma, mariachi, ska, bhangra, Balkan Brass, celtic folk, gypsy jazz, and flamenco. The new branding will need to reflect this.

Interested?  Contact Louis Robinson for a full brief: robinson_lja@yahoo.com.

© Kate Spragg for Created in Birmingham, 2009. | 2 comments |

The Supermarine Spitfire, designed by RJ Mitchell, was produced in Castle Bromwich.

The Mini was first produced at Longbridge in 1959.

(Reminder – vote for Created in Birmingham DAILY in the 2008 Weblog Awards)

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Mezzetty was established in 1999 by Martin Donnelly from Birmingham.

Mezza V4 showcases simple Photography combined with Graphik Design and Typography

Martin Donnelly is from Clusta.

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James Griffin is a 22 year old graphic designer working out of this fair city.  He’s running a great blog called CMYKern picking up on bits of design that catch his eye, just the sort of blog I have a large soft spot for (they’re great for adding colour to your RSS reader).

The scope of his posts aren’t limited geographically but he does seem to profile some local things every now and again, including this post on Jibbering Art’s recent Shambala exhibition where he makes an excellent point:

Being the second largest city in Britain we need to make the most of this type of event and embrace the cities creativity. I didn’t realize how much stuff there was going on in Birmingham until I moved back here after my studies. Birmingham doesn’t lack creativity, or public space, as is apparent by this exhibition, what it does lack is a medium in which to reach out to people. A medium to let people know what is going on. I stumbled across this exhibition by chance and it saddens me to think that I might not have caught up with this exhibition had it not been for a chance encounter.

Yes!  Excellently said.  As much as I’d like to trumpet CiB’s efforts in this area, I spend much more time meeting people who don’t read this blog than people who do.  There’s much more to be done in making people aware of what’s going on.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 2 comments |

Or maybe it’s that my radar doesn’t reach to where they work – their client list includes Sony Electronics, Capcom, UBI-SOFT, Electronic Arts, Coca Cola, Virgin, Parlophone, Chrysalis… the list goes on.

I can’t remember where it was, but someone (love that tenacious reporting instinct) recently made the point that creative agencies in Birmingham are often better at working with others outside the region rather than within it.  I wouldn’t know if that’s true or not – if it is then maybe Fluid would be the archetype for that.

Whatever, anyway, what set my off down this tracks was hearing that Jonny from Fluid is starting a new night at The Sanctuary called Bleep Bleep playing techno and such.  Here’s the (back of the) flyer:

and if that floats your boat then there’s a Bleep Bleep Facebook group with more info.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 2 comments |

I mentioned Winnie O’Brien back in May thanks to a tip off from Supercool but bemoaned a lack of information.  I’m pleased to say Winnie’s website is now up and running, from which we learn that she produces animation, design and illustration for an impressive, international client list.  What’s more:

Her work has received many awards including a Broadcast Designers Association Silver Award and an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Design and Animation

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

The theme of this year’s Plus International Design Festival is ‘Hybrid’.  It takes place on 5 to 8 November 2008 and, as the folks at Fused have picked up on, a call has been put out for submissions:

The Festival is now seeking exhibitors, speakers and demonstrators to work to the theme of Hybrid, which has been chosen as the focus of this year’s event as it not only aptly describes Britain – which is a unique country that has developed in an exceptional way – but it also expresses the current state of graphic communications.

I didn’t go to this last year and for no good reason.  I looked at it, thought it seemed really interesting and then felt daft for not bothering.  There’s a lesson there.  Anyway, enough mutterings, if you’re a designer then you probably want a link for some more info on those submissions.

© chrisunitt for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |

The two runners up are here.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

JamFactory aka Gavin Strange is a brilliant designer from Bristol, but he’s launching his new vinyl toy collection, Droplet, here in Brum which gives me a good excuse to write about him here!

I first discovered JamFactory on Flickr, I think after one of his ‘Free Art Friday‘ pics showed up in Flickr’s interesting pages and have been following him ever since. I had seen the above flyer come through on an RSS feed of my Flickr contacts’ photos, but dismissed it at the time thinking it must be a Bristol-based event. Anyway, serendipity fans, I also happen to be subscribed to a feed of all Twitter ‘tweets’ (posts) that mention Birmingham and while doing a very rapid skim read of that, JamFactory’s name jumped out because he was talking about visiting Birmingham. So I didn’t miss out on him coming to Brum :)

Free Art Friday btw is an excellent idea, hint hint, Brum creatives!

© jgilbert for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 3 comments |

click for context

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

World Record Attempt (deadline for proposals 18th March)

Audiences Central wants to appoint an artist or artist/design team to break the world record for the largest photo mosaic in the world, as the culmination of our ‘Big Picture’ project.

The current record is 94,392 photographs covering an area of 562.85 m2 (6,058.46 ft2). Both numbers need to be surpassed in order to break the record.

MMS Upload Project (deadline for proposals 25th March)

Audiences Central wants to appoint an artist or artist/design team to produce an engaging online concept that will drive MMS photo uploads to the ‘Big Picture’ project.

The same artist/team may apply for both projects.

© jgilbert for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 5 comments |

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From the Midlands with Love is a postcard book put together by BCU’s Media Content Lab brought to our attention by TAK! (who have a card in it).

Media Content Lab felt that too much of the design world’s attention is focused on a handful of London companies, so decided to do something about it. We put together a postcard book featuring the artwork of graphic designers, illustrators, web designers and character designers based in the West Midlands. The best computer artists from across the region were invited to submit their work before a final selection of the top designs were chosen to go into the book.

It’s currently winging its way to 100 PR, marketing and advertising agencies along with publishing companies and agents. If you’re not one of those lucky people and you’d like a copy ask Dom nicely and he’ll see what he can do.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

Punch Records are running a competition for desginers to create an advert for this year’s BASS Festival “highlighting this year’s theme of The Four Elements of Hip Hop – BBoying, DJing, graffiti, and MCing.”

There will be a cash prize of £500 and the winning design will receive huge exposure by appearing for six weeks on billboards in a central Birmingham location. The artist will also get one month’s exhibition space in a key Birmingham venue, as well as a launch event and PR support. Finally the lucky winner will get two full pages dedicated to their work, the project and their profile in the BASS festival brochure – of which there are 50,000 distributed nationally and internationally.

Full details are in The Punch Records newsletter and the deadline is Feb 28th.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |

Missed this one, but then I don’t go up to Victoria Square very often these days. Design City 08 is a “celebration of design focussed experiences, bringing alive the rich culture of Birmingham to demonstrate British talent and place the region firmly on the map of national design excellence” that’s been running this week – here’s the What’s On. The above photo is of the Design Pavilion:

Unique design consultancy IntheDetail have been commissioned to demonstrate the connectivity of design in the Birmingham region through their relationships with creative individuals and have worked with the chosen companies to design a showcase Pavilion. The Design Pavilion will be installed in the city centre within Victoria Square fro the duration of the event, showcasing the work of 12 local designers including Scabetti, MRF, Pottinger and Cole, Glass Domain and Guinea Pig Design. The Victoria Square area of Birmingham has significant cultural relevance to the event, due to the locality of the Art Gallery and the newly refurbished Town Hall. The location of the Design Pavilion here, leads into an area of urban regeneration that features examples of the city’s new architectural face.

The Design Pavilion is located at the heart of Design City and focuses on creativity paired with professionalism, aiming to present ranges of Birmingham based creative industries working at the forefront of their chosen fields. Design City not only aims to attract the visitors from Interiors Birmingham, but intends to increase awareness of the local and national creative talent working in and around the city.

It’s been extended until tomorrow morning so if you’re in town tonight do have a look-see.

Heads up from Helen Graham at Guineapig Design who’s “TableManners” is part of the show: “table etiquette for the PlayStaion generation. How to get TV dinners back onto the dining table (and people communicating again) via remote-controlled salt and pepper-pot battle mischief, around correctly laid out place settings.”

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | 3 comments |

A press release through from Marketing Birmingham tells us that TAK! have gotten the tender for the new Visit Birmingham website. I wouldn’t normally blog about such things but this is, I feel, pretty interesting.

1) TAK! is a relatively small web design company, not the sort of operation you’d expect a major City project to go to (unless I’m mistaken).

2) TAK!, in my opinion, really understand the internet and should be able to provide all the “Web 2.0″ stuff required without bolloxing it up. That MB were able to see this in their application is a credit to them.

3) TAK! come, if you’ll excuse the expression, “from the street” as evidenced by their Stickernation project so understand there’s more to Birmingham than the usual tourist stuff (as important as that is). Whether they can get this through to the content of the site is debatable, but their branding of the site should be interesting.

From the press release (Word doc):

“They are clearly experts in their field and had thought about the long term development of the site, not just a quick fix. They incorporated Web 2.0 technologies in their proposals as it is an important way of facilitating user generated content but did not overload on gimmicks just for the sake of it. They also proposed future extensions of their ideas to really add value and ensure that the website will be flexible enough to keep evolving.”

The Visit Birmingham website was created to encourage people to come to the city, make it easy for them to do so and ensure they make the most of what Birmingham has to offer while they’re here. The new design will aim to place Birmingham at the forefront of digital technology. It will be stylish yet simple and will incorporate a fresh look with an innovative content strategy to engage with, retain and guide users.

Best of luck to them!

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | One comment |

Or maybe I’m just a sucker for pulp.

There is a personal side to this too. When I moved back to Birmingham in 2003 after a few years away one of the first things that told me the city had interesting people doing interesting things was going to a Coldrice night at Bar Academy. The funereal oom-pah of Dead Brothers in particular blew my tiny mind. So without them I might not have started this journey of exploration.

via Fused who inform that Steve Copter of Coldrice is also Steve of Newtasty and created that wonderful flyer.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |

Do Want.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |

The events are aimed at supporting mid-career makers wishing to engage in discussion on ideas for new work and developing new markets. The intention is to provide an opportunity for debate, the exchange of ideas and the practical working up of plans for new work and new markets.

21st Jan sees “In Conversation with Leading Practitioners” with “In Conversation with Curators and Gallery Professionals” following on 11th Feb. No mention of cost so I’m guessing they’re free though booking is essential as numbers are limited. Full details including speakers. via D’log

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2008. | Add a comment |

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | Add a comment |

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | One comment |

And then while writing this I come across another designer with the site / blog dichotomy going strong. Mark Murph’s Surely? site is still being constructed but his blog is gaining good traction telling you pretty much all you need to know about where he’s coming from.

To be honest most of the design agencies in Birmingham get the blog thing because they’re in the business of knowing how the internet works. But this can work for you no matter what field you’re in. I’d particuarly like to see Birmingham’s Fine Artists doing blogs like this alongside their portfolios. Let us know what’s happening there, people.

Boxer tip from Jon

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | 2 comments |

“See how we’ve grown” indeed!

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | Add a comment |

They’ve released a series of limited edition prints for sale from their site.

And in looking at that I belatedly noticed their video of their fantastic stand at the Plus+ festival is up.

© pete for Created in Birmingham, 2007. | Add a comment |

The Graphic Auteur – Expressive Graphic Design is a show at the BIAD Department of Art on Margaret St curated by David Osbaldestin and Paul Slocombe.

The Graphic Auteur presents a diverse range of creative approaches and graphic responses, to contemporary graphic design and politics. Through a series of personal issue-based communications and expressive graphic design. second year students from the BA (Hons) Visual Communication course, become both author and designer, taking responsibility for the ethical direction of their messages, leading to the emergence of a personal style and graphic signature.

The private view is tomorrow evening (Tuesday) at 5.30 and it then runs until the 16th.

Illustration above by Laura Davies taken from this gallery.

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