D&AD New Blood moves to East End

D&AD’s graduate event New Blood will move from Olympia in west London to east London’s Old Truman Brewery next year, taking up a week of graduate show Free Range. The move is part of a ‘radical transformation’ that will see the show focus more on networking, the organisation claims.

D&AD says it hopes to organise satellite events and work experience opportunities for graduates with local design groups, as the Old Truman Brewery is in the middle of the UK’s digital design community.

D&AD senior manager education and professional development Rhiannon James says, ‘This is an entirely new element for New Blood, and we encourage groups in the area to get in touch with ideas for workshops and other events for young professionals.’

She insists New Blood will not have a purely digital bent next year, claiming that the show will cover all disciplines represented at the network of about 100 universities and colleges that exhibits their graduates’ work at New Blood.

Free Range founder Tamsin O’Hanlon invited D&AD to partner it for the fourth week of her show, which runs over eight weeks.

The move to the Old Truman Brewery – where New Blood held its first show in 2000 – will reduce D&AD’s overheads for hosting the fair. While James admits that ‘at this point in time finances are a consideration’, she claims that saving money was ‘not the motivation’.

‘People really enjoyed Billingsgate Market [in 2004- 2007] as a venue for New Blood, and we think that the Old Truman Brewery will recapture some of that atmosphere,’ says James.

To compensate for the fact that the space at the brewery is about a third the size of New Blood’s previous venue at Olympia (pictured), the event will run over five days, instead of two.

D&AD will once again be working with Shell Suit Zombie on a programme of education activities within the show, although it is ‘too early’ for details to have been finalised. Likewise, D&AD is unable to confirm its list of speakers.

However, James says, ‘This year will be far more interactive, so we won’t be having lectures by people speaking at groups of students.’

D&AD hopes to achieve ‘at least’ as many as the 8000 visitors it claims to have attracted to last year’s show at Olympia’s National Hall.

D&AD is in talks with an unnamed group to design branding for next year’s event, which takes place from 24-29 June.