Created in Birmingham

DanceXchange have been at the Hippodrome for 10 years and are having a bit of a celebration. If you’re not aware of them, they bring touring contemporary dance companies to the city, put on classes and act as a focal point for other regional dance activity. They’re also a partner on International Dance Festival Birmingham and… well, they do all sorts.

Their new season features quite a few returning companies as well as some new faces, with Hofesh Shechter Company, 2faced Dance Company, Company Decalage, Rosie Kay Dance Company and Bare Bones among the ones performing. There’s a special season offer for this lot too:

Book for 3+ shows at once, get 20% off, and book for 5+ shows at once and get an amazing 50% off! That means you could come to all 10 shows in the season for just £50!

Ten shows for £50 really is a ridiculous bargain and no, I’m not on commission here.

They’ve also brought in Supercool to sort out their website, which is a relief because the previous one was pretty awful.

The Typographic Hub is:

part of the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design at Birmingham City University; the Hub works to promote the history, theory and practice of typographic design

They organise an annual typographic symposium (16 March this year) and will be publishing a fair amount of typographically-related articles.

The website (built by Supercool) has had a fair amount of good attention from the likes of Hoefler+Frere-Jones (I’ve no idea who they are but 100,000+ followers on Twitter show’s they’re doing something right) and Gary Hustwit (who did the Helvetica and Objectified documentaries) among others.

There’s a few interesting novelty things floating around courtesy of Birmingham’s finest creative minds, all in the festive spirit of course.

Boxer‘s Christmas video ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner‘ is definitely worthy of a mention. As well as being highly entertaining, it also comes with the challenge of a movie quiz.

383 Project have made Jumpify, which you can use with Facebook. Because of course everyone does love a cosy Christmas jumper.

Fullrange have made this amusing video for FleetMilne Residential.

Made Media have made brought the nativity to Twitter. Warning, highly distracting, if like me, you’re going to want to switch all the people around to make sure it features your favorite followers.

Supercool‘s Christmas card was a compelling read when it arrived on the CiB desk. They’ve redesigned the classic 12 days of Christmas.

Birmingham Royal Ballet have put together this bunch of Christmas wishes.

Are there anymore Christmas creations out there that we’ve missed and deserve a mention?

There’s a lot of illustrators getting all collaborative at the moment, what with the Not My Type project and this here news about the new thing from the Love to Print collective. Katie from Supercool has explained things better than I would:

Patterns contains loads of exquisite illustrations from five fantastically talented screenprint artists, who each have very different styles – Karoline Rerrie, Sarah Lynch, Ruth Green, Helen Entwisle, Daisy Whitehouse – and yeah, I did some stuff too. (Though I can’t call myself an artist!)

Love to Print Patterns #1 will be available at The New Art Gallery Walsall’s Artists’ Bookfair on 22-23rd May. If you can’t make it there though, watch this space for other ways of getting your hands on Pattern

Her post has photos too.

This is one of my projects, so please excuse.

In 2008 I organised a 48-hour film competition. It went well, especially considering it was put together on zero budget and six weeks notice. Now…

Film Dash is back!

It’ll happen over the weekend of 5-7 March 2010. Here’s the deal:

Write, cast, shoot, and edit a short film in 48 hours. If you’ve got a camera – even one on a mobile phone –
you’ve got all you need to make a film. You don’t need any experience to join in with Film Dash and it’s FREE to enter.

This year’s theme is ‘happiness’, so get thinking; what makes you happy? But remember – you’ll be given a prop, a character, or even a line of dialogue to include in your film, so don’t have too much prepared!

Also: Prizes! Judges! The chance for your film to be shown all over the place!

Register your team here.

You can get info and updates on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to Film Dash on YouTube to see the films as they’re produced.

Here’s the poster, designed by the good people of Supercool:

And here’s the winning entry from 2008 – Dunkirk by Team TTV.

Dunkirk from Pete Ashton on Vimeo.

This week Wendy Cope, one of the favourites to become the new poet laureate said that you can’t write poetry to order. Channel 4 set a challenge to prove her wrong: Write a poem ‘to lift the spirits of the nation’ in the format of a 140 character Twitter tweet.

Katie Parry aka @supercoolkp, a designer with supercool, did just that and managed to get her tweet read on air on the evening news.

Katie said:

I can’t begin to tell you how chuffed I was – I watch Channel 4 News every weeknight so to see my (Twitter) name on the screen was brilliant.

And it’s another small yet powerful example of the amazing connective potential of Twitter. How else would a graphic designer in Brum get their poem recited on the national news?

The segment is available to watch on YouTube and the best of the rest are on Channel 4 online.

Thanks to Katie at Supercool Design for spotting this one. The artwork for the Killers’ most recent album was done by Paul Normansell. More info on the Supercool blog.

(PS – if you’ve not yet voted for Created in Birmingham today, please go here – http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-uk-blog/)

Yeah, ok, no-one likes ‘networking’.  Fine.  How about going for a drink with some good people?  Yes?

Ok, well there’s a few things coming up.

• On Friday there’s Likemind, hosted by James from Supercool and Lucie from Saint Caffe at the latter’s cafe on St Pauls Square.  Drop in any time between 8.30am and 10am to grab a coffee and have a natter.
• On Monday 23rd there’s a meet-up of a group loosely calling themselves ‘bloggers’ at the Flapper & Firkin.  Details are on the Paradise Circus blog and here’s the Facebook event.  Drop in any time after 6pm.
• Last, and certainly not least, Creative Republic are hosting an informal get-together at Concrete, just under the Big Peg in the Jewellery Quarter on Thursday 26 June from 6pm.  They promise

No pack drill… No speeches… And no cost

Which is as good a sales pitch as you’re likely to find.  Details are on the flyer here.  Please RSVP to that one so they know how many to expect.

• Supercool talk BIAD
  Ex-BIAD students themselves, the Supercool people have been checking out what this year’s Visual Communication graduates will be putting on display.
• Live Brum: Win tickets to see the CBSO
  For Carl Davis and the CBSO on Friday 18 July (tickets are worth £62). Closing date is Friday 20 June.
• Royal Shakespeare Company: Head of Digital Media
  Ok, slightly outside CiB’s geographical remit but I thought it was interesting – the RSC want someone who will (amongst other things) make ‘the web an integral part of the way we work and create a new accessible global venue for performance and other content’
• Elisabeth Ingram: Spaghetti Junction Heamatite Rings
  Nod to Bounder for this one. A fascinating blog post from a jewellery designer who has made rings based on our favourite concrete tangle.

• OJS Theatre – What’s On May to July 08
  Comedy and theatre listings for the Old Joint Stock Theatre during May to July 2008
• Birmingham Words handover
  The National Academy of Writing/BCU are taking over Birmingham Words from 12 May. Good luck to all involved and I’m looking forward to seeing what the “new and exciting directions” involve.
• International Dance Festival Birmingham – Collective Memory
  Wechtie is doing a fantastically useful collective memory for the IDFB. If you’ve spotted any online coverage then post a link in the comments on his blog.
• Supercool mention Winnie O’Brien
  I like the look of Winnie O’Brien’s work but can’t find any information on her (yet). Props to Supercool for posting this.
• New Ikon Eastside Space
  27 May sees Ikon’s itinerant Eastside programme re-open in a new location on Fazeley Street, Digbeth. It opens with Soi Project, an artists’ collective from Thailand and Japan.
• Woom Gallery in the Jewellery Quarter
  Some interesting things happening here “the common thread being; the venue’s charm, underground edge and our input into aesthetics.. leaving the audience with the feeling of being part of something a bit special”.