Which UK city is the most creative? Nottingham?

We’re shocked and slightly mardy, as we say here, that our beloved home city of Nottingham didn’t originally even feature in The Drum’s poll: ‘Where is the most creative city outside of London?’

Nottingham may not be as big as London but when it comes to creativity, we think small is beautiful. We have a strong creative community that provides support and effective networking, like ‘Glug’, informal post-work drinks for the graphic design set organised by local agency Studio Output. Or, open space workshops and talks at Nott Tuesday, the monthly meet-up for the city’s burgeoning digital and high-tech entrepreneurs, which recently held a start-up pitch contest judged by technology guru Mike Butcher.


Nottingham is a vibrant, dynamic city with an industrious creative scene. Perhaps the crux of our problem: we’re so busy just getting on with it, that we forget to shout about it.

So why did Nottingham (initially) not make the poll? Firstly, let’s not assume London is THE most creative place in the UK because larger contracts are awarded to London agencies. Creativity is something that shouldn’t be measured by how much money is involved but more from the quality of expression.

Here’s a few of our city’s badges of creative honour:

• Nottingham is listed as the fourth most creative city in Britain in Richard Florida’s Creativity Index, ranked directly after London.

• The School of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University was founded in 1843 and is one of the most established in the country with its graduates working in creative industries worldwide.

• The annual ‘Creative Business Awards’ reflect and reward the diverse creative talent in Nottingham.

• Nottingham was once globally famed for its lace production and the Lace Market area of Nottingham is now known as the creative district.

• The films of Shane Meadows have helped make the city a centre for indie digital film making.

• November 2009 sees the opening of Nottingham Contemporary, one the largest contemporary galleries in the UK.

• Nottingham’s Broadway Media Centre is one of the country’s most established centres for digital media production and exhibition. Its recent £5.7m refurb features seats designed in Paul Smith’s trademark stripe.

The city is positioning itself as a centre of excellence in digital production. In addition to digital film-making, there’s a hub of online games developers and in October we host GameCity, a cultural festival described as ‘the Sundance of games events’ where venues around the city and civic spaces are taken over for young people and adults to learn about and play computer games.

Events set-up by digital evangelists in the community include Web 2.0 surgery, a drop-in advice session for those wanting to understand web and e-commerce, MediaCampNottingham, an unconference for sharing experience in media and social media, and this month sees the launch of www.creativenottingham.com, a blog to celebrate and connect together the city’s diverse creative, arts and digital business communities.

With all this going on, perhaps we need to ask is where are the most creative cities outside of Nottingham?

(Photography courtesy of Flickr)

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