A remedy for cold climate cuts: enterprise and ingenuity in the Midlands’ creative industries
A contemporary creative practice needs to be a problem solver, fund raiser, facilitator and business collaborator. While anyone experienced in cultural and community based areas would be ignorant to ignore the realizations that the current economics demand better value for investments and any funding, do our creative industry graduates know what they need to do to succeed?
It’s not new that during times of economic austerity, graduates will take different routes into employment, finding work in areas that differ from their educational field. This coupled with the sometimes abstract services that the design industry provides, the intangible tasks a client needs to be convinced to pay for prior to seeing the end result; adds up to a tricky over-subscribed recruitment situation.
What’s different now is a cross-pollination of skills in creative industries, architects working in construction, product designers working in kitchen installation and design.
Graduates coming into the Built Environment industry for example are, with an ongoing complex, passionate politik. Fear for the industry’s survival, a whirlwind of legalities, employment ethics and pay rates have been news in the Built Environment for over 12months, especially within Architecture; whose students read for longer than a Doctor or Lawyer, but will rarely expect to earn the levels of their contemporaries, despite it’s regulation and representation by a chartered professional body, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)
We are seeing a rule-change for established professions, supported only last week by RIBA, who said in in order to take advantage of opportunities, architects “need to develop greater financial nous and commercial acumen.”
Substitute the word Architect with Designer/Craftsperson/Art maker/Curator and most can see how this situation can be applied throughout the creative industries. Read more.
A multi-disciplinary practice allows for a flexible approach.
Collaborative collectives are emerging as necessary alternatives: A design practice isn’t going to have a whole project under their remit; a sharing mentality is an emerging theme for tackling cuts in a cold climate. Read more.
Rita Semedo, graduate of Interior Design from BCU has struck out entrepreneurially with partners Thomas Slack and Carla Imbimbo. Since setting up a studio at Zellig, Custard Factory in October 2010, projects have been steadily setting up for the trio of interior, product and graphics designers trading under the name Cubed3.
They didn’t consider basing their new creative business elsewhere; and it hasn’t proved a problem so far.
We know the West Midlands, are graduates of it’s universities and have connections that have helped us start out. While we understand there is risk in starting any business, we saw a gap in the design market to represent the region in enterprising, fresh product and interior design.
-Rita Semedo.
Rita told me they are building collaborative partnerships with fellow creatives in Digbeth, coming together with a graphic designer to complete a children’s nursery project most recently. Projects on Cubed3’s order books include work refurbishing a 75 bedroom hotel and bar, and work with Birmingham Community Healthcare, refurbishing a secure healthcare environment in one of her majesty’s prisons!
At the Interiors show, Birmingham earlier this year, Cubed3 exhibited their furniture range in a stand of their own design. ‘Stack’, which was designed by to utilize off-cuts from the timber trade; by using multiples of the same section shape. The stool has a brightly printed cushion and by applying graphics to the ends, the piece becomes more than a typical birch plywood piece. Exhibiting was collaborative; Cubed3 invited students from BCU to exhibit work from an elective textile design module; accessorizing the space with printed and embroidered t-shirts.
Certainly with such a variety of projects underway, it will be interesting to see this team develop; after exhibiting at the Interiors show in January at NEC, where the designer’s were invited to attend both Grand Designs Live and Tent London (part of London Design Week), it’s going to be a busy 2011.
