Would you like to see a Creative Marketplace in Digbeth / Eastside?

The East Birmingham & North Solihull Regeneration Zone (ebns Ltd) with our funders Advantage West Midlands have been investing in the development of Digbeth and Eastside as a Learning and Leisure Quarter and a centre for the creative industries, particularly the digital media sector. We have worked with a range of partners including Birmingham City Council, the Custard Factory, the Bond, Vivid, Groundwork, the Learning & Skills Council and others to develop a range of projects, create new workspace and provide new learning opportunities. One of the project ideas now under discussion is the establishment of a Creative Marketplace, and we would like your input to help decide whether there is the demand for this, and if so what it should be.We therefore want to take this opportunity to canvass your views.

We would welcome your responses to the following questions as an addition to the Plus+ festival blog:

Would you like to see a Creative Marketplace in Digbeth / Eastside?

Click here to take the survey

Plus+ Touring the city with the Walking Tours

Visit the 2008 Plus International Design Festival and join one of our walking tours exploring the typographic complexity of Birmingham’s urban environment – they are a great way to see this familiar city from a new perspective. Tours run throughout the Festival and are aimed at both practitioners and students of design, local historians and visitors. The walks look at a variety of typographic forms that can be found in the street and are conducted by an experienced and informative guide with both local knowledge and typographic understanding.

Our guide is Ben Waddington, a Birmingham-based historian with an especial interest in architecture, industrial history and typography. His guided tours for this year’s Plus festival will include the evergreen John Baskerville tour, which follows the story of the innovative C18th Birmingham printer. He will also conduct a Type Tour of the City Centre and beyond, which will explore the use of lettering on buildings, public art, mosaics, signs, plaques and ephemeral vestiges of the past.

Digbeth Type Tour: Exploring use of typography and handwritten letterforms in industrial Digbeth side streets. The area's history revealed through its use of type.

Baskerville's Birmingham: the history of Birmingham's most famous typographer, John Baskerville (1706 - 1775). Artifacts, locations and type specimens associated with Baskerville will be visited, around Birmingham City Centre.

Blue Plaques tour: The history of Birmingham and of the Blue Plaque itself: changing and improving designs, layouts, type use &c. The tour also covers plaques other than Blue; many forms of wall mounted commemorative texts around the City Centre.

City Type Tour: Birmingham history as shown through its typography. Civil, monumental and commercial use of typeforms will be explored in Birmingham City Centre.

For Walking Tours bookings please email Magda at info@youplusus.net.

Timetable

5/11/2008 WEDNESDAY
12:00 - 13:30 1. Digbeth Type Tour

Meeting Point: Festival Reception

6/11/2008 THURSDAY
12:00 - 13:30 2. Digbeth Type Tour

Meeting Point: Festival Reception
14:30 - 16:00 3. Baskerville's Type Tour

Meeting Point: Baskerville House, Broad Street, B1

7/11/2008 FRIDAY
12:00 - 13:30 4. Digbeth Type Tour

Meeting Point: Festival Reception
14:30 - 16:00 5. Blue Plaques Tour

Meeting Point: Baskerville House, Broad Street, B1

8/11/2008 SATURDAY
12:00 - 13:30 6. City Type Tour

Meeting Point: Baskerville House, Broad Street, B1

One-day ticket £15.00 (£10.00 concessions) Full-Festival ticket £40.00 (£25.00 concessions) Discounts available on groups of 10 or more.

For more information visit http://www.youplusus.net/.

Bookings for the Festival are now open and can be made online.