You won’t notice any major changes to the site as we carry on letting you discover what’s going on in the city, and we’ll bring a fresh approach to reporting on the creative industries. This site exists for it’s readers so if there’s anything you’d like to see or anything you’d like us to cover please get in touch. The email address is createdinbirmingham@gmail.com

Craig, Daniel, Kassie, Kerry, Lexie & Mark

If you’ve no idea what Google+ is then I really wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.

Incidentally, now’s probably a good time to remind you that if you want to follow the entirety of Created in Birmingham then:

• createdinbirmingham.com is still the main place to get everything
• You can Like the Facebook Page
• You can follow the Twitter account
• There’s a Delicious account where all the links for the Friday link round-ups are collected together
• There’s a Created in Birmingham Tumblr too, where I tend to quickly post or reblog flyers, posters, videos and photos – it’s a more visual thing

Hi! I’m Ian Ravenscroft and I’ve joined the CiB team to (hopefully) continue the blog’s sterling work in unearthing Birmingham’s artistic and creative gems.

I was created in Birmingham myself, I’m a former journalist, and I’m now a producer at Meshed Media working with current CiB editor Chris Unitt. I’m also a writer with comedy and animation collective Dice Productions and had a hand in founding and running Film Forum West Midlands too.

That’s me. So, if you see me out and about, do say hello. Or if you have any news, events, places or people you’d like to highlight on CiB, remember to be in touch!

It’s really good to be back.

Thanks for all the comments after Adrienne’s post, ‘Moving forwards’. We’ve taken some of those on board. There are likely to be a few tweaks and changes over the next few months – nothing too radical, but the site needs to evolve a bit if it’s to sustain itself and stay relevant.

On a related note, we’ve got a couple of new things:

• A Facebook Page
• A forthcoming weekly newsletter

Please do sign up if you’re interested in either.

However, the most important thing is CiB isn’t about whoever’s running it – it’s about all the fantastic and fascinating stuff happening in Birmingham. Which means I need to get on with writing some blog posts.

The  items have been lovingly hand screenprinted by Kay Stanley at Cut Out Shop, in her WM based studio. She has used waterbased inks which don’t harm the environment printed onto EarthPostive tees and tote bags.

The t-shirts cost £15.00 and the totes cost £8.00. We have printed a limited edition run of only 50 t-shirts and 50 tote bags, and each item is individually numbered.

I wanted to take some swish pictures of the items being modeled, but have decided to let you do that for me! When you receive your tee or tote through the post, take a quick snap of you modeling it and pop it up on flickr, tagging it ‘CiBT’. Huge thanks to Kay Stanley and Kate Parry for all the help and support.

We have decided to money raised will go to a popular choice for a Birmingham based charity: Acorns Children’s  Hospice.

This is the first call for submissions and here is how it will work:

• Anyone can submit a design entry to the competition, as long as you follow the specifications needed for printing.
• From the entries 20 final designs will be chosen and made into 50 limited edition pin badge sets.
• One final design will be chosen and will be made into 50 limited edition t-shirts and 50 limited edition canvas bags.
• All items will be lovingly screenprinted by hand and sold online by Cut – Out, a fantasic DIY print company based in the West Midlands. All items will be printed with eco friendly inks and on top quality Earth Positive apparel.

The brief:

We want to make a t-shirt that people will really want to wear, so the brief is very loose. The emphasis here is celebrating creative talent in Birmingham and raising some money in the process. You could design something which reflects the creativity of the city, or just your own style, it’s up to you!

Submission guidelines:

• The design should work using one colour, if the image is a photograph it needs to be converted to half tone.
• The design you submit needs to be 300 dpi (usual print quality).
• The design should be no bigger than A3 in size.

Deadline: Friday 6th March 5pm. Send your design as a PDF or JPG file to Createdinbirmingham[at]gmail.com, and hang on to your originals.