Common Interest #3 Manchester | Ragged Edge | Harriet Richardson | Mike Garry

A message from the future: this event series is now called Common Matters.

What do an ex-Pentagram performance artist, a branding hero and a Mancunian poet have in common? Well, quite a few creative interests actually – as we found out at our latest event.

Harriet Richardson took the stage in her most unique talk yet: a series of confessions, addressed to her parents, who were in the audience. Cue a rollercoaster of Harriet exposing her best-kept secrets, career highs and lows, and, well, herself. You can watch her talk, ‘Harriet Richardson, By Mum & Dad‘ in the below video, which is of course for 18+ viewers only!

We held back a surprise for the evening… Legendary poet Mike Garry joined us for performances that speak directly to Manchester and its people; he champions the underdog and finds beauty amongst ugliness. He performed our fave too – ‘Saint Anthony.’

Hilarious at times, deeply personal at others, Mike truly showed us the creative purity of words built on emotion. In fact, much of our feedback focused on the surprise and delight of falling in love with the spoken word.

Finally, Max Ottignon of Ragged Edge took to the stage to share his talk, ‘Things will never be the same again.‘

Starting with a quick overview of several visual categories, Max highlighted the commoditisation of creativity – in cars; cityscapes; even facial features; and, yes, branding.

A rallying cry for doing things differently, Max highlighted the issue of blandification – accelerated by AI – while also offering advice on how to fall in love with design again and truly cut through the expected.

How? By embracing this time of change as a massive opportunity for creative thinkers – those who have the passion to behave differently. What’s different gets remembered. And this talk from Max was certainly testament to that.