Birmingham handed branding and marketing challenge
Birmingham’s creative sector and the city council took a step closer together at an event looking at how innovative thinking on everyday issues can make Birmingham a better place to live.
Michael Wolff, the co-founder of brand agency Wolff Olins, led a workshop at the newly-opened Fazeley Studios generating ideas on how creative thinking can be integrated into all areas of the city’s life.
Last year Mr Wolff sparked controversy when he accused Birmingham of trailing in Manchester’s wake in the creativity stakes, and consequently the image stakes, saying the city should appoint a creative director along the lines of Peter Saville in Manchester. He hit out at Birmingham City Council and Marketing Birmingham, accusing them of failing to deal with Birmingham’s image problem.
But this time round, Mr Wolff’s tone was much less confrontational and he shied away from direct criticism of Birmingham City Council and indeed the whole question of whether Birmingham should employ a creative director at all.
Representatives from Birmingham City Council joined around 50 people from the city’s creative sector at the event organised by Creative Republic, a lobbying group for the creative and cultural industries.
Mr Wolff said he designed the event to focus more on concrete ideas to improve everyday life in the city rather than how to improve “brand Birmingham” and challenged attendees to come up with actionable ideas on areas such as transport, education and how to look after an aging population.
Birmingham City Council director of public affairs and communications Debra Davis, who took part in the workshop, said: “I have to say everyone’s ideas are amazing, this is so valuable.”
She added the event should be seen as a wider discussion around the Big City Plan.
“There were some serious ideas that I could see taken further. Some of the ideas really resonated with me.”
But she was reluctant to commit herself on the question of whether Birmingham City Council should appoint a creative director.
“The success of the Creative Republic event proved that rather than relying on input from one individual, the key to future successes will be based on very many creative people from all walks of life working together.”
Addressing attendees at the event, Mr Wolff said: “I don’t want to thwart any discussion about a creative director but what I was asking specifically was to see if I can give people an experience of what creative direction means.”
Michael Wolff praised the ideas generated at the event, which was captured in cartoons by Birmingham cartoonist Alex Hughes, saying some of the ideas generated were “incredible”.
Although in the past he has said he would love to take on the job of creative director in Birmingham, repeating this in a recent edition of Design Week, he told The Birmingham Post that this was not his ambition.
He said the post, if it were to be created, should be filled by someone living and working locally.
Mr Wolff co-founded brand agency Wolff Olins in the 1960s. By the time he left in the early 1980s, it had developed a worldwide reputation for branding and has since gone on to devise the controversial 2012 Olympic logo.
BRIGHT IDEAS:
Inviting old people to school dinners, free Tai Chi, passing a new law which requires every empty building in city to be filled with art - these were just some of
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