| Despite signs that the UK economy is heading towards a crippling recession, it’s important to remember that we’re also living through a period of tantalising and unprecedented opportunity. The availability of cheap, digital technology and fast Internet access has empowered the innovative and enterprising like never before, and nowhere is this more evident than in Britain’s creative industries, where the level of upheaval in the past few years in the face of digitisation has been, and continues to be, seismic.
In issue seven, we investigate how these changes are being manifested in an industry sector that employs close to two million people and accounts for a whopping 7.3% of the UK’s GDP. We look at how the London-based web publication WGSN dominates the global fashion industry, interview seven of the most groundbreaking young creative minds from around Britain, and learn how aspiring film directors are rendering gatekeeper film distributors obsolete through their use of crowdsourcing, online alternative reality gaming and Google maps.
Alistair Harper profiles Alex Evans, the genius behind one of the biggest UK indie computer game launches of recent years; and perhaps most controversial of all, we report from the inside on how brands are increasingly abandoning traditional advertiser-funded business models to become direct patrons of culture, or even create it themselves. Is this the future of advertising, and if so, does popular culture now exist in an ethical universe where absolutely anything goes and everything is up for sale?
Find out and join us, as we enter the creative industries… |
