We’ve just delivered what was hopefully an interesting lecture at Bradford College. The major topics covered included collaboration, tools of the trade and embracing failure.

Throughout our design education we’ve been left bewildered by many a guest lecturers speech, in most cases this is because the person talking was completely out of touch with the audience. An hour of hearing about the unbridled success of an individual can be inspiring, if delivered with a good dose of humour. But on most occasions we’ve been unable to fill in the gaps between the good times and the more good times. So Grant Midwinter took the opportunity to reverse years of pent up heckling and took the stage to talk about the not so good times.

Failure is always more interesting than success (this is how newspapers survive!) so the lecture allowed Grant Midwinter to dig out those college projects that didn’t quite make it into a portfolio, highlight the wrong turns in our decision making and warn tomorrows creative workforce about the perils of recruitment consultants. As designers, should we be more open about the projects that helped define us for better or worse?

Well the art world is not so shy and if you’re wondering where do all those unloved projects go? One of our favourite artist Michael Landy’s ‘art bin’ installation at the South London Gallery is the place to see those polished turds shine.

There may well be a need for a digital art bin and it would be an interesting experiment to see if designers would be brave enough to put their name next to their failures. Would you?

Here is a peek at the Wonderwall brochure we created for Leeds Museums and Galleries. More photos soon!

I spent some time in Berlin this year and meet up with Fabian at Urban Gallery Store just before it launched. The Urban Gallery Store No.2 is a temporary gallery / clothing store not too dissimilar to our friends at www.paper-scissor-stone.co.uk here in Leeds.

The crew at Urban Gallery Store threw an awesome opening event at the store (pictured above). With the record label Gomma manning the wheels of steal and with 500 people in 40 square meters, you know it was a ton’o fun

Berlin has for quite some time been the bohemian capital of Europe and undplus the creators of the Urban Gallery Store have worked with some of the cities biggest names to promote good design and upcoming artists

Look out for Urban Gallery/ Grant Midwinter collborations soon.

We’ve been invited to attend Picnic 09! We’re really excited to have the opportunity to attend one of the best cross-discipline conferences in Europe.

Picnic is a ‘Cross-discipline platform for creative conversation and collaboration. It’s a unique festival featuring a strategic conference, complimented by hands-on workshops and matchmaking sessions.’

The line up is pretty mean, we’re especially looking forward to the talk from games guru Peter Molyneux. This is the man responsible for the tens of hours we put into playing Fable. Luckily we kept track of the time we spent playing the game and now we’ll have the opportunity to bill him for lost productivity.

look out for tweets and pic very soon

It’s a well known fact that all designers have bad eyesight. All those long hours in front of a dark screen in damp atmospheric conditions with nothing more than a mug of coffee to call your friend, add up. With this in mind we decided to launch a site dedicated to one of our favourite subject here at the Grant Midwinter HQ.

Glasses. Not just any old spectacles mind you ohhh no, we have style! So much so infact that we’ve had the backing of many top designers in our efforts to create our journal dedicated to classic eye wear Retrospectd.

You lucky pups get a sneeky sneeky preview at our latest venture here Retrospectd. Lets us know your thoughts as the site is still in beta and the official launch isn’t for a few weeks. If you have good ideas they may make an appearance on the site so please get in touch!

Yes, Grant Midwinter was stirring it up at the Btween 09 digital conference last month. There where some very good talks held on the future of digital media, stand out sessions include ‘The Case Against Advertising’ with Jonathan Macdonald and Steve Taylor of Aegis (more of which later) and ‘Alchemy, Chemistry and Collaboration’ held by Jeremy Ettinghausen of Penguin and Tom Thirlwall of MWorks.