Celebrating creativity at Design Manchester

THE most exciting design festival in the calendar starts this week, and Manchester School of Art are proud to once again be heavily involved.

Design Manchester is a week-long festival celebrating creativity, collaboration and inclusivity in art, design, film and music.

Manchester School of Art has been involved with the industry event since it was created three years ago and each year contributes to the ever-expanding series of events that give our students and staff the opportunity to learn from and meet leading industry professionals.

Visiting Professor, leading designer and faculty alumnus Malcolm Garrett is one of the curators and a driving force behind the festival and has been for the last three years.

Cultural importance

Professor David Crow, Dean of the Manchester School of Art, said: “This is the third year that we have been headline sponsor for this festival. This year for the first time we have additional support from the City Council and The Arts Council alongside a host of commercial sponsors. This guarantees the festival a better resource for the next two years, which is a big step forward for Design Manchester.

“The festival team includes alumnus Malcolm Garrett who is Master of the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry at the RSA and the festival itself features a number of celebrated Manchester alumni in the programme.
“We see this as a really important part of the cultural calendar where we can celebrate great design and discuss how design can engage with the Northern Powerhouse agenda to make sure that we make the most of the opportunities it will bring us.”

Know How

Another alumnus, Ian “Swifty” Swift will speak at the festival’s official opening event this evening (Wednesday, October 14). In conversation with David Drow, Swift will talk about his graphic design practice which began while working on The Face magazine in the 1980s and continued with his own brand of skateboards, t-shirts, print editions and fine art.

The event will take place at PLY in the Northern Quarter from 6pm. The School of Art will also be hosting a National Art and Design Saturday Club on Saturday, October 17, and the University’s base at 70 Oxford Street will be hosting two discussions – a debate on creativity in the digital age titled “Made You Look” on Sunday, October 18, and a look at the BAFTA-award nominated film Northern Soul, starring Maxine Peake, on Monday, October 19.

This year’s festival has the theme of ‘Know How’ and features a wide range of leading professionals from the creative world including Stephen Morris (New Order), Malika Favre, Ben Terrett, Clive Grinyer, IDEO, Territory Studios, Hudson Powell, Fred Deakin, Angus Montgomery amongst many others.

Events take place right across the city with some of the world’s greatest thinkers, creatives and ‘doers’ coming to Manchester to take part in a rich programme of talks, workshops, exhibitions, screenings, and debates.Full details of the festival can be found at http://designmcr.com/