Friday night art fair launch party action down at Manchester Central. Some great artists on display from across the country and beyond.
Highlights for me were the Orbis Community. A not-for-profit Community based in Gateshead. It was great chatting to one of their board members and learning about their collective. I particularly loved the work of Adam Pointer, Rock and Rose and Helen McClafferty.
Last month I was lucky enough to have been given a private tour of the striking Victorian-era steel Castlefield viaduct.
Built in 1892, the Castlefield Viaduct is a core part of Manchester's remarkable industrial heritage. It has been abandoned since the 60’s but the National Trust have been bringing it back to life, creating Manchester’s own green ‘sky park’.
It was a real privilege yesterday to get to meet Joe Foster, founder of Reebok and hear his story first hand (particularly after having worked so much on Reebok campaigns and launches over the last few years) about how he created a sportswear brand that has been sold twice now for a total value of over £6 billion!
What a legend!
Whalley based Lanx shoes hosted the event as part of their first Creators weekend. I've been aware of the brand and it was cool to meet Marco and his team at Lanx HQ. Proper sound guys making proper shoes. Great to meet people passionate about their craft.
A couple of weeks I took a visit to the Manchester School of Art to check out the latest graduate showcase. Some great and thought provoking work on show from the across the courses.
Big news... so six weeks ago I started a new chapter in my career and made the move to Rise at Seven, joining in a newly created role as Head of Design. It was an opportunity I simply couldn't turn down, especially when the the founder says things like the quote below to the press.
"There weren’t many people in the world that we felt could do the job we’ve brought Ben in for, his background in fashion, product design and concept art design makes him the perfect leader for the Rise at Seven brand and our growing studio,” said Carrie Rose, CEO and Co-Founder of Rise at Seven.
“I’m excited to see how he can use his extensive background to scale our studio offering to be executed by the biggest and brightest team of creatives in the industry."
Such incredible words are truly humbling and I'm excited at whats to come in this new adventure!
You can read more about my new role on some seriously legit news sites (which is pretty surreal) - as well as more of my awkward posing on; Campaign Mag, Prolific North, PR Week, and Business Desk amongst others...
Nice to see my talented friend Benj Smith get a double page spread in Computer Arts magazine as well as a big feature of the J.W.Lees beer rebrand work I worked on with him whilst working with Squad.
I recently created the new identity and event key visual for the annual basketball memorial tournament in honour of Haris Charalambous who tragically died at the age of 21 while training with his NCAA Division 1 Toledo University team in October 2006.
The tournament regularly attracts some of the best teams in Britain, Europe and the United States.
Past winners include the national teams of England, Ireland and Germany, US college sides Proctor and Tilton Prep, British academy Charnwood College Riders and European club sides CB Cornella (Spain) and Breitengüßbach (Germany).
The event also features some of the game's exciting talents, such as Terance Mann, who was part of the victorious Tilton team in 2014 and recently helped Florida State to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Championship.
A full case study to come once everything has fully launched, but in the mean time it was a real pleasure to work on the rebrand and redesign of the JW Lees Brewery portfolio of beers whilst freelancing at Manchester agency Squad.
Working alongside Squad Creative Director David Barraclough, with Manchunian master typographer Daren Newman we created a suite of beers that each tell their own story in a different way and brings them right up-to-date, whilst still retaining an element JW Lees heritage.
It was a great project to be involved with and I look forward to sharing more of the project once its fully out in the wild.
So after; two enjoyable years at LOVE, two years before that leading the JD Sports digital creative team, three fantastic years at advertising agency TBWA and four years before that working in various small studios, I am now available to hire directly for all your graphic design, art direction, brand and digital design needs.
If you would like to get in touch to discuss a potential project all my contact details can be found here, I would love to hear from you!
It was a beautiful autumn day and my sister was up visiting from London, so we headed for a wander around some of Manchester's finest galleries and exhibitions. These are some of the highlights.
Manchester After Hours is the rainy city’s take on the national, annual Museums at Night celebrations: for one night only, museums, galleries and libraries stay open late for some creative goings on - with nearly everything free to attend.
First up was the Unit X exhibition at Federation House. Unit X took over Federation House for its annual showcase of emerging talent from Manchester School of Art. Film, art, design and photography come together in exhibitions and installations throughout the building.
After a pit stop in Trof for a cheeky pint (the free bar ran out in Federatin House just as we got to the front of the queue), we bumped into the choir and brass band which were touring the Northern Quarter playing and singing to whoever was passing by.
Next stop was Fred Aldous which was hosting an evening of FREE creative collaboration including; live painting, photobooth mugshots and a Risograph zine workshop.
Up next was a visit to the roof terrace above Manchester creative agency, Music, where they were playing a few tunes whilst offering up good views back over Stevenson Square and the Northern Quarter.
A crowd gathering around the brass band below.
It was getting cold now, so we headed down to Ply below for a little break and to kill some time before heading over to the NCP car park in the centre of the Northern Quarter for our final event of the evening.
A-top of the NCP multi-storey car park on Church Street, musicians, choirs, street performers and brass bands deliver a pumping finale to the Northern Quarter’s proceedings. As the pictures and videos below show, it was a great way to end the evening with everyone getting involved in the carnival atmosphere.