Last night at the Northern Design Awards, I had the pleasure of being joined at MY table by the lovely Ricky Wilson, (apparently a well known singer in a music band, although he looked more like an ex art student to my mind) and delightful Tim Blackwell a fabulous film maker, who, for some reason seemed vaguely familiar to me. I wasn’t really the host, that was Alice Morgan, the head of Graphic Arts & Design at Leeds Met University. (Thanks Alice as the event was really one of the hardest to get a seat at so far in my blagging life) I should also mention that Nicola, Andy, Pippa, Frank, and two Chris’s were very charming company!
The event took place in the new Rose Bowl building which was jam packed to the gills with loads of cool specs, sharp suits & spiked heels.
In my new self appointed role as a ‘blogger journo’ I took out my Mont Blanc fountain pen and Moleskine Sketchbook and hastily scribbled down the winners, sponsors & funny quotes. Although this obviously impressed the guys at the table no end, although it was all ultimately pointless as we were all furnished with a brochure containing all the winners info.

As usual there was loads to see in the exhibition and we were detained by people wanting to grin and grip so we are glad to see that it will be moving onto Shine in Harehills for a much longer spell.

Here are a couple of highlights
Sponsors Thompson Brand Partners created a new prize called RealWorld Prize which went to Jamie Shek and his team at the University of Dundee, for iGiveADamn We liked the look of this innovative web based service which aims to make it easy for Charities to publish their content onto a range of digital technologies such as mobile phones, social networks and desktop widgets! They have a bright future

Photographer Emily Dick from the University of Leeds won both the photography category and the overall ‘Maurice Miller Northern Design Champion Award’ for ‘Oh I do like to be beside the seaside’ (Clarence Pier)

Finally in the other new category ‘Young Northern Designer’ we enjoyed the wit of Jacob Holt from Blackburn College with his Alan Bennett inspired theatre posters

So get yourself along to shine to enjoy the exhibition and support young Northern Talent

PS Said Ricky Wilson graced our first traveling Moleskine with a eccentric doodle before passing it to the lovely Tim, where will it go next? More on what this means by clicking here