Glug Bristol brings together best creatives in Bristol

Glug Bristol brings together creative professionals in Bristol to showcase great work, share experiences and meet like-minded people. Every event features talks from local creatives, agencies, startups and exciting up-and-coming talent. It also includes plenty of time for relaxed networking. Last month’s event, the second Glug Bristol gathering was completely sold-out.

With creative minds such as: Sean Buchan of digital marketing agency If Not Now, Ursula Hutchinson of creative agency Konichiwa and Gavin Strange from Aardman Animations gathered together to talk all things tech and business, creative professionals in Bristol were certainly in for a treat. The theme was ‘doing things differently’ with talks focusing on unusual projects and the importance of approaching work from different angles.

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Good friends of Glug Bristol, Microsoft Surface, were there showcasing their latest new tech and challenging creatives to get stuck in and design a letter of the alphabet. They were also on hand to give out free drinks which were welcomed by attendees! Sean Buchan started on a political note running through campaigns his agency has worked on and the importance of allowing influencers to have creative control when asking them to get involved in new campaigns. Through digital activism, Sean and his team have managed to steal headlines and make politics more accessible. For full campaign creatives, check out #Inforthis and #shevotes.

 

We’re SO very proud to be working with @she.votes – a campaign empowering young women to vote in the General Election. After finding out that women under 30 are the least likely groups to vote, the #SHEvotes team wanted to do something about it. #SHEvotes has attracted support from designers, comedians, TV personalities and musicians urging women to make their voice heard on June 8th. And yes, that is the hashtag made out of doughnuts you can see (great effort @vickysdonuts)?? • • • • #Digitalmarketing #socialmedia #digitalcampaign #bristol #politics #politicalcampaign #voting #vote

A post shared by If Not Now Digital (@ifnotnowdigital) on Jun 8, 2017 at 12:12pm PDT

From making politics creative, to working with businesses with purpose beyond profit, the team at Konichiwa shared a few campaigns that captured the essence of community spirit. They explained how they work with business owners to amplify the narrative of their brand through creativity. One key tip Ursula Hutchinson, founder of Konichiwa shared with creatives working to tight briefs was to “keep ideas open but agile, any idea is valid until it’s explored.” Check out some of the creative campaigns the team have delivered using #NotJustAGift and #ACTLOCAL.

 

? RT to win a hamper with gifts from all the featured businesses#NotJustAGift allows your Christmas gifts to go further when supporting independent businesses. We’ve partnered with @GoodSixty to bring together 9 of Bristol’s independents, who tell us why… pic.twitter.com/bORmmEWlDH

— Konichiwa (@konichiwa_pr) November 28, 2017

After a quick beer break, Andy and Mark, creative partners at digital art and design studio Kuva showed how technology is evolving and its impact on creativity. They talked about how algorithms interact with creative content and predicted that artificial intelligence and machine learning will soon challenge everything we’ve ever known, including the authenticity of the creative industry.

“When you can see how far you can push yourself, it opens a whole new spectrum of possibilities,” – Gavin Strange, creative director at Aardman Animation.

Their presentation certainly made us all think about technology and its influence on authenticity. For example, if technology is learning 30 frames a second and can produce art in milliseconds, are we moving into a post-authentic era? And if we can appreciate the work of an artist – the time it takes for them to create something and the social, political and economic context that influenced their creativity – how do we then value the work that robots produce?

 

Great night last night with the @glug @GlugBristol guys. Thanks for having us. Great chats with @TheSeanBuchan & @JamFactory! Here’s the last two slides we didn’t get to but thought Creepachu was worth a share. pic.twitter.com/2UiGJIigKw

— Kuva (@wearekuva) June 8, 2018

 

Gavin Strange delivered a stunning presentation that was everything and more we would expect from the creative director of Aardman Animations. He touched on the fact that some 40 years’ ago, Aardman Animations was a startup itself, a very inspiring, real life example of how a dynamic small business can develop, grow and thrive. Gavin also talked about ‘passion projects’ – creative pursuits that you achieve in your own personal time.

A little throwback to the start of the year… my @FITC title sequence on all 9 screens in the amazing Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam! Watch a cutdown of the film here on the @aardman site >> https://t.co/Zt0v2UahPf or watch them in full 360° here! https://t.co/5o7LBqLgLz pic.twitter.com/XNtiA6Nqc8

— Gavin Strange (@JamFactory) June 29, 2018

The slides whizzed by with animation after animation of Gavin’s creative passion projects that he completes in between his day job. A typical day sees him start at 5am, giving him three hours to work on things he loves before breakfast.  “When you can see how far you can push yourself, it opens a whole new spectrum of possibilities,” explains Gavin. His talk made us all very quickly realise that everyone gets the same number of hours in the day, it’s just how you choose to use them that differs. The Glug Club is hosted in 35 cities around the world and we can’t quite believe it’s only this year we have had the pleasure of accessing expertise from some of the most inspiring creative minds Bristol has to offer. Thanks to Keri Hudson for pulling it all together!

With the creative industry booming in Bristol, we also attended a great event hosted by the  Creative Industries Federation about how Bristol talent can make their mark around the globe.