Designs on the North East

May 22 2009 The Journal

CREATIVITY IS ON THE FRONT LINE OF THE REGION’S ECONOMIC REVIVAL. ALASTAIR GILMOUR MEETS A MULTI-DISCIPLINED DESIGNER

AN infatuation with the ampersand is proving to be a profitable occupation. The &-shaped character – along with the rest of the alphabet – dominates one North East designer’s collaborations with artists of every discipline.

Colin Hagan, a Newcastle-based graphic designer, works with sculptors, poets, printmakers and webmasters, all of whom produce a range of work that he knows from experience is the equal of – and often better than – anything produced in London, the traditional bolt-hole of fellow creatives.

The North East supports talent that is worth £800m to the economy thanks to those who decided that the region was second to none in their particular field and have no intention of leaving.

“I went to college here – Newcastle Polytechnic – and have never lived anywhere else,” says Colin. “I did work placements in London and a lot of students were encouraged to go and work there. I graduated in 1994 and realised I could do all the design work I wanted to do here.

“London is just an e-mail away now. Designers there are no better than designers here; I’ve worked with them, it’s a perception that they’re better. Good designers here are doing international work; there’s no need for a drain of talent from the region. Plus, when you think about it, it’s only an hour to the Cheviots and the coast is only down the road.”

Colin’s work leans towards typography in its structure – hence the &connection which has developed into a range of “objects” shown at the gallery of the 36 Lime Street studios in the Ouseburn Valley where he runs Northern Design.

“The ampersands are made out of various materials – glass, wood and metal,” he says. “You can place a wine glass or something like that on the upturned end and it looks like a waiter with a tray. At the gallery opening we even had one made out of cheese so people could just hack chunks off.

“Newcastle has a very high standard of design. A few years ago all my work came from London from a point-ofsale marketing company. I had hooked up with another designer called KevinMcCulloch who I was at college with, then a third designer got involved. We did work for Hewlett Packard throughout Europe for about three years North East and for Orange in Europe, Australia and China. We also did work for Marks & Spencer, Royal Sun Alliance and Samsung.

“The guy running the company – ex-Saatchi & Saatchi – liaised with the client then briefed us andwe’d do all the design work here. Before the days of e-mail we’d send disks on a train. Later we’d e-mail pdfs which he would print out, then he’d fly to Geneva or wherever and e-mail us with any amendments which we’d do overnight for him to represent in the morning. The three of us were working separately like a virtual studio and we developed that way of working until we had about ten designers.

“Our client was charging his clients a rate about half of what he’d get charged in London, but we were also doing very nicely, thank-you-very-much. We did that for seven years – three-and-a-half of them we worked every single weekend. He’s retired now, a millionaire.”