22 November 2010

Creative Collaboration

I went to the Creative Collaboration talk, as part of Enterprise Week. This is some of the helpful stuff that was discussed.
 
Bracket is a consultancy which encourages skills development around collaborative working, and an agency that brings freelancers together to work collaboratively on commercial projects.
 
1+1=2        1+1=11

Alison Coward, the creator of Bracket highlighted some of the reasons why it is better to work with others:

- it can be lonely working on your own
- you can save resources working with other people
- it's more economical, as you you can split costs 

She also highlighted how working together you help you tackle big problems within communites, such as environmental issues, homelessness and mental health. Her last words echo what I've been feeling since the last talk,  "Get together to help the community, work on interesting projects." 


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HOUSE is a collective is a multi-disciplinary creatives, their uniting aim is to foster collaborative thinking and provide a platform that not only showcases innovative art and design, but also creates an environment that enables an exchange of knowledge and skills.

They embody this through their agency structure where they host events, curate and produce spaces, and provide a retail platform connecting and exposing creative talents of the future to the outside world.

Theo Bridge and Barney Heywood from House came to talk to us. They were very open about how new they are to this, that creating House has been, and continues to be, a huge learning curve for them. They describe themselves as having a "spirit of naivety" and it is something they treasure, they are unaware of the limits and this leads to more exciting ideas,  "Don't be scared of being ambitious."

They say the fact that they have come together opens more doors for them, being able to say 'we' rather then 'I' makes them stronger.

They held their first event at London Design Week this year, called PopUpHOUSE. It was a huge success, thanks to the great events they had planned, and their accidental location - 1 berwick street.

They originally wanted to be situated in East London as there was lots of events happening there, after further discussion they thought that this could be counteractive, having to compete with these other events could make it harder to attract visitors. So they decided to set up in central, Barney had noticed a vacant space off Shaftesbury Avenue and enquired into it, to their delight the space was available and they were able to use it for free! 
What they hadn't counted on was the footfall this location would attract, situated on the corner of Wardour Street the space had a constant flow of people waling past, the space had huge floor-to-ceiling glass windows which meant passers by had a clear view of the exciting events happening inside, and couldn't resist going in.

They are having a second PopUpHouse in Bristol at Christmas, they say  "it is a smaller event but important to keep embodying what we do."


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Creative Capital helps London–based artists and people working in the creative and cultural industries source the latest information on continuing professional development.

They are a network of organisations providing advice and support across a diversity of art forms. Whether you are an artist, practitioner, creative business or arts professional, they can point you in the right direction to continue developing your skills. We share knowledge and promote best practice, keeping a focus on life long learning.

They can help you through a whole process: project vision, timelines, goals, budgets. Whenever you need help, clarity with where your going in your career, Creative Capital is a good place to start.


Former head of D&AD Student Awards - Ian Willingham is behind Creative Capital, his top advice for us: 
1. Make friends with geeks. Make them number one on your hit list.
2. Learn digital, the world is going digital, even if you don't like it you need to adapt, your portfolio needs to include digital if you are going to survive in this day and age.

D.I.Y         D.I.T = DO IT TOGETHER


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