Had the absolute pleasure of meeting the team behind Bricoleur Magazine  yesterday down at Photo Book London, part of PHOTOBLOCK 2017.

I wandered across to their stand, having initially gone there hoping to see the Hoxton Mini Press stall. We ended up chatting and they turned out to be a really interesting crew, who came together to collaborate and create something positive for themselves after graduating from a range of arts degrees (there were photographers, graphic designers etc) and finding that the industry environment was not as welcoming and positive as they had hoped. The inspiring thing is that instead of being discouraged, they instead found a way to adapt to their circumstances, remain creatively relevant and after taking advice from other practitioners and quite a lot of brainstorming, they came up with the idea of launching a magazine.

Their stated aim is to ‘help young creatives in London and beyond’ and speaking to them they are really passionate about providing a platform for graduates and early-career practitioners who are in a similar position to themselves, searching for opportunities to share their work and develop a profile. It was really interesting to hear about the work that went into getting the magazine off the ground and what they are planning in the future. For example they ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to get the first issue off the ground and may be planning on doing so again.

Speaking to them was a great reminder that as a practitioner in the creative industries you often have to go out there and make your own openings and opportunities and the creativity you hone during your studies can be put to use to create those opportunities and open doors for yourself and others. You can’t feel sorry for yourself or sit back and wait for things to be handed to you, you have to get out there and make it happen.

A great lesson.