Bright young Brits

With all the Royal Wedding hoo-hah, the 60th Anniversary of the Festival of Britain and the run up to the Olympics, 2011 looks set to be a year for all things patriotic.

Thankfully, this Britishness looks to be extending beyond the increasingly excitable pages of The Telegraph and into the hands of creatives across the UK, helped along the way by the Bright Young Brits initiative.

Bright Young Brits was founded by Lucy Johnston, founder of The Neon Birdcage studio.

The initiative aims to promote the work of young creative people from around the UK through an online exhibition and editorial platform, a series of talks and salon events and physical events.

Bright young Johnston aims to eventually garner an online collective of 2 012 (geddit?) young creatives by Spring next year, and feature all of them in an online exhibition.

She hopes to then select 240 of these to feature in a physical touring exhibition that will visit 12 UK cities, showing 20 artists from each.

The lovely little owl logo for Bright Young Brits was created by Magpie Studio.

Jamie Ellul, creative director at Magpie Studio, says, ‘We chose an owl to represent the brand as it seemed to have all the right connotations – fantastic sight, 360 degree vision and intelligence.’

The identity can be seen from this week on the Bright Young Brits website, and will eventually span to a full portfolio website which will include a ’family’ of owl logos each representing a different creative specialism.

Yesterday, the first Bright Young Brits salon event took place, featuring talks from food designers Sam Bombas and Harry Parr and womenswear designer Judy Clark. There was also a performance from singer-songwriter Gabby Young.

Things are already looking hopeful: the next event, which will take place in the Spring, will take place at the Apple Store on London’s Regent Street. There’s also talk of potential for a Bright Young Brits documentary on channel four. Rumours that this will be better than Hollyoaks are, however, unconfirmed.

To nominate someone as a bright, young Brit – or to join the collective yourself – email shine@brightyoungbrits.org