Birmingham
– the original design city – joins force with design guru to celebrate its successes
Design and brand guru, Alasdhair
Willis –
who recently designed a high profile campaign for David Beckham - has backed an
ambitious initiative to showcase a selection of iconic designs created in
Birmingham.
IDEA Birmingham – the
business think tank led by Birmingham City University – has brought together a
group of influential business leaders to promote great brands and products
using the campaign theme, ‘Birmingham Made Me – The Original Design City’.
The ‘Birmingham Made Me’
initiative is set to be unveiled in the first week of April with an
eye-catching, city-wide poster campaign promoting products made in Birmingham
and the region. Almost 200 sites have been earmarked to promote the Design EXPO
and Awards due t be held 15th-22nd June, at The Mailbox,
Birmingham.
The
campaign concept, messaging and design have been created by Alasdhair Willis, the man behind the campaign for David
Beckham's new Bodywear range. He works with a number of other high profile
clients - as lead global consultant for the Adidas brand, including London
2012, and as creative consultant to Christies auction house, Alfred Dunhill and
David Beckham. More recently, he has been working in collaboration with Jaguar
Land Rover.
The
Birmingham Made Me campaign showcases world-beating innovations from the
Midlands which has produced designs such as the Land Rover Defender, AGA Range
cooker, Pashley Clubman bicycle and Brooks England saddles together with ground-breaking new
hybrid supercar concept, the Jaguar C-X75, named the Most Significant Concept
Vehicle in Detroit 2011, having been recognised as one of the vehicles most
likely to shape the future of automotive industry.
“These,
and a great deal more, will be on view at Birmingham’s first design EXPO in
well over 100 years,” said Beverley Nielsen, Director Employer Engagement at
Birmingham City University.
The
summer EXPO, explained Beverley, due to be held at Mailbox, the premier
shopping centre in Birmingham, from June 15 to 22, is being organised by IDEA
Birmingham founder members with the support of the Mailbox.
Willis,
husband of Stella McCartney, has
been supporting the work of Beverley Nielsen and colleagues at Birmingham City
University, together with Stuart Kendall, strategy partner at Cogent Elliott,
one of the largest advertising agencies outside London.
The IDEA Birmingham think tank group includes
business leaders such as Ian Callum, director of design at Jaguar, who is the
Founder Chairman, William McGrath, Group Chief Executive at AGA Rangemaster,
Glenn Howells of Glenn Howells Architects, Adrian Williams, Managing Director
of Pashley Cycles, Charles Morgan of Morgan Motor Company, Steven Green, of
Brooks England, Emma Bridgewater of Emma Bridgewater, other key Midlands brand
leaders and Aston University.
The campaign has the support of Birmingham City
Council and JCDecaux to promote the message, which is aimed at challenging
perceptions about Birmingham and its ongoing design achievements.
Willis,
founder publisher of Wallpaper magazine, is now running his own
creative and brand agencies Announcement Creative and The Anonymous Partner.
Stuart Kendall said: “It has been tremendous to
work with Alasdhair and his team at Announcement Creative on the Birmingham
Made Me campaign. We are so lucky
that he has invested this time and energy into developing this focussed and
beautifully-executed campaign.
“We need to accelerate our joint efforts to drive
more business success and growth through increased collaboration.
Targeting international markets, opening up new partnerships between business
and education, focussing business into new opportunities for knowledge transfer
with our great university institutions and gaining a greater reputation for our
design excellence can make great strides in moving our region forward.”
Willis is
expected to play an important role in raising Birmingham’s design profile
through the campaign and be
beneficial to IDEA Birmingham and the City’s large student population.
