Vism.ag & Creative Maps Blog

This is a great study of the uk's creative economy that has sought to study 'the concept of creative clusters as a starting point to examine the role that creative industries play in local and regional innovation systems.' NESTA



'No one doubts the economic importance of the creative industries to the UK. At 6.2 per cent of the economy, and growing at twice the rate of other sectors, they are proportionately the largest of any in the world.' NESTA

'Apart from London, the research identifies nine other creative 'hotspots' across the UK:

Bath Brighton Bristol Cambridge Guildford Edinburgh Manchester Oxford Wycombe and Slough

See the 10 maps in detail See the interactive map and look at your area: Is your area a creative hotspot? Use our new set of interactive maps to find out

'In addition to mapping creative clusters across Britain, the analysis presented in our new report shows that:

• The creative industries punch above their weight in terms of innovation at both the national and regional level. They also tend to cluster in the same places as other innovative industries such as High-Tech Manufacturing and Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS).

• Different parts of Britain present different profiles of creative specialisation: cities across the wider South are more diversified in their creative specialisation, whereas Northern and Midlands cities (Manchester excepting) have similar creative profiles.' NESTA

The designs of the maps are by designbysoap.co.uk and the individual cities maps are good with the varying intensity of a hue to represent the density of the creative sector within the particular area of one of the cities. All nine have their own unique hue as is on the key on this infographic above and in the interactive ones they have overlayed them over google so you can see street data and they let you drill down the data by clicking the different particular areas of a city. Just wish they show what creative business are in these areas.

Anyhow, great that this kind of report takes place for the creative sector, help us creatives have a better awareness like I do with http://vism.ag/maps.

See the whole report in pdf here: http://www.nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/creative_economy/geography_of_innovation/assets/documents/creative_clusters_and_innovation or go the website and read more: http://www.nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/creative_economy/geography_of_innovation/assets/features/creative_clusters_and_innovation_report