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As part of the role for D&AD North Committee, members join together to organise speaking events with interesting creatives.

I lead the charge for the Preston talk, and wanted to bring someone who was involved in a few areas of creativity and marketing, but was also local and contributed to the ongoing development of students in the area. A few phone calls to friends of friends and contact was made with Gary Aspden.

For 12 years Gary was a guiding force for some of adidas’s most influential collaborations. From Peter Saville to Kazuki Kuraishi via A Bathing Ape and Ian Brown, the results of his time at this legendary brand have been diverse to say the least.

With big help from Ed at Creative Lancashire, we sourced a great venue, at The New Continental, organised the event and tickets were completely sold out. I was really pleased with the diversity of attendees, from designers, design and fashion students to Gary’s old tutor and a few of his friends. This was Gary’s first speaking engagement, and everyone was eager to see how he’d fare.

The talk last night was brilliant. Gary’s got a great way of telling a story, and he had many mad, lucky and coincidental stories to tell, of how he graduated from a follower of fashion on the streets of Darwen to a culture spotter and early trend supporter.

With such a good attendance and successful talk, there was immediately more talk of organising more events in Preston and around Lancashire, with Ben Casey from The Chase being vocal in his support. Hopefully this was the start of more good things in the region…