Creative Masterclass with Michael Wolff

Thursday 27th November saw the arrival of the brand expert Michael Wolff into Birmingham (Wolff Olins). The Creative Republic masterclass had to be rescheduled from earlier in the year, and excitement had clearly built surrounding his visit and the idea of a ‘Creative Director for Birmingham’.

It was an interesting evening from 5.30 to around 8pm at the new Fazeley Studios in Digbeth (a stunning venue by the way). Helga introduced, followed by Stef Lewandowski then Michael spoke for around 15 minutes then passed over to the room to begin to brainstorm a given category: Aging, healthcare, crime, culture, housing, transport, education and brand.

My table got the ‘Brand’ category. I do not live in Birmingham, I live in Stoke-on-Trent so it was really interesting to have an outsiders eye on this.

Birmingham is the second city and is years ahead in terms of development than Stoke, but what I found were that dialogues within the city were along the same vain. For instance Stoke-on-Trent has a continued dialogue between the six towns and their identities, how they are perceived and the passion each ones residents has to keep it that way and it seems Birmingham has the same with the satellite areas, for example, Moseley, Kings Heath, Hockley…the list goes on.

One thing that they mentioned was surrounding Birmingham’s redevelopment of buildings e.g the Rotunda; they were proud that rather than knocking buildings down in order to build new ones the city was using/re-using buildings. Adding to the cities unique landscape rather than taking away – yet another cause close to my heart, I’m with the table who said passing a law to make sure every empty building was filled with art! (Actually, it would be nice if just some buildings disused buildings were handed over temporarily for creative activity!)

We brain-stormed ideas and then presented them to other tables and there were loads of ideas: Learning pubs, Tree Houses, inviting old people to school dinners, the lists were endless.

I had to shoot off a little early but it was a great evening and for me is was great to hear how Birmingham is perceived by Brummies and to see the passion of the cities creatives to make it a better place. Something every city could use!

Here is some masterclass coverage:

Birmingham Post
Fierce Earth
Digbeth is Good
Stef Lewandowski
D’Log
Design Week