Made North 2012 & Designer Showcase by MADE NORTH

Made North Conference 21 February 2012

Conference Welcome

Welcome

Foreword

Creative innovation by designers is integral to the continued renaissance of the north. MADE NORTH as a project celebrates today’s innovators and provides a creative platform for presenting and debating ideas, processes and technology to inspire designers and businesses from the north of England.

A few years ago the Design Council was involved in a conference – much like Made North today. One well-known UK design leader from Leeds, Jonathan Sands, spoke about design effectiveness. A young couple, farmers from Thirsk, approached him after his talk and asked for his help. Over the best part of ten years a micro business turning over £30k became a £4m enterprise and No1 in their sector.

MADE NORTH one day conference is a forum for the exchange of ideas about how design can stimulate growth both economically and culturally, and the role that innovation and technology is playing in this process. The conference features a high profile programme of internationally renowned speakers, explaining how important design, innovation and technology are to their business.

There are many great examples like this across the North of England, where our strengths in design are being deployed and transforming companies and whole sectors. In Barnsley, Naylor Drainage made design central to their strategy for change. It helped them diversify into garden ceramics, launch a new brand called Yorkshire Flowerpots, and triple in size to become the biggest employer in their neck of the woods. At a larger scale, Sir Anthony Bamford has evangelized design at the heart of JCB in Rocester including sponsoring a local JCB Academy to encourage a future generation of designers and engineers. They are, of course, one of this country’s top manufacturing exporters and a global market leader.

The conference themes have been designed to stimulate lively debate both on and off the stage. You will be able to discover new ways of working and sources of inspiration that are shaping the future of the design world, and the future of the north and its economy and culture. I really hope you enjoy the day and welcome any feedback. Alongside the conference you can get a preview of fantastic work by emerging northern designers prior to the exhibition touring venues across the north and beyond. This is a great opportunity to enjoy and invest in northern talent! Thank you for being a part of MADE NORTH and I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I've enjoyed bringing it together.

Made North

I recently returned from a trip to China where I visited the centres of manufacturing in the Pearl Delta. I saw first hand how Chinese firms are moving from “Made in China” to “Designed in China” and how the government has established twenty seven design zones, with incubators, prototyping and research facilities to support this. It’s all part of a global expansion of design across developed and fast-growth economies. Made North is a great opportunity for designers, technologists and entrepreneurs and policymakers to consider what this expansion of design means for economic growth in the North right now. How can design help turn breakthrough science, such as the Nobel Prizewinning Graphene at Manchester University, into world-leading products? How do we best play to our strengths in design to drive sustainable growth and jobs? I am delighted that the Design Council has been able to support this event and I hope it will be a springboard for practical ideas and productive new partnerships.

Patrick Murphy Creative Director, Culture North

David Kester Chief Executive, Design Council

Made North

Made North Design Conference

Speakers

Art of Technology

Ian Anderson Matt Clark Eva Rucki

Designing the Future

Anthony Dunne Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino Herb Kim Samuel Wilkinson Sam Hoey Corin Mellor Gareth Williams Max Fraser Luke Pearson

Making the 21st Century

Made North

Jason Iftakhar Ilsa Parry Compere

Jonny Douglas

Art of Technology

Art of Technology Ian Anderson Matt Clarke Eva Rucki The traditional roles of art and design are merging and new creative practices are developing work that utilises the latest technological innovations. New works are being created that redefine existing roles of artist and designer. What does it mean to be creative in the 21st century? Do we still need categorisations for people and actions?

Made North

Art of Technology

Founder / Creative Director The Designers Republic

Ian Anderson

Born before England won the World Cup in Croydon, London’s erstwhile orbital city of the future, Ian studied Philosophy at The University of Sheffield (1979 – 1982). As a designer he is self-taught. He declared The Designers Republic on Bastille Day 1986 in Sheffield (which he dubbed SoYo™ North of Nowhere™). TDR’s work is credited with defining the visual language of dance music, electronica and the Playstation gaming generation, post-flagship title WipEout. Ian has worked with architects such as Sadar + Vuga, built environment developers Urban Splash and RREEF, fashion designers such as Issey Miyake and currently Rick Owens, and has developed global branding campaigns, identities and special projects for the likes of Coca-Cola, Sony (including Aibo), Nokia, Telia, MTV and Nike. In 1994 Rudy Vanderlans dedicated an entire issue of Emigre Magazine to TDR. In 1996 TDR had their first NYC show at Artists Space. In 2001, their book 3D>2D was the biggest selling UK architecture book. In 2006 Ian was co-curator of Echo City, The British Pavilion at the 10th Venice Biennale for Architecture. References www.thedesignersrepublic.com www.pho-ku.com

Images 1. Ian Anderson/The Designers Republic C(H-)ome (+81/3) at Ginza Graphic Gallery, Tokyo (2011) 2. Wipeout 2097, Playstation Game (1996) 3. TDR Angryman

In 25 years Ian has lectured to over 70,000 people around the world, had over 25 ‘solo’ TDR exhibitions, launched The People’s Bureau For Consumer Information and The Pho-ku Corporation, had a good time but still not managed to finish the TDR book. Anderson currently continues to run The Designers Republic, and is also Creative Director (comms) for EXD (The Lisbon Biennale) and The Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival, a patron of Site Gallery, a member of AGI, a writer of columns, an educator (running Design Thinking workshops at Universities in Manchester and Sheffield), an exhibited artist and, when the moon is full, he DJs as Pho-Ku Polluted Rockers.

Art of Technology

Co-Founder / Creative Director United Visual Artists

Matthew Clark

Made North

Matthew Clark established United Visual Artists in 2003. UVA are an art and design practice based in London. UVA produce work at the intersection of sculpture, architecture, live performance, moving image and digital installation. UVA’s team members come from many disciplines including fine art, architecture, communication design, moving image, computer science and engineering. The crosspollination of diverse skills inspires new fields of exploration, which is core to their ethos. Pushing the boundaries of research, software and engineering with every project, UVA’s work aims above all to be meaningful and engaging. UVA’s work has been exhibited at institutions including the V&A, the Royal Academy of Art, the South Bank Centre, the Wellcome Collection, Opera North Leeds, Durham Cathedral and The British Library. Their artworks have also toured internationally to cities including Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Yamaguchi, Taipei, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Barcelona. UVA also have large scale permanent art works in Toronto and Istanbul.

Reference www.uva.co.uk

Images 1. Origin, New York City, 2011 2. Massive Attack, World Tours (2003 – 2010) 3. Volume London/Hong Kong/Taiwan/ Melbourne/ St Petersburg, 2010

UVA’s designs for live performance have led to commissions at venues such as the Tate Modern turbine hall, Madison Square Garden in New York and Trafalgar Square London. UVA have also collaborated with musicians including Massive Attack, Jay Z, U2, Chemical Brothers and Battles. In 2007, UVA’s responsive light and sound sculpture Volume won a yellow pencil at the D&AD awards, and featured in the London Design Museum’s ‘Design of the Year’ show in 2008. ‘Speed of Light’ was also featured in the London ‘Design of the Year’ exhibition, showing the best designs of 2010. UVA were awarded a distinction for their kinetic installation Chorus at the 2010 edition of Prix Arts Electronica.

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Art of Technology

Co-Founder / Director Troika

Eva Rucki

Eva Rucki co-founded Troika with Conny Freyer and Sebastien Noel. Troika are widely known for their experimental practise, sculptures, installations and projects that provoke and employ a cross-disciplinary approach and intersect between sculpture, architecture, and contemporary installation. Often merging technology with their artistic practice as a point of departure but also to actify the installations, Troika’s work explores the intersection of scientific thought, observation and human experience in a rational and rationalized world, and describes how logic and reason live in the presence of the metaphysical and surreal.

Reference www.troika.uk.com

Images 1. Thixotropes, (2011) #6, Detail Series of 8 mechanised systems, carbon, steel banding, LED's

Since establishing the studio in 2003 Troika’s work has been exhibited, amongst others, at the Victoria & Albert Museum London, The Art Institute of Chicago, Tate Britain and MoMA New York. In 2010 Troika were selected to create three art installations for the UK Pavilion at the World Expo Shanghai. Troika’s work is represented in the permanent collections of the Israel Museum Jerusalem, British Council, The Art Institute of Chicago, Victoria and Albert Museum and the Museum Of Modern Art New York. Troika has authored two books to date: Digital by Design, Thames and Hudson, 2008; Moscow Style, Booth-Clibborn Editions, 2005, and, in 2009, won the D&AD Yellow Pencil for their digital sculpture ‘Cloud’ in London Heathrow Terminal 5 and their kinetic installation ‘Palindrome’ for the V&A in 2011.

2. Shoal, (2010), Multimedia installation, Toronto, 467 individually rotating elements, dichroic acrylic, custom build electronics, stepper motors and controls. 3. Cloud, (2008), Kinetic sculpture, Heathrow Terminal 5, London Flipdots, aluminium, custom electronics

Using design to build a stronger economy

Made North

Design Council Helping Britain use design to build a stronger economy and improve everyday life. MADE NORTH is one of a series of events around the country made possible by the Design Council’s ‘Design Fund for Growth’.

Ellie Runcie Director of Innovation Services and Networks, Design Council Explains how MADE NORTH is part of a larger drive to connect people, increase the use of design and stimulate growth.

The Design Council is supporting a range of conferences, seminars, exhibitions and other events which help forge closer connections between designers, businesses and technology to stimulate innovation, create jobs and promote economic growth. It’s just one part of our work to put design at the heart of economic and social renewal in the UK. That sounds like a very wide remit - and it is - so how do we go about it? We break it down into key areas where we know design-led innovation can make a real difference. For businesses, we run a national mentoring programme aimed at helping small and medium sized firms to access design. Our national team of designexperienced business strategists work directly with hundreds of companies to help them identify their biggest business challenges, and how design can help overcome them. By working closely with SMEs, Design Council mentors help them change and evolve into truly design-led businesses – and the results for many have been impressive – on average, they experience a return of £25 for every £1 they spend on a design project resulting from the process. Similarly, we also work with public services to help them deliver better for less, and equip universities to more effectively commercialise their new technologies. As the appointed advisor to government on design, we regularly bring together leading thinkers in business, government and education with designers, architects, economists and others to discuss how design can make a real difference in tackling some of the UKs biggest challenges. We collect the evidence from these discussions, and help government decide where design could play a significant role in key policies. Recently, for example, we worked closely with the Department of Business Innovation and Skills to ensure design initiatives were included throughout the government’s

Research and Innovation Strategy. The result is that design will be ‘hard wired’ into the UKs emerging innovation infrastructure. We’re also a centre for evidence on the role of design as a powerful tool to tackle social challenges and improve wellbeing. We work on national projects which identify knotty (and often costly) nationalscale problems where we believe design can help make things better. We assemble teams of experts, designers, user groups and others who use design techniques to get to the route of the issue, developing novel solutions in the form of prototype products and services, which we then encourage to be tested at scale and adopted. Recently, for example, we led a project to tackle the rising problem of violence against staff in A&E departments. The Design Councilappointed design team worked with hospital A&E departments to find out how and why frustration and violence occurs, and to find cost-effective design-led ways to avoid it happening. The result was a revolutionary easy-to-install informationbased approach to communicating with patients, which is set to be trialled in hospitals in the coming months. We’re also a big commissioner of research into the impact of design. All this information is channelled through our website (www.designcouncil.org.uk), and communicated in a variety of other ways to government, business and academics who use it for insight into how design can help tackle a whole variety of issues. It all adds up to what might be called a catalytic effect, and like all catalysts, the idea is to act at the right place and the right time to drive innovation for the good of the economy and society. It’s a wide remit, but in essence it’s about connecting, enabling, developing skills and building capacity to use design.

Ian Anderson Interview

Made North

Interview Ian Anderson Founder / Creative Director The Designers Republic

His company, The Designers Republic, is known the world over for its innovative design approach and originality. Never one to shy away from opinions, we took some time out with Ian to get his unique thoughts on life, the universe and everything design. Full interview available online at www.madenorth.co.uk

Autechre Oversteps Poster

Ian Anderson escaped to the north to study philosophy at The University of Sheffield at a time when Human League and Cabaret Voltaire ruled the airwaves.

Rise of the Republic. PM. Before you formed The Designers Republic you studied Philosophy at The University of Sheffield in the early 80s. Who or what inspired you to become a designer? IA. That’s always a difficult one to answer. In some ways the smart arse answer is ‘I’m not sure I’m a designer anyway’ but if you judge me by what I’ve done, then I am. The easiest way is to describe what happened and decide for yourself. Everyone said at school I should be a writer. And I was pushed towards journalism and I nearly had some work published. The reason I came to Sheffield was the music: Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA, Vice Versa. Main thing I was interested in doing when I came to Sheffield was being in a band, and I also wrote for the university newspaper. Being in a band and designing the posters and the layout for the university magazine those things got me interested in not so much the design - but how you communicate ideas and in those days there weren’t hoards of young designers with laptops so you did it yourself. Another reason I came to Sheffield was to get out of the south east. I‘ve met people in the

north who can’t wait to get away so maybe it’s not about getting away from where you are; it’s not the place, just you need to change. There seemed to be a lot more honesty further away from London. Further away from Hoxton and Shoreditch, design is for a reason rather than something to talk about over expensive coffee. The fact is, if that is how I feel then I’m better off somewhere that inspires me. I ended up being a designer because I was in a band, managed a band and did their record covers because I was there. I thought I would be a famous band manager but I didn’t like managing others’ creativity; I was more interested in my own. But the phone didn’t stop ringing for 18 years and even then it didn’t stop ringing just the budgets and the landscape changed. It’s a little bit like ‘We’ll stop when work dries up and we’ll do something else’ as that’s what I’d always done but it never did and now I’m here. PM. For the last 25 years, The Designers Republic has occupied a unique position in the international graphic design scene. Its designs and slogans such as ‘Work, Buy, Consume, Die’ and ‘Design Will Eat Itself’, and numerous genre defining record sleeves

inspired generations of creatives. Please describe TDR's approach and aesthetic. IA. The approach is quite a selfish approach. My process is quite selfish; not selfish for my own benefit but what inspires me are challenges and asking questions. There’s lots of people who are very pragmatic about things but that doesn’t really interest me and if it takes more work to get it done my way then I will do it but I push the envelope and push the client to see how far they will go. I have to accept there’s a lot of people for whom design, advertising and the creative process is just a glorified 9-5 job and they don’t really want to reinvent the wheel. Perhaps they’re people I shouldn’t really be working with or maybe they should be working with me but don’t realise it. PM. Which of your projects are you most proud of? IA. Next one; bog standard answer. Things come and go. As a concept, Autechre Oversteps with the circle. It’s the process of humans trying to mimic perfection, it’s impossible to do unless you train and train so hard that you can disconnect your brain. Thing with the album was they created sounds mathematically and designed sound

Made North

Ian Anderson Interview

rather than sitting there humming. That sense of man and machine – a lot of the real techno stuff is being enthralled by the magic of technology. Even the title of the ongoing TDR book ‘Brain Aided Design’ is a reaction to computer aided design.

It’s relatively easy to get a £2k - £5k job to replace a £5k one that goes. You can’t just go and say we need a couple of £100k jobs by end of the month – you need to cultivate the clients.

PM. One of our conference themes looks at how art and design are merging and how new creative practices are redefining existing roles of the designer. You seem to enjoy working collaboratively in different disciplines, in 2001 TDR's book 3D>2D was the biggest selling UK architecture book. In 2006 you co-curated Echo City, The British Pavilion at the 10th Venice Biennale for Architecture. Could you tell us more about these projects? IA. One of the problems now is what does one consider to be a designer’s role? In the old days a commericial designer was a mac monkey. Then people like ourselves got into design because we had ideas we wanted express. We didn’t go to college then get streamed into a role in life. Someone said can you design a record cover then can you design something else and something else? And from our perspective everything that people asked us to do was effectively asking us to solve problems. I think that the reason that TDR continued was that I had an interest in responding to those things. If someone had just said can you do this bit of design I wouldn’t have been interested. From my perspective, because I didn’t study design, just doing creative things interests me – why wouldn’t a designer co-curate and architectural biennale? It’s design in the bigger sense. The terminology of designer – to me there’s that sense is design equated to French dessiner/to draw – or design as in terms of designs for life or grand designs. For me it’s grand designs and the idea behind it. It’s about ‘I’ve done this by design, for a reason’. Collaboration changes the nature of what you put in and also changes the nature of what you need to satisfy. For me working on either a book design or the EXD Lisbon Biennale there’s not a great difference in thought or work process. PM. With the problems tDR went through in 2009, what's your advice to other designers? IA. You can turn around everything I’ve just said and say that’s why you went out of business. All the cliches about being true to yourself and not growing too quickly; there’s a whole sense of ‘be careful what you wish for’. When we first started working with Coke in Atlanta they said be careful, what you’ve got is quite special which is why we’ve come to you but by doing this work with us you could go and shake the money tree. If every job you have is worth £100k – £200k you only need two of these to go and there’s a big hole left.

There was a clear tension in what I wanted to do creatively – I was told “The problem you have running a business is that you’re just not interested in money”. I feigned I was – you want to make money but it doesn’t drive you. If you have a business employing 20 people your motivation has to be profit and money at the expense of creativity. Is that advice or exorcism? PM. Do you see yourself as a graphic designer or as an artist, or as something else entirely? IA. In terms of art, if you look at Damien Hirst a lot of it is that sense of there’s some kind of art or creativity in making money. Not in the sense of business planning but in playing with consumer strategies – if we do this we can get person X to part with cash. He is serious about his art – he’s aware of what will sell but he knows within certain boundaries he can do anything and people will say that’s amazing but there’s also a likely backlash. It’s a similar kind of thing with TDR of playing with people’s perceptions, what people think and how can you challenge that? PM. What are you working on right now? IA. We’ve got quite a few exhibitions coming up this year. Also some TDR book projects that we’re working on. One of the things we’re doing is returning to a working process where we’re funnelling our creativity into commercial clients which always used to benefit the clients - the right kind of clients. The right kind of client is anyone who will say we can see the value of working with you let’s celebrate what you do and help you do it for our benefit. That takes a certain kind of person and client. It’s worked for some of the biggest brands in the world.

Coke, Lovebeing Trinity

Echo City, The British Pavilion at Venice Biennale for Architecture

Jarvis Cocker, Further Complications

PM. Who or what inspires you? IA. It’s difficult to answer that question as I don’t really know – I can say I like that piece of design or that style but there’s a low boredom threshold so that will change. Inspiration can come from anywhere, travelling on a train, watching a film - you just have to allow connections and ideas to form. There’s things that over 25 years keep coming back – like immediacy of communication, rawness of communication. PM. Is it possible to brand the north? IA. Need to know what it [the north] is – we’ll do it if there’s a good budget!

TDR Angryman

Designing the Future

Made North

Designing the Future Anthony Dunne Sam Hoey Herb Kim Samuel Wilkinson

The roles of design and innovation are shaping our world and economy. We all have an active interest in the future; how can design and technology improve the way we work and live in our environments? What are the trends, challenges and opportunities to advance innovation and shape the future of industry and the environment? What would an ideas and technology revolution look like in the north?

Made North

Designing the Future

Partner Dunne & Raby Head of Design Interactions Royal College of Art

Anthony Dunne Anthony Dunne is professor and head of the Design Interactions programme at the Royal College of Art in London and a partner in the design practice Dunne & Raby. His work with Fiona Raby uses design as a medium to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry and the public about the social, cultural and ethical implications of existing and emerging technologies. He is the author of Hertzian Tales and co-author, with Fiona Raby, of Design Noir. Their work has been exhibited at MoMA, the Pompidou Centre, and the Science Museum in London and is in the permanent collections of MoMA, V&A, FrAC and FNAC. He has consulted for Sony, Philips Design, National Panasonic and France Telecom. Anthony was awarded the Sir Misha Black Award for Innovation in Design Education in 2009.

References www.di.research.rca.ac.uk www.dunneandraby.co.uk @DI__RCA Images

1. EM Listeners 2. Foragers From: Between Reality and the Impossible, 2010 Images: Jason Evans

3. Technological Dreams Series: No.1, Robots, 2007 Image: Per Tingleff

Designing the Future

Studio Manager Jason Bruges Studio

Sam Hoey

Made North

A balance of designer and design manager, a strategic thinker with an eye for detail. After studying Furniture and Product Design at Nottingham Trent, Sam worked at Benchmark in Berkshire. Keen to develop his point of view and deal with the business, organisational and strategic uses of all fields of design he moved to London to study for an MA in Design Management at the University of the Arts. He continued his studies in creative entrepreneurship at London Business School alongside work delivering high end domestic projects for Roundhouse and product development with designers including Anthony Dickens. Over the last 2 years as Studio Manager at Jason Bruges Studio, Sam has put this range of experience to good use guiding, supporting and managing the multidisciplinary team of designers in the delivery of all of the studio's innovative projects. His inquisitive nature helps him to keep in touch with fresh thinking and new practices in design and many related fields.

Reference www.jasonbruges.com

Jason Bruges Studio was formed in April 2002, they design and build interactive installations across 4 key sectors. These sectors include architecture, art, experiential marketing and lighting design consultancy. The multi-disciplinary team now includes creative architects, lighting designers, electrical engineers, programmers, industrial designers and mechanical engineers.

Images 1. More 4 Ident Installations - with Man vs Machine and 4Creative 2. Digital Fountain, Westfield Stratford City 3. Platform 5, Sunderland Station for Nexus

The studio is currently working on projects including a distraction piece for Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children on their route to surgery, an interactive artwork in a shopping mall in China, a public artwork for a new development in Toronto, Canada, 4 Olympic Games artworks in London, and a playground for a childrensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; hospice in Kuwait.

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Designing the Future

CEO, Codeworks Founder,Thinking Digital Conference

Herb Kim

Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Herb Kim has lived in the UK since 1997. He lives in Liverpool and works in Gateshead. He is perhaps best known as the Founder & Host of the Thinking Digital Conference, a highly successful annual international event which occurs every May at the Sage Gateshead Music Centre celebrating some of the world’s most creative and accomplished thinkers and innovators. Herb is also the Founder & CEO of Codeworks – a not for profit company which helps to develop and promote the digital & creative industries of North East England. In addition to Thinking Digital, Codeworks produces the GameHorizon Conference, the DIBI Web Conference, the CultureCode Initiative as well as running Codeworks Connect & GameHorizon – two regional digital company networks.

References www.thinkingdigital.co.uk www.dibiconference.com www.codeworks.net @herbkim Images 1. Paul Rawlings, David Weinfeld and Herb Kim at Thinking Digital Conference 2. Steven Bathiche at Thinking Digital Conference

In 2011, Wired Magazine recognized Herb’s work by including him in the Wired Magazine 100 – Wired Magazine’s annual list of the top 100 UK ‘digital power brokers’. In 2010, he was named as one of the MediaGuardian Top 100 – the Guardian Newspaper’s annual list of the 100 most influential figures across the UK media industries. He was also named the ‘Communicator of the Year’ in 2010 by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations – North East. Herb has also been an active member of the TED Conference community since 2006. Since 2009, he has helped produced 15 TEDx events in Newcastle, Liverpool, Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, Teesside and as far as Doha, Qatar. He is producing TEDxManchester in early 2012 and TEDxBBCNorth and TEDxDunLaoghaire later in 2012. Herbert earned his MBA from the Wharton School of Business in Pennsylvania and his undergraduate degree from Princeton University in New Jersey.

3. The Sancho Plan at Design It, Build It Conference

Designing the Future

Founder Samuel Wilkinson Design

Samuel Wilkinson

Made North

Samuel Wilkinson graduated in furniture and related product design at Ravensboure College of Art & Design in 2002. While at Ravensbourne Wilkinson won several design awards, including the RSA award and D&AD New Blood. He went straight into employment working for leading consultancies such as Tangerine, Fitch:London, PearsonLloyd, and Conran. During these years he worked on various award winning projects for leading clients such as British Airways, Audi, LG, Samsung, and Virgin Airways. Samuel Wilkinson set up his industrial studio at the end of 2007 and a year later, in 2008 Wilkinson completed his largest work, co-designing L’arbre de Flonville in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was the first of a series of large projects to be completed as part of the regeneration of an old industrial area, Le Flon. The work consists of a contemporary town square featuring a 16m sculptural metal tree surrounded by root benches.

References www.samuelwilkinson.com www.plumen.com @SamuelWilkinson Images 1. L’arbre de Flonville Image: Milo Keller

2. Biome

Samuel’s recent designs of the Plumen 001 light bulb (a collaboration with design brand Hulger) and the hand blown glass lamps ‘Vessel Series’ for Decode London have won international acclaim. Plumen 001 collected the grand prize from the London Design Museum of ‘2011 Design of the Year’ and the highly coveted ‘Black pencil’ from the D&AD. The studio’s work diversifies across various disciplines from consumer products to public realm. Samuel Wilkinson’s commitment and enthusiasm to designing interesting objects and spaces is apparent in his work, always looking to add a fresh dynamic approach in either form or function.

Image:Sylvain Deleu

3. Plumen 001 Courtesy of Samuel Wilkinson

Urban Splash is one of the leading regeneration companies in the UK, renowned for it's innovative approach to design and development. Based in Manchester, the company has changed the urban landscape of northern towns and cities with innovative and intuitive design and architecture. We interviewed the force behind the company, Tom Bloxham MBE, to find out what makes him and Urban Splash tick. Full interview available online at www.madenorth.co.uk

PM. You founded Urban Splash in 1993. Who or what inspired you to start the business? TB. It was all evolution rather than road to Damascus inspiration. Before I started Urban Splash I had done a few property things and had come to Manchester selling records then posters. Initially the drive to get some property was to find somewhere to sell from. No one would rent me a shop as I had no money and no track record. I got a very small place in Affleck’s Palace and then developed Affleck’s Arcade but this was too big for me so I started subletting it. Then I realised in the north of England there were a whole load of what I thought were fantastic buildings lying empty with no one doing anything with them. There were also lots of entrepreneurial businesses, many of them creative businesses, bands, musicians, designers, fashion designers, architects that had no space. So I started, ham-fistedly, at a place called Liverpool Palace, then I developed a building in Manchester with Ian Simpson and filled it up with people like 808 State and Simply Red, graphic designers, record producers and fashion designers. I’d met Jonathan Falkingham [business partner] and we decided there was something special about reusing old buildings, about using good, contemporary design and using innovative

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Park Hill, Sheffield. Europe's largest Listed building.

Interview Tom Bloxham Chairman and Co-Founder Urban Splash

Tom Bloxham Interview

Transformations

leasing forms. We said we’d try one building first; Concert Square, Liverpool. If that worked we’d try another one … 20 odd years later we’re still here. PM. Urban Splash has been pivotal in transforming the post industrial landscape in the north's urban centres. You helped transform cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and Salford. How does it feel to have made such a big impact across the north? TB. It’s not just Urban Splash by any means, but I get huge amount of satisfaction from what has been achieved. You go somewhere like Ropewalks, which was a crappy bit of Liverpool; no one had any idea what to do with it. We sat down with a vision about reusing old empty warehouses, about bringing independent retailers in, bringing creative industries in, about building some exciting new buildings and restoring some good old buildings and it wasn’t much more than a dream to be honest. It’s amazing the difference that’s happened and it’s been a benefit for Urban Splash and benefited the cities we worked in which makes us feel very good. The difference between Urban Splash and other developers is that design is fundamental; it’s part of the reason we do it,

part of the reason we get up in the morning, to try and to create great buildings and to see something that starts of as a bit of tat and turn it into something that’s hopefully beautiful - a place to live and work. PM. You are obviously passionate about innovation and have a belief in cities, in design, in architecture to be able to make significant change in our environment. Please explain your approach to commissioning innovative design and architecture? TB. I suppose what we’re keen to do is to squeeze out of every project every last bit of potential and to do that we’re trying to find the most talented designers and the most committed designers to work on our projects. Sometimes you can’t do that as you can’t be certain a project definitely will go ahead and you don’t want to waste people’s time. Or there’s some degree of confidentiality about the project or you’ve got a very short time frame to do it in. Sometimes then we have a selective design where we will pick half a dozen. So there’s different ways of getting designers but every one of the architects [we use] wants to spend every last penny of our money on making their life’s project and winning awards and actually I don’t mind that. That’s the sort of designers I want.

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Tom Bloxham Interview

I want them waking up at night thinking about the design and worrying about it.

and IBM was huge and now Apple is huge and IBM is tiny. It’s reinvented itself with iPhone, iPad, iTunes - huge revenues, yet everything is incredibly beautifully designed, the shops are fantastic, the staff are fantastic they’ve kept that quality to things. That’s my inspiration.

We don’t want to repeat ourselves so we’re very much into innovation and trying to do new things. We are also really interested in a rationale for design. I’m much more about starting from inside and working out what the function is and what’s good about the existing site and design and working through that. I want to have an answer for every question: why is something here; why is it a colour; why is it a shape; why is a door here? I want somebody to have thought about it in a very logical way. Any good building needs great designers, and you always need great clients, great builders and often a great local authority. So actually to make these things happen - often very difficult projects that have been left for a long time - you need that cooperation and collaboration. PM. Which projects are you most proud of? TB. It’s very difficult, every one’s different and it’s like asking a parent who’s their favourite kid? Developments like Fort Dunlop we’re incredibly proud of - just the scale and the mass of it. Chimney Pot Park in Salford because the area was so run down. The development of the Midland Hotel in Morecambe made a real difference to the town. In Ropewalks [Liverpool], Northern Quarter [Manchester] where we’ve changed whole quarters of the city which I don’t believe would’ve changed in the same way without Urban Splash. There’s things we would do differently in hindsight, but my favourite is always the next one. PM. What are you working on right now? TB. We’ve got a big project in Sheffield called Park Hill, which is amazing; biggest listed building in Europe, most people in Sheffield thought was an eyesore and should be demolished, but perceptions are changing now. That’s exciting. We’ve just finished a scheme in Stalybridge called Longland’s that’s very interesting because not many people have given much thought to what the future is for these small towns. We’re working with a great scheme called Lakeshore in Bristol; a fantastic old Cor-Ten steel building built in the sixties on an artificial lake. We’re working in Plymouth on a very different Georgian building, old Royal William Yard. That’s looking really good. Also we’re working on some new ideas for a new type of housing we want to launch this year. In the same way we changed what a flat looked like 20 years ago we want to change what a house looks like. PM. Who or what inspires you? TB. Lots and lots of people and things. Art galleries always inspire me. I love going in there – art galleries are the R&D departments for architecture. Companies like Apple inspire me. Apple used to be just a nerd’s computer

Architects like Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer all inspire me with the logic of their thinking plus loads of new products that you see every day in different designs. Inspiration - as in Paul Smith’s quote, it’s all around you. PM. We all have an active interest in the future; how can design and technology improve the way we work and live in our environments? TB. There’s no question it can improve [the way we work and live]. But I also think it’s not necessarily the answer. Technology is just a tool; it’s a means to make things easier for us. I remember being at a government meeting with some futurist explaining to us how cities wouldn’t exist anymore because everyone was working on the internet from their little barns and I said at the time (15 years ago) it was bollocks. Cities started with ancient Athenians and continued ever since. They’ve survived the canal age, the railway age, the telephone, the fax machine and they’ll survive the internet. The reason cities work is they are all about having random meetings between individuals. People live in cities as they like that cooperation and human beings like to meet and talk to each other. These chance encounters make life exciting and worth living. Technology would never replace that, just help us do it. PM. Could you give some information on your new book 'Transformation' published by RIBA? TB. One of the things that we found is when people walk round one of our buildings they get a huge sense of positivity. They see the design, they see interesting tenants, there’s a richness about it all and what we wanted was to give that sense of what Urban Splash was about in a book. So it’s partially telling the story of how we got together, what our ethos is about, what our views are about, what somewhere to live, somewhere to shop and somewhere to work should be like. It’s also a number of case studies of the different projects that we’ve done in partnership. We can also use it to promote some of our current apartments and office space. So if someone comes in and they’re interested in bigger office space, the following day we cand send them our book. We want people to say ‘that’s the kind of place I want to live or work’. When we’re bidding for schemes or looking for new work it’s an easy way to give people an idea of the quality and breadth of what we’ve done. It’s nice to give away to people to show them what we’re doing - a nice record.

In the back there is a pull out of all the projects we’ve ever done. And it’s all designed by our own people. PM. Is there a defining symbol of the north? TB. I don’t think there is but for me what’s different about the north is it’s a bit more raw, bit cockier, bit more independent, bit friendlier, bit rougher, bit poorer, bit more edgy - it’s those sorts of things. I love London, it’s a great capital city and I’m jealous sometimes when I go down there of the quality of the restaurants and cultural institutions, museums and such but there’s something about the north which is a roughness, a rawness, a friendliness a ‘welcomingness’ and a permanence, actually. That all makes it the place I’ve chosen to live.

The new Urban Splash book ‘Transformation’ is produced in partnership with RIBA.

Chimney Pot Park, Langworthy, Salford

Longlands apartments, Stalybridge

Making in the 21st Century

Made North

Will new innovation and technologies offer opportunities for designers and makers to redefine themselves and their practices into a more central role in our culture? Does innovation allow for a shift from traditional mass production models into an era of personal fabrication and self production by designer/makers? How can we maintain â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;traditionalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; skills and knowledge and harness technology to create new opportunities and markets?

Alexandra DeschampsSonsino Corin Mellor Gareth Williams

Made North

Making in the 21st Century

Founder Designswarm

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino

Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino is an interaction designer & entrepreneur. Born in Montreal, she grew up in Paris and the Middle East. She completed a B.A. in Industrial Design at the University of Montreal and a Master’s degree at the Interaction Design at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII). After working in online strategy & design in Amsterdam she moved to London in 2007 where she co-founded Tinker London, a smart product design studio. Focused on creating connected product experiences that linked the digital to the physical, Tinker was the first distributor of the Arduino platform in the UK, ran more than 50 workshops and offered design and consultancy services to clients around the world. She acted as CEO until the studio closed in December 2010. Her work has been exhibited at the Milan Furniture Fair, London Design Festival, The Victoria & Albert Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

References www.designswarm.com www.riglondon.com @iotwatch

She has been focused on the “internet of things” and its implications in the design of everyday products since 2005. Designswarm is an “internet of things” design studio which she set up in January 2011. She works with clients who want to design the next generation of connected products and uses her expertise to help shape early business ideas around smart products. She also works with larger clients who want to know how this area applies to their business.

Images 1 & 2. Homesense Kit

She is the co-curator of This Happened London and a collaborator at the design partnership RIG London.

3. Big Red Button

Making in the 21st Century

Creative Director David Mellor Design

Corin Mellor

Made North

Born in Sheffield in 1966. Corin Mellor trained as a product designer at Kingston and worked for the London architects YRM before joining his father, David Mellor. He is now Creative Director of David Mellor Design. Corin has carried out a number of special design commissions. His public seating can be seen at the Lowry Gallery in Salford Quays, the Millennium Galleries and Winter Garden in Sheffield. He has recently worked on new projects for Sheffield Cathedral, Chatsworth House and a special collection of sterling silver for a Middle East royal family. At David Mellor Design Corin is responsible for special product development within the company. In 2007 he introduced new ranges of kitchen knives, table glass and more recently fine bone china and his first range of cutlery ‘Chelsea’. Corin designed the interior of the David Mellor Design Museum and Cafe in Hathersage, Derbyshire. He is married to the photographer Helen Mellor and divides his time between the factory and design office in Derbyshire and the London shop in Sloane Square. Reference www.davidmellordesign.co.uk Images 1. ‘Chelsea’ cutlery for David Mellor Design 2011 2. Birch plywood tray for David Mellor Design 2003 3. Sculptural bench for Chatsworth House 2010

Making in the 21st Century

Senior Tutor, Design Products Royal College of Art

Gareth Williams

Image: Shu-Chun Hsiao

Made North

Gareth Williams is a curator and writer about design, with 18 years experience as a curator of furniture at the Victoria and Albert Museum. His research interests range from exploring the construction of mass-markets for design and charting the technological advances in the design-led industries, to examining the representation of new design practices in museums. Now based at the Royal College of Art, Gareth’s latest book ‘21 Twentyone, 21 designers for twenty-first century Britain’ will be published by the V&A in April 2012. In 2010, with Professor Tord Boontje, Gareth set up the RCA’s Design Products Collection as a bridge for graduates and faculty of the Design Products programme to make their original and innovative design proposals commercially available. The first collection, ‘First Hand’, comprised of products intended for serial production and not made in limited editions. They demonstrate the diversity of conceptual approaches and technologies adopted at the RCA. Together with these products, Gareth will speak about other recent RCA projects that indicate the direction for traditional skills and new technology in the future.

Reference www.designproductscollection.rca.ac.uk Images 1. In-betweening Clock, Hye-Yeon Park, 2010 Image: Royal College of Art

2. Avatar Suit, Marc Owens, 2008-2010 Image: Royal College of Art

3. Solar Sinter, Markus Kayser, 2011 Image: Markus Kayser

BKD is one of the UK’s leading Interior Design practices. They have a strong reputation for producing innovative and high profile spaces across the sectors of exhibitions, retail and leisure, museum interiors, and office design. They are inextricabally linked with the north through their ground breaking designs for The Hacienda and DRY 201 in Manchester.

We cannot talk about design and the north without mentioning Factory Records. Factory Records was a Manchester based British independent record label, started in 1978 by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus, which featured several prominent musical acts such as Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio, The Durutti Column, Happy Mondays, and more. Factory Records used a creative team (most notably record producer Martin Hannett and graphic designer Peter Saville) which gave the label, and the artists recording for it, a particular sound and image. Factory in many ways was more than just a record company, it's unique art direction and design concepts not only changed the way music was packaged, but also changed the way we felt about the north and ourselves, helping establish a new cultural identity for Manchester in the late 70s early 80s. No better example of this partnership of design and attitude could we have than The Hacienda (fac 51 Hacienda) which was a nightclub and music venue located in the centre of Manchester, which opened in 1982 and survived until 1997.

Made North

FAC 51 The Hacienda. Fine Art Prints by Ben Kelly / Morph. Limited edition of 100 – signed by Peter Saville and Ben Kelly available from www.benkellydesign.com for £75.

Interview Ben Kelly Founder BKD

Ben Kelly Interview

Northern Identity

The club was the physical representation of the Factory record label. The club's name came from a slogan of the radical group 'situationist international' the line 'the Hacienda must be built', can be found in Ivan Chtcheglov’s formulary for a new urbanism. The design for the Hacienda was created by Ben Kelly, who used his processes and materials-led approach to create a threedimensional version of Factory Records’ innovative visual identity. To this end Kelly cited his attention to the smallest of details as the equivalent of typesetting sleeve-notes on an album cover. Working to a perfunctory brief; “big bar, small bar, food, stage, dance-floor, balcony, and a cocktail bar in the basement”, BKD were given unlimited freedom to convert a former yachting showroom — boasting a massive, single volume space — into a true “people’s palace”. At the time this was BKD’s largest project to date and became subject of numerous books, magazine articles, documentaries and a feature film. The Hacienda was without precedent, either at home or abroad. It has

been lauded as the world’s best night-club, much to the pride and amusement of Mancunians, and been acknowledged with reinventing and reinvigorating the genre. Neither a venue nor a disco, The Hacienda was a real-life stage-set, built with the most mundane of materials used to maximum effect. We caught up with Ben to ask him about the Hacienda and his company BKD one of the UK’s leading Interior Design practices.

Made North

Ben Kelly Interview

PM. Who or what inspired you to become a designer? BK. The lure of the British Art School in the mid 1960’s. I wanted to be an artist initially – doing sculpture. I figured that this might be difficult in terms of earning a living. Interior Design seemed like a logical and practical alternative – a spatial / sculptural activity. I wanted to do something creative. Art School provided a platform from which to experiment, to try things, to mess about, have a good time and find a way forward. Eventually I decided that I wanted to combine the two disciplines – art and interior design with the idea of producing what I then naively termed: ‘art interiors’. I experimented with this idea at the RCA from 1971 – 74, having spent the most amazing time time at Lancaster College of Art from 1966 –70.

PM. One of the themes of our conference is collaboration and innovation. Who would you like to collaborate with? BK. The whole of the world. Alternatively: David Bowie, Michael Marriot, Peter Saville, Ted Walters, Jonathan Ive, Patti Smith, Neil Young, Donald Judd Foundation, the City of Manchester, The National Trust, any company looking for a colour consultant, someone looking to start a chain of hostel/low budget hotels,

PM. Please describe your approach and aesthetic at BKD. BK. A difficult question! Our approach has developed over 30 years. It is a collaborative process driven by the given project site and the client brief. We are interested in process and the use of materials and colour. We have developed our ‘handwriting’ through an interest in art practice and the the desire to produce work which is both stimulating and hopefully a positive addition to the environment. PM. Your design for the Hacienda in Manchester is legendary. How did the contact with Factory come about? BK. I met Peter Saville (founder member of Factory Records) in a members bar in Covent Garden called ‘Zanzibar” sometime around 1978/9. We collaborated on an album cover for Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Other collaborations followed until one day in 1981 Peter told me that Factory Records wanted to do a nightclub and perhaps I was the man for the job. They were a unique client. PM. The Hacienda provided a new confident design vocabulary for post industrial North. What were your inspirations for the design? BK. The attitude behind the album covers designed by Peter Saville for Factory Records, the scale and grandeur of the cathedral-like space of the interior housing the club, the anarchic legacy of Factory Records, industrial materials, the use of colour and the concept of flexibility. One journalist described the design as “the motorway aesthetic”. To me the project at the beginning was a very large blank canvas on which to create a composition made up of a variety of components I had stored up over previous years. PM. Do you think design can create an identity for a city or region? BK. Of course it can. Ask Peter Saville.

PM. Could you tell us about your 'International Orange' project? BK. ‘International Orange’ was the colour reference for a particular shade of bright orange from a range of industrial paint. I used this particular orange on a couple of early projects working on my own. When it came to designing The HaНienda I specified the colour ‘International Orange” to be painted in a part of the club. Tony Wilson became obsessed with this name. He loved it. Many years later in 2008 when I was asked to do an exhibition at The Stanley Picker Gallery at Kingston University I decided to title the exhibition: ‘International Orange”. I used an image of Tony Wilson wearing an elephant mask when he arrived at the first site meeting on the Factory Records Headquarters building project on the poster for the exhibition – co-designed with Peter Saville. It was my homage to Tony who had sadly passed away in 2007. The exhibition showed collaborative work between myself and a number of artist and designer friends. My last collaborative project with Peter Saville was the design for Tony Wilson’s headstone.

recently produced a music video in collaboration with a company called ditto to accompany a music track I made sometime around 1979. We are currently trying to decide how to launch this work into the airwaves. PM. Who or what inspires you? BK. The countryside of the Yorkshire Dales where I grew up in a village called Appletreewick, Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton, the early work of Frank Ghery, Coop Himmelblau, popular culture, the night sky, the inspiration of Tony Wilson, my family, my friends and colleagues, colour, factories, materials and process. PM. What’s the defining symbol of the north? BK. Yorkshire pudding (Claus Oldenburg style)

PM. Many contemporary designers are creating self initiated work that exists without the parameters of a commercial brief. At the same time artists are creating projects with industrial and business clients. What are your thoughts on this interdisciplinary collaboration? BK. I am trying to do the former myself ie create self initiated work without the parameters of a commercial brief (better still, without a client). However, one also needs a gallery or someplace to show the work. It would also be nice to have funding for such projects. I like the idea of artists creating work with industrial clients. It all makes the world potentially a richer place PM. What are you working on right now? BK. We are designing an exhibition for the V&A - “British Design 1948 – 2012, Innovation in the Modern Age” opening 31 March 2012. We are also working on the design for a new space at The Science Museum in South Kensington - ‘Media Space’. This is a hybrid gallery, workshop and social space containing a large photography gallery, workshop and cafe/bar. We are also completing the work on the fifth site for our client Gymbox in Farringdon. Hopefully I am having a show of my own with collaborative work at the New Art Gallery Walsall sometime in 2014. I have also

Above images from International Orange exhibition

Made North

Made North Max Fraser Luke Pearson Jason Iftakhar Ilsa Parry What are the opportunities for the design sector in terms of encouraging greater collaboration with business, manufacturing and technology to drive economic success?

A series of presentations by northern businesses, opening up into a panel discussion exploring and debating some tangible actions to help the north of England take advantage of a new age of design, innovation and technology.

Made North

Design Author / Journalist / Curator Publisher Spotlight Press

Max Fraser

Image: Ed Reeve

Max Fraser is the owner of independent publishing company Spotlight Press, which specialises in publications about contemporary design. Recent titles include LONDON DESIGN GUIDE (2009 & 2011), and DEZEEN BOOK OF IDEAS (2011). Starting his career as a design author, Fraser’s previous titles include the bestselling book series Design UK (2001, 2003). His publication Designers on Design (cowritten with Sir Terence Conran, 2004) highlighted the world’s influential design leaders; he also wrote a monograph, BOEK, on the eminent Dutch designer Piet Hein Eek (2006), as well OFFECCT: Voices - a book about leading Swedish furniture brand OFFECCT (2010). Max’s role as an editor naturally extends into his work as a curator of contemporary design exhibitions. His most recent was the successful touring exhibition Lab Craft for the Crafts Council, exploring the use of digital technologies in contemporary craft practice.

References www.londondesignguide.com @maxfraserdesign Images 1. London Design Guide 2012-2013

Furthermore, Max advises and nurtures new designers, showcasing their talent at exhibitions in London, Milan, Tokyo and New York. He contributes articles and commentary to numerous magazines and newspapers and lectures internationally. He has advised on judging panels for a number of prestigious design awards. As a consultant for private companies and government bodies, he is an authority on contemporary design and offers insight into the current ethos and direction of design.

2. DEZEEN Book of Ideas 3. Lab Craft Exhibition

Image: Sophie Mutevelian

Co-Founder / Director PearsonLloyd Design

Made North

Luke Pearson Luke trained in Industrial Design at The Central St Martins School of Art in London, (BA Hons 1991) before completing a Masters Degree MA (RCA) in Furniture Design at the Royal College of Art in 1993. He then worked as Senior Designer with Ross Lovegrove in London and on a variety of furniture & product design projects of his own before joining Tom to found PearsonLloyd. Luke taught for a number of years at Ecole Cantonale d'Art de Lausanne in Switzerland and ran a Platform on the Design Products course at the Royal College of Art for 6 years. Luke Pearson was recently awarded with the distinction of Royal Designer for Industry.

Reference www.pearsonlloyd.com

Images

Founded in 1999 by Luke Pearson and Tom Lloyd, PearsonLloyd is a multi-disciplinary consultancy for product, furniture, interiors, design research and strategy. PearsonLloyd’s work aims to bridge a series of fundamental cultural and technical gaps: between industrial design and the conception of furniture, between consultancy and the atelier, and between mass production and craft. Embracing everything from aircraft interiors and city spaces to hospital environments and the constantly evolving modern workplace, the studio’s work reflects ongoing research into the relationship between people and the complex built environments they inhabit. This involves the studio in broad and apparently disparate areas of activity, yet certain challenges are common to the various projects undertaken by the team. Accordingly, the studio’s work is not only a visual response to the DNA of a client’s brand, but a reflection of this process of research and understanding.

1. Cobi Chair design in collaboration with Steelcase Design Studio 2. Comode for Kirton Healthcare in conjunction with The Design Council 3. PARCS office designs for Bene

Designing Demand

Every pound invested in design, creates returns of over £25.

Designing Demand

Made North

Designing Demand is the Design Council’s business development programme. While these are testing times for manufacturing, a fresh perspective and practical guidance from an independent third party can be valuable to companies facing business challenges; the mentoring service from the Design Council, for which applications are now open, can provide these benefits at a highly subsidised rate. Designing Demand allows businesses to benefit from dedicated mentoring and advice on how design could help shape how a business can tackle today’s hurdles and plans for long term growth. It is open to small and medium sized manufacturing businesses with an appetite for growth and innovation. Designing Demand has been running for nearly ten years. Over the last four years 650 businesses have been mentored. An independent evaluation of the programme earlier this year showed that businesses can expect, for every pound invested in design, a typical return of over £25.

The programme, part of the Government’s business support portfolio, Solutions for Business, helps businesses understand how design, used strategically, can be an effective tool to boost performance and increase competitiveness and profit. Applications are currently being considered for places on the programme so if you would like to apply please complete and submit the application as soon as possible. It can be downloaded from the Design Council website: www.designcouncil.org.uk/business. If you have any questions or would like to talk to someone in more detail, then contact ann.crawley@designcouncil.org.uk

Design Collaboration

Made North

Bridging the Business - Design Divide Despite the fact they desperately need each other, we still seem to exist in a universe where these two camps stand divided; struggling to see the real value in what the other can truly do or how they could benefit each other…and everyone else.

Jonny Douglas Director Jonny Douglas Ltd Having trained as a product designer at both Coventry and Sheffield Hallam Universities, Jonny founded his maverick innovation studio in 2006; a consultancy which specialises in ‘difference engineering’ for companies, projects and people. Jonny is an accomplished and inspirational change catalyst, at the heart of a diverse range of initiatives that seek to push the boundaries of the possible through creativity, collaboration and design. He works with a multitude of disciplines to create industry redefining products and services with his trademark ‘thinking inside the box’ approach. He is co-founder of Designed in Sheffield, a marque which sits alongside the Made in Sheffield brand; created to recognise and promote design excellence for the city. As Pecha Kucha Sheffield city organiser with his business partner Pennie Raven and their team he continues to curate eclectic presentation showcases that entertain, educate and inspire hundreds. Jonny also works on strategic level planning projects for the City and CDI Sector within Sheffield.

We all live in a fluid world that becomes more unpredictable by the day. Outcomes and behaviours are becoming harder to predict and the margin allowed for error grows narrower. Now, more than ever before, we need to find a way to form a real synergy between the business and design worlds, because there are some really big issues that are reaching breaking point out there…and this is just the beginning! To business, design is often seen as a growing necessity to be purchased, loosely applied and quickly gotten out of the way, so the real work of running a business can be done. It is always hard to measure and quantify what difference it has made and it’s certainly not yet seen as an integral, ongoing essential thread that a business wanting to stand any chance of surviving, let alone thriving in the future, should be embracing on a weekly, if not daily basis! To design, business can be viewed as a repetitive daily drawl of commerce-based entities whose only concern about the customer is how much money they have in their pockets and how best to convince them to make their next purchase. Conveniently forgetting that business are the people who keep them in employment and the reason for their obsession with costs, margins, profit and loss is because sustainability is something so much more than an environmental issue, it’s about finding a way for the business to support itself. The truth is that both these worlds are trying to solve many of the same problems and are actually working towards similar goals, just along different paths. Like the world, the consumer is constantly changing. Every day that passes they become better educated, more connected and the expectation of what a company / business / brand should be grows. Nowadays you can no longer sell a thing… be it a service or a product, to consumer or business, something by itself is no longer enough. Today, you have to create the whole experience around what you are selling to have a viable business. You have to take people on a journey, tell a story that can be bought into…build something customers want to be a part of, something they can love! This elusive magic which, while often dreamed about, is of course a little harder to find. It is not in any one person, nor does it reside in a certain place. It is not about how much money you throw at something or some

secret technique that only an elite few possess. It is the by-product of a great relationship. It is what happens in the space between people who are genuinely working together. Sure you need expertise and some talent, but it’s chemistry that you’re really after… that’s what really makes great products and services and builds brand loyalty. Business and design are inextricably linked, they cannot exist without each other and the time has come where we need to do more than just work together. Bringing your discipline or specialism to the table so you can just walk away with your cheque is dead. Bitching and moaning about people is not part of the game anymore! If you want to be the best at what you do, you need a symbiotic collective mind. A place where people come together to learn from each other. You have to enjoy the process and learn to love the problems, revel in the challenges and trust that somewhere beyond the horizon there is an answer, that without each other, you will never find. The future of business is interdependent, because we’re all going to have to be able to constantly change and adapt. Just like you found your accountant, the solicitor you’d go to in a crisis and why you depend on your friends…it’s about trust. These relationships are formed over time by meeting up, talking and sharing experiences. Business has only ever approached design, task in hand, needing an immediate answer and that’s not how we create the culture we so badly need. The best strategy for dealing with future unknowns is to start preparing early, before they reach crisis point. We’re going to have to solve problems we don’t even know exist yet and only way to do that is to build a conversation with as flexible, diverse and creative a network as possible.

Designer Showcase

Made North

MADE NORTH Showcase

Patrick Murphy Creative Director, Culture North

The MADE NORTH project takes the form of a yearly design conference and a curated exhibition/showcase featuring a range of products by designers from the north of England. It brings an exciting mix of contemporary design to a wider audience and presents opportunities for people to interact with, learn about and buy the work. The Slow Food movement is well known, striving to preserve and promote regional cuisine. Well think of the MADE NORTH Showcase (and soon to be opened online and physical retail store) in the same way!

Printed at The Guardian Print Centre, Longbridge Road, Manchester M17 1SN

Contact www.culturenorth.org patrick@culturenorth.org @culture_north

We want to promote awareness of contemporary northern design so that design lovers can enjoy and invest in the diverse and talented range of designers we boast in this area. We want to make it easier to buy their work helping you to invest in excellent design and the northern economy. MADE NORTH works with both new and established northern designers and we consider the impact of design and its manufacture environmentally, socially, ethically and economically.

At the heart of the MADE NORTH project is a desire to reconnect people with the source of the things that they buy for their homes and lifestyle. We aim to put a face and personality to designers and producers and make buying local and regional design fun. Just imagine the glow of satisfaction you will get sitting in your favourite chair, next to that super stylish table and sipping from your new mug knowing who made it and where it came from. The MADE NORTH Designer Showcase Exhibition will tour venues across the north and then feature within the London Design Festival in October 2012. Please visit www.madenorth.co.uk for venue information.

Swifty Scooters

Tel: Email: Web:

0161 973 3978 info@swiftyscooters.com www.swiftyscooters.com

John Green

Tel: Email: Web:

07746 131 871 jg@johngreendesigns.co.uk www.johngreendesigns.co.uk

Deadgood

Tel: Email: Web:

0191 261 1277 info@deadgoodltd.co.uk www.deadgoodltd.co.uk

Made North

Designer Showcase

At Deadgood the vision is to develop a leading British design brand that specialises in producing the highest quality furniture and interior products. The mission is to offer an excellence in design and an uncompromising commitment to quality and it is their aim to consistently strive to create objects that are both beautiful and unique. They aim to bring passion, fun and enjoyment into everything they do, offering customers products that are designed and built to truly stand the test of time.

John Green is an award winning designer, designing furniture and lifestyle products for manufacture. John’s approach is simple – to create innovative and functional designs that people can’t resist. On top of developing products for his own brand John works as a freelance designer, collaborating with other designers and manufacturers. His PANTONE® Wallstore is now licensed to Italian company SELETTI for manufacture and distribution and other products are sold through retailers such as online favourites Pedlars.

Swifty Scooters aim is simply to produce the best adult kick scooters in the world. Through the power of design and engineering Swifty Scooters demonstrates a 21st century relevance to urban mobility, answering the need to save time and have fun. Swifty Scooters takes pride in its local sourcing policy, and is designed and manufactured in Manchester, UK. By using local manufacturing, they keep their carbon footprint to a minimum and support the local economy. They also feel passionately about upholding Britain’s heritage for quality manufacturing and innovation. The SwiftyONE is designed for life.

David Irwin

Tel: Email: Web:

0191 645 2262 info@davidirwin.co www.davidirwin.co

Superfauna

Tel: Email: Web:

07773 815 882 info@superfauna.co.uk www.superfauna.co.uk

Lazerian

Tel: Email: Web:

0161 337 0999 info@lazerian.co.uk www.lazerian.co.uk

Designer Showcase

Lazerian is a creative practice that began in 2006, set up by Liam Hopkins, a Manchester born designer-maker. Based in an ex-hat factory in Manchester, the practice is focused on the creation of functional objects through playful investigation of materials and processes, and seeks to imbue objects with a bit of soul. The practice works on a variety of projects, including furniture, interiors, and objects. Lazerian designs are available from selected retailers and the online shop.

Superfauna was formed in Newcastle in the North East of England in 2010. The company is comprised of two award winning designers Amy Levinson and Daniel Rose. One of their first collaborations is a range of Trophy Heads, using laser-cut cardboard to produce interlocking structures. The 3D form is an interpretation of an original illustration which emphasize key visual elements (such as oversized elaborate antlers on a stag) to create a much more striking, sophisticated and fulfilling product. The heads are available in 3 sizes so can be places in a diverse range of locations.

As a practice David Irwin works for leading manufacturers and design led companies such as Habitat, Deadgood and Gardiner Richardson and operates specifically within the spectrum of contemporary furniture, product and lighting design. The studioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design focus is rooted in material exploration and driven by a desire to assign purpose to both traditional and contemporary manufacturing processes. The goal with all of David Irwinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work is to combine a strong concept with fundamental usefulness.

Made North

Ellen Thomas

Tel: Email: Web:

07707 059 526 info@epthomas.com www.epthomas.com

REthinkthings

Tel: 0797 418 6677 Email: info@rethinkthings.co.uk Web: www.rethinkthings.co.uk

RASKL

Tel: Email: Web:

0191 275 9900 info@raskl.co.uk www.raskl.co.uk

Designer Showcase

RASKL Limited is a design firm specialising in the design and production of highly personalised and individual furniture, as well as offering prototyping services to the furniture, interiors and construction industries. They are now using their broad experience to develop a range of innovative furniture aimed at the retail market all incorporating clever assembly methods to reduce labour costs while maintaining and continuing the aesthetics which have built RASKLâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s popularity.

REthinkthings is a design led product brand founded and directed by Ilsa Parry, winner of BBC Design for Life with Phillippe Starck. Ilsaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision is to offer unique, exciting and ambitious products with character and meaning to retailers, public spaces and consumers by licensing the most inventive designs from a carefully selected network of creatives. Ilsa Parry also operates independently as a creativity consultant, freelance designer and brand representative working with organisations including; Bo Concept, Lego, Boss Design, McDonalds, Sony and Unilever.

Ellen Thomas is a furniture, product & interior accessories designer based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her work is inspired by the past and brings a contemporary twist to the iconic. Ellenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work is opposed to today's disposable attitudes and her focus is to create beautiful contemporary designs with added value. In doing so she hopes that her pieces will be kept and cherished. Ellen has worked on a variety of projects, including furniture, lighting and interior accessories

Made North

Email: hello@psaltdesign.co.uk Web: www.psaltdesign.co.uk Twitter: @PsaltDesign

Made North

Designer Showcase

Psalt Design was formed by Tom McKeown, Richard Bell and David Powell after studying and graduating from Furniture and Product design at Sheffield Hallam University. The opportunity was available for a design studio to be formed in Sheffield, a city which all have great admiration and affection for in terms of its industrial and creative history.

Tel: Email: Web:

0114 249 3939 hello@dedass.com www.dedass.com

Nous Vous

Email: info@nousvous.eu Web: www.nousvous.eu Twitter: @NousVous

Psalt

Their aim was to start Psalt Design as a studio to develop furniture and product collections and to also provide a basis for client and commission work.

Image-making is central to Nous Vous. They have a bold, graphic visual language suited to a range of applications such as illustration, print design, animation and digital media. They are interested in exploring new processes, working towards the most appropriate outcome for each project. They explore their collaborative practice most distinctly via exhibitions, which take the form of group shows and improvised installations. They are very much open to working with other design studios, artists and institution it allows them to meet interesting people, and encounter things they never normally would.

DED are a nose to tail creative agency with a hard-earned reputation for being innovative, adaptable, influential and extremely effective. Design, branding and art, more than comfortably, share the same bed at DED, with the latter being available through www.iamded.com and www.picturesonwalls.com.

DED

DED also produce its very own wallpaper range 'Paper Voyeur', available direct or through the exquisite Coco de Mer. As seen in Museum of Sex (NY), Agent Provocateur, Wallpaper and Icon magazine. Image. Created using DED's artist pack on Granimator for the iPad

Online Store Opens April 2012 www.madestore.co.uk

Westergaard Designs

Tel: 07793 032 470 Email: info@westergaarddesigns.co.uk Web: www.westergaarddesigns.co.uk

Designed Made

Tel: Email: Web:

0845 901 1668 hello@designedmade.co.uk ww.designedmade.co.uk

Made North

Designer Showcase

DesignedMade was established in March 2009 by product designer Jonathan Krawczuk with the intention of producing a range of simple and striking products, designed and made in Britain. The brand is committed to supporting the UK craft and manufacturing industries and represents an evolution of Britain’s proud industrial heritage – bringing together the ideas and vision of a younger generation with the skills and expertise of traditional manufacturers.

Westergaard Designs comprises a unique collection of furniture and products lovingly created by young designer Polly Westergaard. The designs are heavily influenced by Polly’s cultural heritage, from both her Danish ancestry and her British roots. This fusion of cultural perspectives results in chic, contemporary, innovative pieces, designed for longevity whilst retaining a fresh take on modern living. Polly explores elements of past trends in her work, updating traditional designs for contemporary living, drawing on the influences of historical pieces and examining the ways in which these designs can be re-invented to function in today’s interiors.