Here it is upon us again! Creative futures week. For those of you who don't know, it's a week-long event held yearly where lots of professionals and alumni of the university visit to hold seminars, lectures, networking opportunities and portfolio surgeries. I found from last year that some of the sessions can be truly priceless in terms of what you're looking to do in the future.
To begin day one, we had an introduction by Dr Stuart Cunningham. His introduction was brief and to the point, he told us that 67% of employees in the creative sectors are graduates, and that the number is rising. In a world where technology is changing and improving daily a good education with good core skills, business sense, management skills, experience and industry intelligence are the things that will land us that dream job after we graduate. With 94% of Glyndwr's graduates getting a job within 6 months, it is comforting to know we stand a chance in such a volatile climate.Dr Cunningham finished with some lyrics from a Pink Floyd song 'and then one day you find ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun' and encouraged everyone to grab all opportunities that come our way.
We were supposed to be receiving our opening speech by Maurice Cockrill, who couldn't attend. Kindly stepping in last minute was vice chancellor Michael Scott, who has also been a visiting professor at Georgetown university in the US as well as Oxford university. He has sold his books 'text and performance' globally. He came to speak to us about Shakespeare.
I've studied several of Shakespeare's plays at high school. I always imaged him as a bard and a playwright. However, Michael Scott informed us that Shakespeare was little more than a thief and a very good business man. He went into great detail about Shakespeare's life, how his business is one of the oldest in the UK and still makes money to this day.
In 1576, James Burbage died, leaving his son Richard in charge. The lease on the theatre is due for renewal, but it is refused. Their number one performer Will Kemp not only leaves, but takes great pleasure in telling all and sundry that he has left Shakespeare's company. Shakespeare and Burbage decide to move the theatre, pulling it down and moving it to south London on barges before rebuilding. It is here that he decides to have two companies, a theatre company and a company of actors who pay rent to the theatre.
For a while he's on top again, that is until Henry Evans realises that he has found a loophole in the Purtians ban on theatres inside the city of London. He makes a deal with St Paul's Cathedral to put on plays, he charges 6pence for the seats, drawing in the elite of the city. So begins the war of the theatres. Eventually however, Evans' luck runs out and Shakespeare ends up buying the properties in London and putting his own plays on. He returns to Stratford, buys the second largest house on the market, becomes a money lender and land owner and goes on to make his fortune.
Despite his start in life, where he saw his father a glove maker, go bankrupt Shakespeare was a shrewd businessman, he saw the uprising of the theatre and grasped at his chance to make his fortune. Michael Scott's message was that crisis was the potential to be your greatest moment of all. 
Next up was Angus Montgomery, he is a journalist for Design Week (click here for their website) which is a weekly publication that concentrates on design, education, new businesses and developments in the design world.
Rhiannon James who works for D and AD talked about the successful graduate academy that the company runs, how they nurture the best talent. And how their graduates get a job within 3 months. Illustrator Lizzie Mary Cullen reiterates Simon Manchipp's message by emphasising the importance of marketing yourself professionally.
Finally, Greg Quinton of The Partners, says it's important to encourage students to find their own influences, not to follow what everyone else is following. To collaborate with other fields, and people and find a space to work in groups. To always love what you do, push yourself and your passion will drive you to better yourself.
Angus then went on to talk about how student fees is a topic that often comes up within Design Week. He asked lots of professionals in the industry that if they were faced with paying up to £9000 a year in tuition fees if they would do it. Apparently every single on answered yes without a doubt. That if you have to pay for your education you will make the most of it and value it. I feel this is very much true for myself!
Next was the 'one laptop per child' campaign. This started off as people donating old, somewhat outdated laptops to developing third world countries. Also known as the fuse project. Yves Behar is responsible for designing a laptop that is durable, rugged, hard wearing, cheap to make and efficient to run. There have been 2.5 million laptops shipped over the last four years alone. 
The Plumen energy saving light bulb was next. To be honest came across as quite stupid and pointless. Apparently the designers (Hulger) thought that the existing light bulb design needed updating and came up with the world's first 'designer' light bulb. Although I'll agree that the design itself is clearly unique and stylish I can't imagine why anyone would want to own one. Maybe I'm getting old? Anyway, the point being that designers aught to be able to look at existing technology and thinking about ways to change or improve it. I however honestly believe that this is a case of useless design at its very best!
After the disaster that was the Plumen light bulb came something quite unique. As we all know, there is little to no money in the NHS and a lot of A&E staff are quite concerned with the level of anger and violence towards staff and so asked designers to come up with a way in order to reduce the risk. It was furniture designers PearsonLloyd that came up with the idea of redesigning a person's experience with A&E, by removing the mystery with a flow chart that maps the route through the different departments and a screen that displays the current state in terms of busyness people seem to be calmer and much less violent. At the moment it is being piloted in seven to eight hospitals with plans to introduce it to more in future.
I found the next piece to be quite an eye opener, which was the intent really as it was an annual report for a charity called St George's Crypt, which deals with the homeless. It was done in A2 size to illustrate the size of a blanket of newspaper a homeless person might sleep under. The photographs were incredibly sharp and shocking, revealing the true nature of the homeless people along with their personal cases. A great design, with hard hitting photographs, clear font and very difficult stories. This is design that really helps to highlight a very real and serious issue.
I've already mentioned the company SomeOne in London, and this next piece was from them. Basically, they spent a thousand pounds on flowers, froze them in liquid nitrogen and then blew them up, using a high speed camera to capture the footage. I think that this really was a bit of a waste to some nice flowers, and the images really weren't great in my opinion. It was for a company called Resonate.
Next up was a company called The Milton Agency which commissioned Magpie Studio to create a brand logo for them. The Milton Agency is a company that works alongside the stars of Hollywood providing make up and costumes. The simple star design shows that while the stars of Hollywood are in the foreground, the M, cleverly placed in the negative space of the stars shows the Milton Agency are always in the background. A very clever and simple, and fun design
The company Harrison & Co were the final to be shown. They had been commissioned by the Orchestra of age and enlightenment to highlight what the orchestra was about, and specifically the characters that made up the orchestra itself. By using a simple, but engaging design and some colorful tape you can really pick out the music and the individual personalities.
Finally, Angus showed us two examples of work he enjoyed by students. The first was by a man called Sam Grey who studied at Plymouth University. His bright posters were designed to highlight the issues of vertigo, and how a sufferer feels like the earth is spinning. The second was by Alan Clarke who studied at Falmouth university and used the concept of movement to design a series of posters surrounding the Olympics. He promoted them through his blog and had a surprising and positive response, I think both are very good, solid pieces of work.
So that was the end of day one. Considering neither of these lectures really stood out to me, I have said a lot! I learned that you have to market yourself professionally if you want people in the industry to take you seriously, and that Shakespeare was a fraud and a thief but made himself a fortune. I'm not sure if that's the right message to portray really, but I understand it from the angle that he was also a man who made the most of what he could in a time when he really had no other choice and stole in order to escape bankruptcy.
Coming up...day two!
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