GLug xhibit - Collaboration is Key

Glug 26^th March 2019

Collaboration is key

EY UP GLUGGER!

One more sleep, ONE MORE SLEEP.

We're super excited to see you're lovely faces at 'Collaboration is the Key' tomorrow.

Just a few last minute things to note guys: 

1. We have super sub Paul McGuigan stepping in for Chris Skelton repping Thompson Brand Partners.
 

Paul McGuigan, Director and Head of Strategy - Thompson Brand Partner -thompsonbrandpartners.com/

Paul is a director and head of strategy at branding and design agency Thompson. Having worked client-side for brands including Waterstone’s and various agencies around the region, he finally settled at Thompson 6 years ago and, as the saying goes, liked it so much he bought the company, along with partners Chris Skelton and Rachel Cook.  Now known for brands including Harrogate Spring Water, Mental Health at Work andConfused.com Thompson was recently the creative lead on the team tasked with Leeds’ bid to bring Channel 4 to the city. Paul will talk about the huge, region-wide collaboration Thompson helped spearhead to successfully convince Channel 4 to move to our awesome city.

Super star line-up........

🎤 Matt Lamont - Foxduo - www.foxduo.co.uk

🎤 Emily Mellor & Paul Taylor - Duo - designedbyduo.co.uk/  

🎤 Amy Heycock - http://www.amyheycock.com

🎤 Thompson Brand Partners - thompsonbrandpartners.com/

🎤  We Love This - www.welovethisltd.co.uk/

Those event details again.......

• Tuesday 26th March 
• Duke Studios, Leeds 
• Door 6pm, talks till 9pm, Notworking at the bar till 10pm 

See you at the bar,
Hannah, Martin, Emma & Frazer
Glug Leeds

Lee – We Love This

www.welovethisltd.co.uk/

Be more pirate – Allende

Lee started his talk by sharing how his collaboration journey began by reading the book ‘Be more Pirate” by Sam Allende. This book is about creating some changes in your world, based on the success of the Golden Age of pirates – Breaking the rules, but also re-making them.

Lee specialises in events and design, but wanted to share something in the world that would start to make small changes. He noticed his skip outside the office where all of the waste from the event production was put and decided that he should work on how this could be used for something else.

Lee went to the paint company in Leeds called Seagulls (https://seagullsreuse.org.uk/refills/) and asked them what is was that they wanted to achieve soon and they said a plastic free shop. He wasn’t instantly sure how he could help but then he thought that the waste that he had could be used to build a shop – leading to a big collaboration.

Collaboration can be used to do something good and something you may not have expected.

Matt Lamont – Foxduo

@foxduodesign

www.foxduo.co.uk

‘Design by committee’ is this a bad thing?

Design by committee is when there are different agendas competing to prove that their idea is the best one and often it is personal decisions driving the design choices rather than the knowledge of design principles. Matt discussed how he avoided this clashing of opinions between himself and the client by involving them from the beginning.

The main focus of Matt’s talk was collaboration in terms of involvement from the client from the start of the process. He spoke about how this ensures that he delivers something to them that they were hoping for and there are no disappointments further into the design process. Matt has a collection of over 3000 design books and it seems as though these are the main source of inspiration for him as a designer and also work well to establish a visual style with the client. For each of the projects he spoke about he took about 4/5 books and choose small parts from each of them such as a gradient, typeface, colour scheme and application, then laid them out and photographed them to then become the mood board for that project.

Books = good mood boards = informed design decisions = good outcome

Amy Heycock – Photographer

http://www.amyheycock.com

Amy is a photographer, artist and designers currently based in Leeds and working between multiple cities in the UK including Leeds, London and Manchester.

Left uni and at 21 went to New York to be an intern at Interview Magazine, working as a photo researcher. She then went on to intern at Deaf Jam records and photographed some really famous musicians.

In terms of collaboration being part of her practice she spoke about the viewer collaboration and importance of talking to the client to find out exactly what the photographs want to say. Amy discussed the importance of thinking about wat the images will be placed alongside – text. What is the text saying, is it about the atmosphere, the person themselves etc. This can then help drive the angle in which the images are taken for example with musicians the camera is likely to look up at them as a way of showing that as an audience we look up to them and idolise them. Another example was that a piece of writing needed some image of a concert that really focused on the atmosphere rather than just the musician, so Amy went into the crowd and captured the artist on stage but also including a large amount of the audience.

Emily Mellow & Paul Taylor – Duo

@designedbyduo

designedbyduo.co.uk/  

A small agency of two, combining design individuality, with the belief of keeping it simple.

I had been in contact with this studio prior to the event so I was excited to listen to what they were going to say and then meet them both afterwards to arrange a studio visit.

Emily and Paul met at another agency and enjoyed working together so decided to set something up as a collaboration and focus on how two people can be all that is needed to run a studio.

The mottos for the two of them is that ‘bread is nice, but it’s better with butter’ – design is improved when someone else can help you with the parts that you are not so strong with. They spoke about a project that they did for the Harrogate Turkish Baths and how they collaborated with a number of different creatives to pull together a large body of work that they would not have been able to achieve just the two of them. They then said that consistency is something very important to remember and ensure that when you are collaborating everyone is consistently applying the design elements to everything so that a strong brand can be built.

At the end of the event I went up to them to introduce myself and just get to know them a little bit before I go to the studio. They were really friendly and positive about my portfolio saying that we could have a studio visit for me to ask them questions and then go through my portfolio.

Paul McGuigan – Thompson Brand Partners

thompsonbrandpartners.com/

Paul spoke about one of the biggest collaborations that the branding agency had been a part of, with channel 4 and their move up to the North. It was really interesting to hear about the design journey and concept development because it had to be a positive campaign because Channel 4 were a little sceptical about the move up North away from London. The final outcomes were made possible by working with people outside of the creative network and not just collaborating with people like yourself.

About the project:

There’s a revolution under way in Leeds. A revolution made up of an exciting, diverse new generation of young and under-exposed content creators doing amazing work.

Being the spark that ignites this movement is what we’re helping Leeds offer Channel 4, as the broadcaster looks to choose a new location for part of it’s operations outside of London.

Telling the right story
To get the story right, we had to understand what is important to Channel 4 and look at the impact it could have on this region, as well as the impact the region could have on Channel 4.

The fact is, there’s already a revolution under way in Leeds. An exciting new generation of young, diverse and often under-exposed content creators are doing amazing work.

So far, we have brought the next generation of young and diverse content makers together to give their support to the campaign and express how, by heading to Yorkshire and engaging with new voices and talent, Channel 4 could spark a revolution in the creative and screen industries.