It’s one of the questions being posed at the Great Debate at the Design MCR Festival, but what do you think?
“There’s
a London and ‘everyone else’ divide if you choose to see it –
perpetuated by constant rumblings around HS2, grumpy TV presenters
refusing to move to Salford, and BBC2’s ‘Restaurant Wars’. I, for one,
don’t see a divide. Music branded London’s first ever men’s fashion
week, we’ve delivered London Fashion Week for the past ten seasons, and
we repositioned The Brit Awards. Incidentally, we also work for the
Premier League champions, who without wishing to rub it in, happen to
reside in Manchester. But no, definitely no divide.”
Adam Rix, creative director, Music
“For
me I stopped thinking about a geographical North and South a long time
ago as a lot of our business is spread all across the country, but what I
do see is the North as being more entrepreneurial, possibly due to its
financial constraints. With this I see some studios being more
experimental, multi-disciplined and with a real DIY ethic. There are far
more freelancers, especially in digital, here in the North, which means
studios can be more flexible in their approach to projects. The results
of this are lots of collaborations, with clients waking up to the fact
they can get a great product from not just one agency.”
John Owens, creative director, Instruct Studio
“This
question is an unhelpful and divisive one given the very real fears
about a lack of diversity in the UK design scene. George Osborne’s
aggressive promotion of London as a design capital, rather than the UK’s
worldwide reputation for design, risks being counter-productive. When
looking at the design demi-gods for which we as a country are known, we
see that they are from ordinary backgrounds, from all over the UK, and
mostly the recipients of a free higher (and even postgraduate)
education. There has, of course, been huge industrial change which has
caused a very real economic divide between the North and South. Formerly
learned on the job, the decline of traditional industries in most of
the Northern cities has been an absolute blow for tactile craft and
engineering skill. The scale and impact of this loss is only just
starting to be felt. In the same vein however, I am also wary of an
emerging ‘creative cities’ agenda that excludes rural communities from
the off. It is tempting to say that designers from the North have a
sense of humour and playfulness that designers from the South perhaps do
not. At best, we can see this in the emerging field of critical design.
Patrick Stevenson-Keating from Belfast (not Northern, but I’m reading
between the lines) brings an import into his practice which one wonders
would be the same if he grew up in Surrey. At its worst, however, this
is a lazy assumption, and ignores the economic realities of working as a
professional designer. While Dominic Wilcox may hail from Sunderland,
he is now firmly planted in Hackney. APDIG has been discussing these
issues at the ‘Great Debate’ as part of the Design MCR Festival, and
looked to tease out how the creative industries across the North can
play a role in a more managed model of devolved, regional growth.
However, while it is my hope that ‘Northern’ does not become a byword
for ‘diversity’, I suggest that the provocation itself should move to a
more interrogative one concerning class, gender and access to
education.”
Naomi Turner, head of the Manufacturing, Design and Innovation Group at at Policy Connect.
“With
the tech available to us today, there is absolutely no reason why
creatives outside the South East, can’t work with clients within the
M25, and vice versa. In fact, c’mon! This question needs to zoom out a
little. At GBH, we regularly work in Herzogaunerach, Boston, Doha,
Paris, Los Angeles, New York, Mojave, San Francisco, Milan, Brescia,
Valencia, and Wuhan without even leaving Chiswick. Get out there, and go
get ’em.”
Mark Bonner, creative director, GBH
“I
don’t think the divide is so much North/South as London/Everywhere
else. There are lots of great, extraordinarily talented agencies outside
of London (SB Studio, KerrVernon, Designers Republic to name just three
that come to mind instantly), but it seems like many companies prefer
to be based in London for work, recognition, and possibly drinks.
Certainly we think it’s vital to be in London – the majority of our
clients are here, and most of the best designers live here too. And it’s
a great thing for British design – London is rightly recognised as one
of the leading centres of design in the world, and it benefits everyone
as a result.”
Noel Lyons, partner, Kent Lyons
“Is
there a North/South divide in ideas, ingenuity, innovation, insatiable
curiosity, imagination, intolerance for lazy thinking, inability to take
seriously any inane, insubstantial geographical stereotypes? Dunno. But
all our clients in London think not. And the ones in the Far East agree
with them.”
Martin Carr, managing director, True North
“Britain
is a small country with only one capital city which is called London.
For those who hadn’t noticed, London is also the economic centre of
Britain. Therefore there are greater economic opportunities for
businesses in proximity to London. While more design work is almost
certainly carried out in the South, it would be lazy to think that the
standard of that work is automatically superior. While a lot of design
does happen in the South, it also happens everywhere else, in the North,
the the East and West.
Folks outside of the South could always
hold out for some sort of Alex Salmond of design, but that seems pretty
pointless given that we work in an industry founded on collaboration,
consensus and mutual respect.”
Craig Oldham, partner, The Oldham Goddard Experience
(Thu, 30 Oct 2014, Design Week)
