Jobs on drawing board

Apr 22 2009 by Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

As the North East design industry takes a step forward, Alastair Gilmour takes a look at its massive potential.

AN INDUSTRY worth £800m to the North East is not one to be dismissed lightly. Nor is it wise to overlook a sector with the potential to create 9,000 jobs in the region.

But research commissioned by regional development agency One North East estimates the power of the commercial creative sector can’t be measured in thousands of people and millions of pounds.

Our designers, artists, marking gurus and branding experts are much more than an imaginative bunch fiddling with company logos and corporate brochures – they’re the basis of our inward and outward trade and responsible for creating, retaining and smoothing business relations region-wide, nationwide and on an international stage.

They’re our 21st Century shipbuilders and bridge builders, our steel producers and our inventors and though several North East-trained designers have left to pursue high-profile careers elsewhere, the vast majority remain in the region and contribute massively to the local economy.

According to Professor James More, Dean of the School of Design at Northumbria University, its graduate employment record is “excellent” with 90% of students finding work six months after leaving.

He says: “Our alumni work in the design industry throughout the world – many in leadership roles. More importantly, our graduates have a reputation for making an immediate impact wherever they go – and many of them have stayed in the region.”

He also stresses that the Government-sponsored Cox Report states clearly that creativity is crucial to national prosperity and pinpoints design as central to achieving a competitive edge. But this can only be achieved by forming close links between designers of all disciplines with the world at large – in graphics, new media, fashion, product design, transport, furniture and interior design.

“How design works and practices engages everybody in society and industry and that’s the key,” says Professor More. “It’s a sense of pragmatism, it’s get your sleeves rolled up, make it better.

“With design, you have to look beyond the bounds of your own discipline; designers have to recognise that and we give them the ability to work outside their edges, not locked into doing everything in the one way.

“It’s all about building up knowledge, looking at what’s new, developing processes and seeing what the requirements are, not just turning out modern artefacts. But the skill is in how you manage to make people aware of those things. When students leave us they are right at the beginning of their careers and we need industry to show us where we all need to go.”

Newcastle designers Deadgood certainly know where they’re going. Next month it’s New York, though it’s anybody’s guess after that. Elliot Brook and Dan Ziglam are about to launch their company’s brand in the US at the 21st Annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in the city’s Jacob K Javits Convention Centre.

Deadgood’s attendance at the fair forms part of the company’s ambitious development strategy which aims to see the brand positioned alongside a number of established industry players.

“We aim to build on our burgeoning reputation by harnessing the collective creativity of a number of young designers,” says Elliot. “In turn, we hope by promoting and exporting this creativity internationally we can contribute toward a revival in our own industrial heritage which will enhance our capacity to commercially engage the best of British design.”

At the ICFF on May 16, Deadgood will be unveiling current ranges of furniture and lighting, including its Love Collection and Wire Lighting Collection alongside two exclusive new products from David J Irwin and British artist Jon Burgerman.

Dan and Elliot’s Wire Light takes the shape of a conventional table lamp which, with a few twists and turns of 5mm wire, moves the everyday object on by several evolutionary leaps. After four years in business, the company had built up such a fine reputation that last year it was able to secure funding from the Design and Creative Fund managed by North East Finance.

“We had gone as far as we could and achieved all we had planned to do, all without investment,” says Elliot. “We needed to focus on a new development plan.

“We’ve done three annual launch events in Newcastle. It is one of the region’s leading design promotions with products from more than 50 North East designers and creative businesses.

“We have worked with Barker & Stonehouse on a range of furniture and with Northumbria University and Robert Muckle, but we needed to take the business forward. We’ve always had the ideas, but didn’t have the money to develop them properly or the capital behind us to move our ideas on.”

An online shop – www.deadgoodshop.com – offers a range of sleek products including innovative bookshelves, stylish stools, hangers and mirrors, designed in-house and by other emerging designers. The duo will use the £150,000 Design and Creative Fund investment to commercialise new collections, which will develop Deadgood into a leading British design brand – albeit one operating from a railway arch near Newcastle Central Station.

This is music to Professor More’s highly-tuned ear. There’s nothing better than being able to report that Northumbria University’s alumni include Jonathan Ive, designer of the Apple Mac, and now senior vice-president of the company’s industrial design; Simon Butterworth, currently director of design at Ford Australia, and offbeat fashion designer Scott Henshall whose client list includes Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Victoria Beckham.

But to be instrumental in developing a design culture on its own doorstep is the real aim of the university. Gateshead-based Cohda Design and Xenophya from Cramlington are particularly good examples of “designer retention”.

Prof More says: “Many of our students go off to get good jobs internationally, but it’s also very important that they build up their own companies here. They all trade internationally, their work is distinctive, they’re very intelligent and they bring a lot of international footfall to Newcastle. We’ve just had people from Finland, Denmark and Australia visiting to find out how we do things here.”

New York has also been good for Newcastle-based designer and former soldier Peter Manning. In 1986 he followed his then girlfriend Louise Mavin (they since married) to the Big Apple after she landed a fashion design job.

Subsequent moves around California gathering graphic design commissions for brands such as Donna Karan, DKNY and Calvin Klein kept them in America for 13 years – plus Louise was making a name designing cashmere sweaters.

“We wanted to start working our way back to Europe,” says Peter. “We thought, what do we do? In 2001, we set ourselves a deadline of December for that and by that time we were back in New York.

“We were only two blocks away from the World Trade Centre on September 11. It was a very poignant moment but a great wave bye bye.

“In Newcastle the Baltic and the Sage were happening and there was a great feeling here. In fact, a friend came over from New York and he has never left. I had started getting serious offers of work from Calvin Klein in Britain and got some lecturing work then started building up a client list. I didn’t want to work full-time for someone.”

In 2003 in Newcastle, Peter established Reluctant Hero with Sheilen Rathod who he met in New York while working on Revlon and Coca-Cola accounts.

Then came Electrik Sheep, a stylish shop in Newcastle’s Pink Lane that acts as a showcase for their design work – principally contemporary T-shirts – which also features art and toys from around the world.

The US obsession with branding, however, was ever on Peter’s mind. He says: “We found ourselves as a design company doing other things and moving into branding. Good design is an important part of any business but branding is not just about a logo, there’s a whole philosophy behind it; it’s the whole company and the full planning process you have to go through.

“ I noticed the only branding that Newcastle had was Toon tops, so we used the skills we had built up in the States through the humble T-shirt. North East people have always taken their clothes seriously and a T-shirt gives us a certain partnership with the person who’s wearing it.”

Reluctant Hero not only produces its own distinctive range of clothing, it now handles branding for Marks & Spencer products as well as MTV, Tommy Hilfiger, Timberland and more locally, Berghaus and Morpeth water company Abbey Well. Barbour also came knocking for ideas to promote its new lightweight, “no wellies” range of outdoor clothing.

Peter says: “It’s an evolving entity that keeps us on our toes and makes us very proud. All our clients have been national and international and never really local – but we’re doing that now.”

North East design businesses are developing well and they offer far more than, as Prof More describes, “turning out modern artefacts”. They are totally dependent on fusing indigenous talent with mutually-beneficial customer relations – or, as Peter Manning graphically puts it: “Great packaging is watching a client’s sales soar.”