University News Last updated 28 March 2012
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 to be held 15 to 22 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 on-going 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.