FortyTwo Studio – 2018 - A year of involvement

So we’re all back from a couple of weeks down time and looking forward to what 2019 has in store for us. But first we want to reflect on what has been quite a year for Team FortyTwo. 2018 was an incredible year full of amazing collaborations, clients and comrades.

A year of growth certainly but more than anything it was a year where ‘getting involved’ was the key to so much of what we’ve been involved with and that has helped us develop and improve. Here’s a few of the highlights:

2018 in 42 seconds

The work above would not be possible without real collaboration including, amongst many others:

Invest in grassroots

Our placement programme continued with both University and Secondary school placements, but we upped the ante this year. In addition, we also provided two ‘best in show’ awards for both North East Scotland College and Gray's School of Art end of year shows.

It's great to support the next generation with placements, commissions and the tools they need to get stuck into this very competitive market.

GDFS FTW

It was an honour to be invited by James, Beth and the team at GDFS to mentor one of their live projects. In a very short space of time, GDFS has established itself as one of the best design festivals in the UK so to be asked to contribute at the same event as some of the Scotland's and indeed the world’s greatest designers (Hello David Carson!) was incredible.

The extra sweetener was that one of our live project students won the audience award - go Ethan! Edinburgh College of Art Student, Ethan will be joining us in the summer as part of our 2019 placement scheme.

Giving it all away

Through our involvement in various mentoring schemes and by talking at a number of events, we've been fortunate to share our insight and experience. This alongside being a sounding board to kindred spirits has been a very fulfilling commitment of ours.

Through such organisations as Elevator, The Scottish Chamber of Commerce, Dundee Chamber of Commerce, Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, Aberdeen Entrepreneurs and RGU we've been delighted to get involved and lend an ear where needed.

We believe deeply that having people from different backgrounds you can talk to on a variety of topics is an essential part of anyone's development regardless of your own experience. It is something we still rely on ourselves to this day and have a number of our own mentors we talk to and bounce ideas off.

By getting involved in this way, we are also sharpening our own tools which adds additional value to FortyTwo and the team. Getting involved and building a network in such a mutually beneficial manner can only be positive for you and your business.

The new narrative

We all know that Aberdeen and the wider region has been actively looking for new ways to talk about who we are so as to influence what people say about us. This renaissance is of particular interest to us as we grow our business and work across a number of developing sectors, primed to take advantage of this new story.

If your ‘brand’ is what people say about you when you are not in the room, how can we influence what others think of us? We have actively put ourselves at the centre of this question through both our mentoring/talking collaborations with local organisations and a growing list of Aberdeen City Region projects and clients who are at the forefront of carving this new narrative including TECA, VisitAberdeenshire, Cairngorms National Park, ONE, RGU and numerous others.

So, what about 2019?

We’re going to stay involved. We’ve a few plans in place that we’ll share soon but in the meantime if you are looking to get involved yourself, give us a shout - we are always on lookout for some new exciting ideas of how we can make the industry and region stronger.

Change is made by those who turn up, so go do it.