More placements and Edinburgh

With all the good advice and feedback from creatives in London ringing in my ears, I journeyed to Edinburgh at the end of July to tour creative studios with my portfolio. Whilst studying, I have heard a lot about the creative industry present in Edinburgh and it really is no joke, there is a great vibe going on up there.

Two of the studio's really surprised me. The first, Navyblue. They are a company I know a great deal about being good friends with their Director of Creative Strategy, Patrick, and also having visited the London office on numerous occasions. What surprised me was that the Creative Director is also the brother of one of the designers I worked alongside on the rebranding of Plymouth! I had also visited Jeremy at Lloyd Northover only the week before in London! What a small world the design world is! What is great about Navyblue's studio space in Edinburgh is they also rent out the ground floor as an exhibition space to artists with some really intriguing work on display. They also design all the exhibition guides and they really are something special!

The other really exciting surprise was a design company, Threebrand, who work in a two level studio... on a boat! Great!

Thanks to Simon at Navyblue, Nick at Threebrand, Neil and Emily at Redpath, Gordon at Whitespace, Samantha at Eskimo and Fiona at Tsuko for some fantastic advice and feedback.
Edinburgh is an old city and hence, there is a lot of exciting bits of worn type around the city.




Old scrolls at the castle






Did they forget to put a 'b' in originally?

 

I know many designers who do not value looking at other disciplines for inspiration and they really miss out. The vast array of sculpture on show I found to be really inspiring! If only I had such skill...

It was recommended that I should visit two design locations whilst in the city, which if you get chance, you should too. The first is a book store called 'Analogue'. This has an even more unique array of illustration and design books than 'Magma' in London and somewhere I could spend hours (and a lot of money) in. The second is 'Owl and Lion'. They sell limited edition letterpress and silkscreen prints. They even have their own facilities in shop and offer workshops too. 

Edinburgh is a really vibrant city surrounded by beautiful countryside. It is very proud of its heritage and history with many exciting old buildings, millions of churches and the castle overlooking the city - something I feel Britain is fast losing over recent years. Its creative culture really does deserve its reputation and I look forward to returning on placement.