#NoteToSelf_MANC
It was a warm evening at the end of October and I managed to wangle my way over to the Cornerhouse to see an array of speakers all talking along the theme of Creativity.
The line-up consisted of:
Young – Geth and Pete
Red C Marketing – Julian Gratton
Golden – Rob Brierley
Magnetic North – Brendan Dawes
Young’s Geth and Pete kicked off the night by talking about how they found it difficult to initially establish themselves and their name, being fair we were going through a recession where spend was minimal and almost non-existent. They utilised every method possible from cold calling to sending out mailers and funnily enough it was the mailers that grabbed the most attention. It was only when they began to take a different direction by using a self-initiated project to push their brand name that things started to come together. This resulted in ‘Learn something new everyday‘, a drawing a day revealing a fact that goes un-noticed in everyday life, they were onto a winner. Their site had an immense raise in traffic resulting in gaining more and more exciting work offers. This was kind of their theme, revealing how important it is to pursue self-initiated projects and how it’s not only beneficial to yourself, but also to the clients around you. Last but not least they finished their talk by introducing their new online tool called ViewRL – a tool which allows you to view Twitter differently, something that will aggregate all the precious links, videos and other media into a usable cauldron of eye-candy. Go check it out; it is rather awesome!
Next up was Julian Grattan from Red C Marketing. You could see his passion for creativity immediately, talking about how he left his initial role to pursue his current one – even though he explained that they were producing below parr work. A risky move but the upward growth of Red C and it’s quality of creative is an example of how introducing a forward thinking and somewhat unconventional (that comes from ripping up his teams pitch docs at midnight and telling them to begin again the night before the pitch) figure into the mix can really make a difference.
After a short break, Rob Brearley from Golden took the stage. I was quite excited as I’ve followed his and Golden’s work for quite some time. He opened with an array of slides talking about his studio’s work and clients. I’m sure everyone was blown away as this is probably the first time a lot of the people in the room have seen their array of awesome work – mainly due to Golden’s site not giving much away, but as Rob explained, a site can’t really give justice to the finishes involved and the conceptual ideas. I can vouch for this as I’ve seen their work first-hand and their craft is unbelievable! After viewing slide upon slide of fantastic work for clients large and small, Rob’s underlying point was all about how much hard work goes into every project, and how it’s not just about having a great idea – but also having the ability to craft it perfectly.
Coming to the end of the night Brendan Dawes from Magnetic North took the stand. After seeing him talk at the MadLab for one of Northern Digitals #BLAB events I knew he was going to be ace! I’m a big fan of Brandan’s upbeat nature and how he tirelessly experiments with old and new things. He talked about how we are all living in the future, surrounded by an immense amount of opportunities. He revealed a few of his personal projects where he has used Arduino and 3D printing. Hearing him talk about a recent project where he managed to connect the Arduino chipset to a wireless printer, simply to print a series of random images from Instagram every morning was a delight. Although I’m sure it was far from simple, it was the way he told the story with excitement and how he was nervous to look in the brown bag where the prints should be – just in case there wasn’t any in there. This to me was the core meaning of the whole night, not to be afraid to experiment and try new things.
Big thanks for an absolutely fantastic night by the guys from #NoteToSelf: Chris Roberts and Dave Moore. Looking forward to the next one!
Check out the pictures from the night here
