Created in Birmingham

Fluid are pretty chuffed about seeing their artwork grace the cover of a no. 1 hit single.

I’m not just posting this because I think the idea of sticking Dappy on CiB is somehow amusing (although I do) but because there are a few agencies around Birmingham who work behind the scenes on big music releases, it just doesn’t get pointed out very often.

I know Clusta work for Polydor and Universal Music Group (the artwork for Jarvis Cocker’s last album was very Clusta). There was that Paul Normansell artwork for The Killers a couple of years back too. There are probably a fair few more I know nothing about.

Apparently that’s our own fair Bullring in the picture above, albeit with a fair amount of retouching done. And a horde of bloodthirsty zombies running amok. [insert predictable joke here]

In case you don’t already know of it, Dead Rising is a computer game. Fluid did the branding for the advertising, POS, packaging and so on.

I have two reasons for posting this:

1. It amused me that the site talks up ‘free entry to the splendid Birmingham Artsfest’ when entry is free anyway
2. It’s good to see Birmingham being talked about as a destination for an arty getaway

There’s a few other items bundled into the package that might make it worth throwing your name into the hat. Link to the competition.

Elsewhere on the site there’s a good profile of Studio 4 and mentions given to the Outcrowd Collective, Them Lot, Capsule, Beat13 and Fluid’s Lee Basford. ‘Log’ Roper from Studio4 ‘paints a rosy picture of a thriving, supportive scene, where musicians and artists intermingle’

• trying to arrange a british tumblr meetup
  Substrakt’s Tom Martin would like to organise a British tumblr meet-up. If you work for any sort of digital agency in the city/region then it’d be worth getting in touch and lending him a hand
• Screen WM Acronym Glossary (SAG)
  Might be of use to someone (this is Google’s HTML version – a PDF is available). I found this while searching for info about the AWM SIS COG, in case you were wondering
• Nu Wave Interactive
  Nu Wave Interactive is animator, illustrator and graphic designer Matthew Field
• magicmedia
  magicmedia is the blog and website for Steve Chapman, a Birmingham UK-based creative media consultant
• BASS Festival 2008 on Vimeo
  Footage from the BASS Festival 2008
• Audio: Darcy Lange Round Table
  “On Tuesday 2 December Ikon hosted a round table discussion which considered Darcy Lange’s work both in isolation and in wider socio-geographical contexts; his fractious relationship with the art world and the influence upon his life and work of the Flamenco tradition of the Andalusian gypsies”. More good multimedia stuff from the Ikon Gallery. (Ikon peeps – any chance of whacking these into iTunes as an Ikon podcast?)
• CMYKern » Fluid
  Quick profile of some of Fluid’s lovely work
• Sarah Loves…
  Sarah Allen (who works with the likes of the Fierce Festival, British Glass Biennale, Events With Sparkle and others) has started a blog covering her design, architectural and cultural loves. And shoes. There will be shoes.
• YouTube – PsychedelicPsynema’s Channel
  Speakeasy cinema people Outer Sight have a YouTube channel for collecting together event promos, trailers, previously screened shorts and other stuff. Their next event is on 6 Dec
• transitions – artist action research
  Alicja Rogalska ran the art/public transport survey a mentioned a few weeks back. She’s emailed to say “I have set up a project blog to share information, data, images, etc. collected during my research”

Fluid Design tend to fly a little under my radar most of the time.  Locally, they’ve done the branding for the Fierce and Plus Design Festivals as well as the upcoming Hello Digital.

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.

The full site for Hello Digital (23-26 October 2008) is now up with all the event info and other gubbins you’d expect.

It’s been put together by talented localers Made Media, Maverick, Fluid & Stef Lewandowski.