‘Laura (pictured right) has been with us for a while but we now have four sixth form students from Bingley Grammar who we will be looking to support, mentor and develop over the coming months and even years. Ben Mortimor, on the left is half way through is A levels and has applied to go to Craven College to do a 0ne year foundation.

‘Ben and the other three Lewis, Sam and Andy, who are a year lower below, show great potential.’ The team at Creative are looking forward to helping them achieve success with careers in the creative industries.

Creative and Marketing’s Daniel Belcher said; ‘Nurture North is about giving young talent the chance to experience a working studio environment while providing mentoring and support. Our aim is to help shape their future careers. We have a rich vein of talent in the region and we want to promote and develop that.

‘We have expanded our current studio space and invested in new kit to provide this unique opportunity for future designers’.

One of their current interns, Emma Denniss, has won a prestigious Labour Party Conference sponsored award. Emma, 23, who has a first class honours degree in Art and an MA in Documentary Filmmaking, she was crowed the winner of the Apprenticeship Award by a panel of judges at an event hosted up by Eddie Izzard. The award is designed to give young people the opportunity to gain work experience in their chosen field where they will have two weeks paid placement.

‘It is no surprise to us that Emma won, commented Daniel – she is a talented young person who has an infectious personality. Her work has a gritty realism – she uses film to highlight how economic and social difficulties affecting local people. It’s unique piece and she clearly has a raw talent. Another of our interns, Laura Procter, has demonstrated some key skills and we are working on helping her improve her craft, she is also currently undertaking a photography course at Craven College.’

Creative is on the lookout for young ‘creatives’ wanting to find a career in the world of design. If you are at school or just finished a degree, Nurture North could just provide that stepping stone towards a future career.

Pictured are the Creative team, including Stella the dog, along with new intern Laura Procter.

Our intern Emma Denniss has won a apprenticeship competition at the Labour Party Conference after successfully presenting her showreel, with a short speech. Judges including Eddie Izzard – where no doubt mighty impressed by Emma’s self effacing style and disarming narrative. ‘Details are sketchy as an excited Emma has just text us with the news, but we are all proud and overjoyed, she works hard and has bags of personality and talent’ commented Creative’s Daniel Belcher. More information to follow…

Creative’s Daniel Belcher commented ‘We enjoyed the project an the results are a stylish, eyec-catching piece’ which is currently in print production. ‘UAK continue to have a forwarding thinking approach to marketing and promoting the Academy.’

‘We responded by helping her build a website, layout a CV and progress what we at Creative called ‘brand Emma’, she is certainly a talented girl and has a potential placement with a leading film production company, which will be just reward for her hard work and persistence’  said Creative’s Daniel Belcher. We especially love doing the photo shoot – which was all her idea and a great way to capture attention.’ Big things beckon for our Emma.

See more of Emma’s world at her new website www.emmadenniss.co.uk.

The web team is headed by Richard Ware (pictured with Daniel) who’s skills and expertise not only lie in design, but also the highly technical side of coding and development. ‘As a business we are looking to become specialists in our field, with interest for our web based services continuing to come in, we are on the lookout for talented people to further enhance our skill set’. Next up is an app for Creative themselves and a design project for University Academy Keighley.

As a follow on Creative landed lead story in the business section of regional newspapers – Yorkshire Post and Telegraph and Argus, click her to read more. There is no escape!

‘This will nearly double our floor space and mean we can expand our operation with a few fresh faces’. Creative is on the lookout for a Web based design with some coding capability and also an additional freelancer. ‘While our overall approach still needs to be caution, the business has moved forward in the right direction since the new year, we have picked up several new clients and our plans are to be the design company of recognition in the area, and hopefully beyond.’

The Foundation has seen some of its work have a dramatic effect on the lives of some young people and the key goal is to spread the work from the street and into the home. ‘If parents also are engaged in the process, then the programmes of the Foundation will see greater success’ remarked Dean Muir, who’s role is Foundation Manager.

Creative developed the brand for the Foundation and will provide marketing support and help spread the word.

The Design Council report into how things are shaping up in the Creative Industries proves interesting reading. Other than some statistics on the demographic profile of designers, it points to a robust market place and supports the theory that business needs to more proactively engage with design and marketing companies to help pull them out of ‘difficult times’.

While the design business is not immune to the impact of the downturn, their is data to suggest that the recession has not been as damaging as in other sectors.

If you want to read more, you can download the full document, simply by clicking here.