This has literally been my most stressful week for a good year, and we’re only just halfway through! Fear not, though, as it’s with manic energy and enthusiasm that I bring you these delicious morsels of news – personally I blame it on the moon, which is full at the moment and was LOOMING (lune-ing? Haha, I told you I was manic!) over Nottingham last night. If anyone got any good shots, sound off in the comments!

First up, RAW Collective, “Nottingham’s Premier Photographer’s Group“, have organised an Art on the Square event for this Sunday, 18th September. As you might guess, it’ll take place on Market Square, and it involves art, which you can buy, from the artists, in exchange for currency. And maybe kittens (NOT kittens, just cash, mew!)

They’ll be there 10am-4pm, which sounds like a good time slot, because they probably wouldn’t get much custom 10pm-4am. It’s probably illegal to trade on those hours on a Sunday anyway.

THERE’S MORE! If you like art, and you like the outdoors, you might like street art…? Ramblers all have their own graffiti tags, right? Anyway, maybe I’ve gotten that mixed up and those demographics don’t go together. Find out for yourself by heading to the Lace Market Gallery this week, where mr the beef, who is an excellent local artist, is holding his first solo exhibition, having won the Salon Des Refuses  competition. See the BBC coverage here.

FINALLY, Antenna are holding their first “Show Off” event next Monday 19th September. The clue’s in the name – various creatives will be showing off whatever they’re good at, so it should be a great chance to make contacts, network, and/or show off stuff yourself! Also check out the flyer here (warning: PDF link).

Right, once more unto the breach…

Who are you?
Zabisco is a user experience agency based in Nottingham city centre, just behind Oceana. Our primary service is to provide a user-centred approach to all things digital, from user research and testing to information architecture, web design, copywriting, photography, website development and mobile apps and websites.

What brought you to Nottingham?
Our Managing Director Hammad is Nottingham born and bred, so when it came to choosing the location for Zabisco, Nottingham made sense. The central location of the city means we can service clients from across the country, whilst lower living costs in the city when compared to places like London means we can keep our overheads (and therefore our service rates) low.

What keeps you in Nottingham?
There’s a really vibrant creative community in Nottingham, so we really value the events that we can attend and the contacts we build up from being here. Our location also allows us to better service clients from across the UK and keep our costs down. Plus there are loads of really nice restaurants in Nottingham that we’ve heard about but not visited – we need to remedy that before we even think of moving on!

What makes you different to other creative people in Nottingham?
Our unique selling point here at Zabisco is our user centred approach to absolutely everything we do. We fully immerse ourselves in every project we undertake and gain a complete understanding of the target audience to ensure all we do is right for them. We have what we believe to be a rare skill in combining both the needs of the audience with the needs of the client and we create some really exciting work for some really exciting clients as a result.
We’re also very person focused within the agency, allowing the skills and passions of our staff to be our driving force when it comes to our service offerings and methodologies. Everyone’s genuinely interested in what they do and there isn’t one person in the agency who wouldn’t go that extra mile to create something truly exceptional.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?
As an agency, we see ourselves continuing to grow and develop according to what’s best for the end user. At the moment, we’re really excited about infographics and infomotion (the use of non-text methods to communicate with an audience) and are also continually looking at ways to engage with the mobile user because we see that as a really important market.

Our portfolio is already full of local names such as inafishbowl.com and Blusource as well as national clients such as the British Heart Foundation and Barclays, so we see that continuing to grow and develop too.

What do you wish you had more time for?
We’re pretty good as an agency at making time for what we feel are important developmental and social activities. For example, every week we take half an hour out to gather in our focus group room and chat about an issue that someone is passionate about, which gives us a great opportunity to learn from one another and understand how we can better work together. We also take regular team lunches to keep us all socialising with one another too, as a team who can socialise together is often more productive and creative in the office.

At the moment, the thing we struggle most to make time for is our own internal infographics that we’d like to use for our own website and marketing. We’ve got so many ideas constantly flying around the office of new ways to visually communicate with our audience but it’s difficult to get the design time to do them when we’re so busy with client work. Worse problems to have though!

What keeps you awake at night?
For our MD Hammad, that’s probably his baby Mahir! For me, I tend to sleep pretty well – I work hard during the day and then go to the gym at night so usually I’m away as soon as my head hits the pillow!

What do you think is Nottingham’s best kept secret?
Zabisco! We’re already serving huge clients from around the UK but we’re also looking to grow our local presence. We’ve got loads of services available to suit large budgets and small, and even offer an on-site photography studio where we can photograph for both business and personal shoots as well as on-site user testing facilities and focus group areas.

We’re also all huge fans of the restaurant Iberico – anyone who doesn’t know it or hasn’t been should definitely check it out. The small cafes and tea rooms around our office are also really nice but many people seem to miss them and head straight to Starbucks; the Jam Café is especially nice, as is Snack Attack (the sandwich shop).

What would you like to see more of in Nottingham?
Collaboration. We’ve got a really active creative community in the city and we already collaborate with our next door neighbours at Kuki Media and at BCS, but more communication between the creative agencies and businesses within the city could be very beneficial for us all.
We even set up http://networknottingham.ning.com/ to give Nottingham businesses a place to network and socialise. It would be great to see that grow even more.

What Big thing are you currently working on?
We recently won a really big contract with a very prestigious brand but, unfortunately (and as if often the case with these things) we’re not allowed to disclose details until the project is complete – keep watching our website at www.zabisco.com to find out more though!
We’re also continuing our work with Barclays and the BHF and are just getting started on a user experience project with the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) which is going well so far.

“The whole question of success and failure [in photography] resolves itself into an investigation of the capacities of the machine and well may we be satisfied  with the rich gifts it bestows, without straining it into a competition with art. For everything for which art, so-called, has hitherto been the means but not the end, photography is the allotted agent – for all that requires mere manual correctness, and mere manual slavery, without any employment of the artistic feeling, she is the proper and therefore the perfect medium. She is made for the present age in which the desire for art resides in a small minority, but the craving, or rather necessity for cheap, prompt, and correct facts in the public at large. Photography is the purveyor of such knowledge to the world. She is sworn witness of everything presented to her view.” – Anonymous

Sometimes I genuinely think that people assume I make a decent living from being a photographer. I don’t.

There was a time when professional photography was a skill that was only possessed by few and required a lot more thought than just picking up a DSLR, pointing and clicking. I’m not even talking about 20 years ago, when I studied photography 6 years ago I was taught solely on film. And with film, you can’t just review instantly, hit the trash button and try again. As a poor student, after you’d paid for the film (maybe even splashing out on a polaroid!), the developing and then the paper for printing, if you then found your negative was out of focus then you’d just wasted far too much money and countless hours squinting in a dark room. After the first failure, you learn pretty quickly to get it right first time. What percentages of photographers today even own a light meter?

So it seems that the opportunity for photography to be the well paid and respected career that it once was is slowly dwindling. There’s only so much money people are willing to spend and this divided by the exponentially growing number of “professional” photographers proves to be a dire situation for anyone, like me, for whom this is their sole source of income.

Model portfolios, family portraits and now even weddings have been targeted by amateur professionals so that they can earn a little pocket money from their hobby, under charging and pushing out those of us who truly value our craft and aren’t ashamed to price accordingly. Did you know that brides to be are now spending less on wedding photography than they are on their wedding dresses? Sometimes even less that on the flowers! It’s rather upsetting to think about something that has a shelf life of a day taking more of the budget than memories that last a lifetime.

But this was not meant to turn into the “woe is me” entry that it has become but rather a small nod to the area within the industry that seems to still value quality in photography, Commercial Photography.

I’ll admit that I never intended to step into commercial photography, but with my studies, I was taught to turn my hand to photograph anything that came into the viewfinder. In this case it’s chairs. The one thing that I have found about commercial photography which makes it this hidden jewel in the photography industry is the client’s expectations. Commercial clients don’t pussy foot around, if they don’t like what you’ve done or your work is shoddy then they’re going to tell you with both barrels. For them, this isn’t just about spending some of their disposable income, it’s about their product or service being shown to its full potential as these images could and often do dictate their sales. In a retail market based on visual imagery, the quality of the photograph is taken in at a subconscious level and I think that sometimes we don’t acknowledge product photography as actual photography. We don’t think that the same care for focus and attention to exposure is taken over something as simple as a food mixer as for a bridal portrait. That’s what makes product and commercial photography such an important but undervalued sector; we are constantly exposed to it but never consciously appreciative of it. Huge companies spend millions researching how these images affect our subconscious mind and what it is about the content that makes us reach for our hard earned cash.

A photographer that I assist regularly shoots for a worldwide lingerie company. Within the parameters of his brief are the stipulations set out by the company in order to maximise sales. For example, for North America, the model must not wear red shoes or lipstick, for Japan, he can’t use a blonde model, the list goes on. Did you ever think that so much thought went into an image that might only ever be printed 3×3” in a trade catalogue?

So, I’ll work away quietly on my own in my studio, photographing chairs and jewellery. No models, make-up artists or fancy lighting just my mp3 player for company. Knowing that, even though I may be driven mad by photographing the same thing in a different colour way, there is still a place in this industry for professional photographers to be valued.

From the utterly fascinating record and book shops on Mansfield Road, to the wonderful independent restaurants in town, what makes a place stand out is not only the product, the outcome, but the service and the sense of value.

As a creative, I hope what I do is well crafted and appreciated, but as a business, design isn’t art. It’s a service as much as a product, and working with the client, the process is as important as the outcome. You can go online and order a logo for as little as $25 nowadays, but my clients value the relationship, the process, and ultimately the stronger product.

An expensive meal, with wonderful ingredients and faultless preparation can be ruined by location or service. I bet a cheap Wetherspoon’s burger tastes better when served with a smile. We often judge value based on more than just product.

I had a fascinating talk with a fellow designer who introduced me to the concept of hygiene factors, qualities that should be a given, not sold as positives. Hospitals ought to be clean and supermarkets ought to be good value. The author and marketer Seth Godin talks of telling stories, selling journeys. If your competitor is cheap, go cheaper, but promote your better customer service.

Believing in what you do is key to not only providing a great product but also great service, and the process, the journey, provides the greatest sense of value to your customers.

One of my favourite shops in Nottingham is Danish Homestore, on Derby Road. It’s an enormous shop, maze-like, and crammed full of the most amazing original Danish furniture and homeware. Now 20 years old, and going strong, its success is down to understanding the market, providing a fantastic service, and offering a quality product. It also, crucially, recognises the importance of craft and journey. Last time I went, and bought myself a great little vintage armchair, I was shown around the workshop where they restore all their pieces. I love my new chair, full of character, a product of true craft, an investment, and ultimately better for the soul than Ikea.

Another favourite of mine, a true hidden gem, is a small cafe, really hidden away in West End Arcade, just off Market Square. Bringing a little vintage French charm to town, Aubrey’s Traditional Creperie is a work of art. The attention to detail, to the store, inside and out, the ingredients, the menu, the atmosphere, the service — all spot on. Not only are the galettes and crêpes ridiculously tasty, but you can lose yourself for a while, you genuinely buy into a story, an experience, even just for a few minutes.

Although the tourists looked happy enough, and the locals, in that rare sun, certainly were, I can’t help thinking the Market Square is nothing more than a theme park, it’s not got a story to share, it’s not celebrating a craft. I read a fantastic quote recently, by a product designer, that sums up for me how important process and value is alongside quality:

Design of ‘things’ is a lost cause. Product is a mere destination. Its the journey that people fall in love with. Design the journey. Lloyd Pennington

Being good isn’t enough anymore, that’s a given, you have go that extra mile. Or 1.6 kilometres if you’re in Aubrey’s.

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Got some hidden gems of your own to share? Please do.

Find me on Twitter at @marcusbatey.

My girlfriend and I visited Manchester a few months back and she bought me a copy of the above book — “a curious collection from the Hand Drawn Map Association” — as a gift. It is, as the blurb suggests, a celebration of hand drawn maps, most often spontaneous, sometimes epic works of art, but always fascinating. Certainly a refreshing celebration of lo-fi.

One map in particular caught my eye, or more specifically, the description really hit a chord:

“Dan was sitting in a coffee shop called the Pleasant Perk (noted as “the Perk” on the map) when he was approached by a graduate student who asked him to draw a map of his neighborhood, Pleasant Ridge, from his perspective, for an urban planning project. Dan’s drawing includes the house that he almost bought, his walking route to play Trivia with friends, and his favorite farmers’ market — it even references the deer that keep visiting the neighborhood.”

My own personal favourite location is “comic book store I keep meaning to go to“. It’s right next door to the cafe he’s sitting in. I also like “a church I do not go to, but I like the farmers’ market“.

[Image copyright Princeton Architectural Press]

I’ve been thinking for sometime about the concept of “the global village” and what impact that has had on what we consider ‘local’. For anyone not familiar with the phrase, coined by McLuhan, or his work, he was a Canadian communication theorist, known most notably for the above expression and “the medium is the message“. It’s claimed his theories predicted the World Wide Web almost thirty years before it was invented. Tom Wolfe, in a documentary about McLuhan , claims him to be “the first seer of cyberspace”. In this documentary, made in 1984, Wolfe also refers to “the coming digital civilization, in which all humanity will be wired up and online so that geographic locations and national boundaries… will become irrelevant“. In his book, Understanding Media (1964), McLuhan describes a World that has been “contracted into a village by electric technology and the instantaneous movement of information from every quarter to every point at the same time“.

It doesn’t need to be said that the internet has changed how we view the World, the proof is in the ease with which we integrate it into our every day lives. My Mum uses it to make Skype calls to my Brother living in China, and my Dad watches the Hong Kong stock market from his armchair. It’s been fundamental in the ease with which businesses can grow throughout the World, bringing us coffee shops from Seattle and furniture from Sweden. I have a client in New York, and I’ve exhibited work in both Europe and America. All these are made possible by the incredible sense of connectedness the internet gives us.

I wonder though, do we make wider connections at a cost to what we traditionally consider local. Are we desensitising ourselves to our surroundings, “wired up and online” 24/7, working, chatting, playing, all made so much easier with the incredible rise of the iPhone and other smartphones, glued to many people’s hands. We ‘tweet’ about being in the pub with our friends, we film gigs on our HD video enabled mobiles. We queue to use the self-service checkouts at supermarkets, or better still stay in and order online. The more we remove ourselves from our surroundings, the more sterile they become.

Wonderfully though, I think that this desensitisation is causing many to strive for that sense of real world connectedness again, and oddly it might be the internet that allows us to do that. No doubt that economically it’s a tough time for businesses right now, but I believe it’s also an exciting time, a time where small businesses are again in control. As consumers begin to crave more connection, better service, and recognise the importance of local amenities, I think phone apps like Foursquare help bridge the gap between online and offline again. Seeing where your friends and connections recommend, reading tips and advice from strangers when visiting new cities, and crucially, getting money saving offers from local businesses, begin to level the playing field again. Using Instagram has less reignited my interest in photography, but more encouraged me to actually acknowledge my surroundings again, looking at the details I may have missed as I rushed from A to B, and it allows me to gain a valuable insight into what others value and experience locally.

I’m fascinated by the work of Civic Center, “a civic design studio based in New Orleans that works to make cities more comfortable for people“. They ran projects like I Wish This Was, “a fun, low-barrier tool to collect demand in an area, and the responses reflect the hopes, dreams, and colorful imaginations of different neighborhoods across the city“, in which residents were encouraged to use fill-in-the-blank stickers that say “I wish this was ____” and attach to boarded up shops, buildings and more.

[Image copyright Civic Center]

This project has led to a wonderful website called Neighborland, a “a fun and effective way to make our city a better place“, where users are invited to “take a look around, get to know your neighbors, and let us know what you want in your neighborhood“. Like this site, for me Twitter is an invaluable tool enabling me to make connections online that represent the beginnings of offline relationships. A wonderful representation of the true personality behind Twitter is a site called Tweeter Street, a new site created by photographer Michael Hughes, which aims to photograph Twitter users “where they tweeted with what they tweeted“.

[Image copyright Michael Hughes]

Perhaps most bizarrely, Golan Levin and Asa Foster III have created QR_HOBO_CODES, a series of one hundred QR stencil designs which when marked in urban spaces, may be used to “warn people about danger or clue them into good situations“. These smartphone readable QR codes, inspired by the original hobo codes, are a charming mash up of old and new, and an oddly lo-fi alternative to services like Foursquare.

[Image copyright Fran DeLorenzo]

[Image copyright fffff.at]

Rather than continuing to damage the offline world, I hope our online presence now actually strengthens our sense of community, and empowers small businesses, promotes loyalty and great service, and encourages you to really look around.

As Civic Center say, “cities are full of people and stories… and engaged citizens are an invaluable resource“. As the old hobos used to say, “if in a community… always pitch in and help“.

—

Find me on Twitter at @marcusbatey.

Three Fashion Communication and Promotion undergraduates from Nottingham Trent University won the UK Finals to the L’Oréal Brandstorm competition in London last month, and will be competing in the world finals in Paris today and tomorrow.

As a student at NTU myself, I do experience a sort of vicarious satisfaction when I find out that fellow students are doing well for themselves.  And they really are doing well – NTU students have come either first or second place in the UK finals for this competition seven times since 2005, taking both the first and second place prizes this year, alongside a separate award for innovation.

The students – Abigail Frieslander, Angel Nicholls and Rachael Plowright, under the brand name PAUSE – won the brief for ‘creatively revolutionising the male experience of hair salons’ with a product range consisting of a three-step shaving system and two haircare products.  Their unique selling point was to pause facial hair regrowth, pause hair loss, and pause the effects of ageing with the use of multi-action products, including Slow Growth Shave Gel which apparently features a plant extract which targets enzymes responsible for regulating hair growth.

In Paris the three students will be defending their approach face-to-face with top L’Oréal executives for a chance to win €10,000 and a trip to the city of their choice.  Best of luck to them!

Photo: Phil Campbell for Media Camp http://mcnotts.weebly.com/index.html

So, it’s Monday morning and you’re trying to clear that groggy feeling following the Mansfield Road beer festival. There’s something you should be doing – work? Probably. But something else. Ah yes, it’s getting yourself a ticket for Media Camp  or, better still, booking yourself a slot to present at Media Camp 4.

For the unitiated, Media Camp is a one-day event for anyone wanting to share experiences of using digital and social media and to explore new technology, challenge understanding and look to the future. The Creative Nottingham iphone is champing at the bit to find out more about LoveFre.sh and I did hear a rumour that there’ll be a repeat performance of the last Notts Girl Geek Dinner talk about Facebook and privacy – well worth a watch if you can get there.

So, the details. Well, it takes place at Lace Market House, 10-5.30 and it’s free! But if you can’t make it all day then there are a range of tickets for just the morning or afternoon sessions. For full details pop over to the website or, if you can’t make it, then follow it on Twitter. What are you waiting for? An Alka Seltzer and a ticket for Media Camp. Job done.

Some of these responses would be best followed up by the Monty Python team – with added humour and zeal – but in their absence, I will do my best to continue this thread in ‘honour of Creativity’.

It is noted that the question of ‘happiness’ poses an interesting challenge for us all – especially in these dreary times of political wrangling, austerity and wars.  To keep our costs down, many of us have tried to seek comfort in the TV – sat with a bag of munchies and a beer – but we can’t rely on that either – there’s nothing cheery on that any more – it’s all doom and gloom. And otherwise, if I have to watch one more episode of The Sweeney, I’ll ****?!@**….!!!  

Anyway, it’s really doesn’t sit right with me, to feel so led by TV or media. Artists are very individualistic, and like to lead themselves – be it in ‘tribes’ sometimes – (don’t we?)  So, I’ve stopped watching the news and TV generally, and have started reading back issues of The Dandy to get my laughs instead – much more informative.

I’m sure that most of you out there in the creative community would agree, that creative people are often under-estimated for their valuable contribution to business, and ultimately, our impact on society.  But do you think maybe it’s because we don’t make ourselves heard enough? Do you think maybe it’s because we don’t always realise our true value either?

Without creative people where would the world be? For example, without music we could not sing or dance, express our emotions – happy and sad, anger or exhilaration – the things that help us to get through the events in life – good and bad. Without a good book to read, or a great picture to look at we might have nothing to see, ponder or inquire over – to make us feel delight or disgust!  Without video games we might never get the chance to be an ace race-car driver or fly a space ship.  Whatever it may be, we can say that everything about everything, somewhere down the line, has involved ‘creatives’ and creative deeds.

From this I have decided, that for me, the time to do something different is NOW!  To make better use of the creative freedoms I have, and investigate how I can put my ideas and practical skills to use – to enhance my life, and the lives of others.

I’ve made a start by ensuring there’s now always something good on my TV – (I don’t mean the headless Buddah – that isn’t good, that’s just bad photography!) I was going to skip my old set, but a friend of mine has improved it – and now it makes me happy, so it will stay.  Even though there is a small tear on the face of the clown, I see this as my reminder to make the most of my day.

This is also my contribution to the reuse-revolution, in readiness for the post-digital switch-off….

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Do you agree with this statement – and is it possible that being more creative gives us more reasons to be happy?

A toolkit to get everyone started on the path to ‘happiness’ has been launched this week, through a new group called ‘Action for Happiness’.  And it started me thinking, about what this really means – how it might manifest for me and for my community in Nottingham. Surely, you can’t just tell people to be happy – we’re either happy already, or not, aren’t we?

Not necessarily, maybe there is a need to look at what they have to say.

I think we’d all agree that taking on new and exciting challenges makes us happier – from the pure and simple sense of achievement and pride. And so why not set yourself some additional ‘creative’ challenges to help yourself, and others.

We know that Nottingham is a creative place, so on that basis, does this also mean that it’s a happy place too?  Making lots of money shouldn’t be your main objective, and it certainly isn’t guaranteed to make you happy – but if you begin from a sense of pride and achievement, and meet new people in the process of growing a reputation for being enthusiastic and selfless – this is a good place to start.

There are plenty of creative individuals out there in Nottingham that may hold the answers. We’d love to hear what creative actions make you and others happy, so let us hear them.

Visit the ‘Action for Happiness’ website and see if you can pick up some tips for life. Get those creative ideas buzzing!