digbeth

Caroline Archer is a Partner in UKType (www.uktype.com) and blogs here about this year’s Plus International Design Festival exhibition, part-sponsored by media partner 4Talent.

Plus International Design Festival

There’s not much to queue for on River Street, especially in November, but for four days last week cars were doubled parked, coaches arrived in convoy and expectant delegates lined the pavement outside the newly opened Fazeley Studios. They’d traveled to Eastside from across Europe and the Middle East, from London and around the UK and had even found their way from far-flung corners of Deritend. River Street sprang to life.
The reason for this influx was the Plus International Design Festival, which had returned to Birmingham for its third year.
This year the exhibitions were disparate and unconventional. Agencies and freelancers exhibited work that was unproven and untried. Two of my favourite pieces included Shanghai-based WOKmedia who showed Between Lines, a three dimensional, flexible typographic ‘bookshelf’; whilst type designer, Timothy Donaldson produced Plus non-Plus: a vast canvas covered in letters so large they had to be formed by the whole body with the assistance of scaffolding. Alongside established exhibitors such as Clusta and Fluid was Smile a trio of exciting young newcomers to the local design scene who are definitely ones to watch for in the future.
The lecture series is always the jewel-in-the-crown of Plus. This year an international line-up of speakers - both known and unknown - held the audience over three days during which time they delivered a series of informative and inspiring talks. In particular Jonathan Barnbrook commanded an audience that would have been the envy of the Guillemots and which roused as much passion.
However, the Festival was not simply about watching and listening - it was also about doing, and there were plenty of workshops to keep the visitors entertained, and the ever popular walking tours ran to capacity as visitors explored the typographic complexity of Birmingham’s urban environment under the able guidance of local historian, Ben Waddington.
But what was the purpose of all this activity?
Plus is not about acquiring clients or pecuniary gain: it had a more significant and richer purpose than simple commercialism. To this end, it was edifying to seeing a stone carver from Devon, chatting with the creative director from a London agency who was talking a young graduate from BCU who had engaged the attention of an eminent type designer. This, in microcosm, was what Plus is about: the great and the good mixing with the great unknown in parity.

Contributor Ian Ravenscroft blogs from the 4Talent stage at Gigbeth festival on the 8th November and would like to note he was not paid to say all the nice things he says here.

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Exchanging indie haircut bands for an eclectic line-up of unknowns is a brave move for an up-and-coming festival. I went to find out if the gamble paid off on the 4Talent stage at Birmingham’s Gigbeth festival.

Thingamagoop has a new friend.

Photo c. Pete Ashton

Following a hectic Friday night with Hot Monocles after they raucously opened Gigbeth’s unsigned bands stage, I made my way once again to the Dragon Bar at the Barfly to check out the eclectically-assembled 4Talent stage. Exciting, innovative acts were the name of the game and in the event the billing did not disappoint.

As I entered the room I was greeted by Pete Ashton’s bleeping, blooping, buzzing boxes, also known as the Film Dash-winning Thingamagoop and new addition, Thingamakit, tentatively named King Tubby. Confused? Let me explain…

Pete’s hi-tech toys are light-sensitive synthesizers, which he manipulates using the bots’ built-in light stalks, an ingenious LED glove and any source of light within reach. The result being a cacophony of piercingly ambient electronic bleeps and bloops, which visitors to the stage found equally intriguing and inexplicable, especially once given an opportunity to have a go themselves.

After all that frantic commotion, the unassuming Rich Batsford settled into his seat to sooth our bleeping brains with his emotive classical piano compositions. Playing to a crowd of incredibly-attentive leather-clad metal fans added a hint of the surreal to his set of hypnotic melodies and powerful, booming chords, but this could not distract from the calibre of his musicianship. A brave choice for a festival crowd maybe, but a worthy stage for such artistic talent.

The act that really marked out the eclectic nature of the evening however, was 4Talent award winner, Iain Woods & The Psychologist. Melding grimy hip-hop beats with soaring gospel and soul vocals and strings, Iain strutted provocatively into his first gig with the group - which included a DJ, two violinists and live painted visuals - with ease, trying in vain to disguise his sheer excitement. His stage persona may split opinions in the wider world, but his raw enthusiasm and originality will surely gain many admirers.

Dancing of the night goes to The Keyboard Choir, whose enthusiastic lead key-basher pioneered some ingenious leg-bending moves, twisting and turning to keep his Casio firmly planted through the group’s synthesised hip-hop tinged epics. At times I felt like I was peering in on a team of prog-scientists trying to crack some musical cypher as their conductor fought to maintain control of the chaotic, frenzied fingers of his team.

Finally, Einstellung took to the stage purposefully, arming themselves with weapons of guitars, bass, amps and drums. And what an assault we were in for. Starting off with an upbeat two-chord progression, the Krautrock five-piece built and built the volume and distortion to a wall of crashing noise and pounding rhythm, layering screaming slide guitar and crunching riffs to create a scorching, tumultuous soundscape. One track, two chords, and half an hour later, I felt like asking the band politely for my eardrums back, but I fear it may have been too late.

As 4Talent stage curator Catherine Bray admitted, it would have been very easy to populate this stage with safe, carbon-copy indie bands, which would have been an easier sell. But in the end, artistic innovation won a minor victory that night in the tiny Dragon Bar.