Kevin Sinclair - Product design, retaining talent and championing small scale creative practice

Kevin is a 4th year product design student with a real understanding of aesthetic and form. During the episode we talk about what Kevin’s plans for the future post graduation. Basically he wants to stay if he can. Meaning if there are the right conditions to support his own product design practice or an attractive enough position at a company. Again and again this issue comes up of the reluctant leavers. We need to have a creative infrastructure that allows graduates to start their own businesses and then sustain them. This is all outlined in Dundee’s Creative Industries Strategy. It launched last week and if you haven’t read it, go do it now. http://dundeecreates.com It’s an amazing piece of work facilitated by creative Dundee. They created the strategy through a series of focus groups and discussions with creatives in the city and industry stakeholders. The outcome is a strategy with clear goals, directions and aims that are actionable. Back to the episode though: Kevin gives a very honest account of his time so far at DJCAD. He goes into the difficulties of collaborating and sharing knowledge/resources internally. His ‘Crit Cafe’ is a brilliant way of addressing this. Bringing together students from all disciplines at the art school to give feedback on unfitted pieces of work. I even think that this concept would work really well with the wider creative community. Critiquing and getting feedback are definitely things we should be striving to do more of. One of the most poignant things that Kevin said was about Dundee and our outlook as to what it should become. We should try to compete with Edinburgh or Glasgow. We should be championing what Dundee is great at as a small city with low living costs and a cohesive driven creative community. Let’s become a city that attracts people to start their practice here. Where we champion the independents and have an environment that helps them flourish. 'I don't know what I am' letterpress print - https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/553308764/i-dont-know-what-i-am-letterpress-print?ref=shop_home_active_1 Product Design at DJCAD: https://www.dundee.ac.uk/study/ug/product-design/ Kevin’s twitter - https://twitter.com/KevSink Kevin’s Website - http://kevinsinclairphoto.co.uk/blog/ Trakke - http://trakke.co.uk/ Instrmnt - https://www.instrmnt.co.uk/ Kevin’s lamp - https://www.instagram.com/p/BVmT0p8lyMb/?taken-by=kevsink Bird and Bear bar (link to show some of the branding work) - https://www.creativegraffix.co.uk/case-study-bird-bear Sir Kenneth Grange - https://www.anglepoise.com/designers/sir-kenneth-grange Podcast recommendation #07 - Weird Work - https://www.hubspot.com/weird-work-podcast