Some of my favourite things from this year`s @belfastdesignwk

https://blickstudios.org/blog/bdw26-my-best-bits/

Islands of Design Popup Exhibition

As part of Irish Design Week 17th – 21st November 2025 with Belfast Design Week we co-organised and co-curated a pop-up exhibition in Belfast School of Art featuring the work of 10 emerging designers working in different design disciplines.

Earlier this year we re-exhibited part of this exhibition in our Great Northern Street Studios just off the Lisburn Road.

Designers featured include:

Lauren Kelso - Illustrator

Matthew Talbot - Mixed Media & Experiential Designer

Kristen Robb - Regenerative Designer

Andrea Villaester - 3D Artist

You can also find more information on the project and the designers featured on our website: https://blickstudios.org/projects/islands-of-design/

Lovely first week of our new @belfastdesignwk  collaborative Design Hothouse Residency. Starting with welcoming our new residents Beth Schmidt @beth__schmidt and Rachel Cowie @rachelcowie_graphics and getting to know each other and sharing some initial information on the project . Then a session on working collaboratively identifying strengths and weaknesses, aspirations for the project, personal and shared values, and communications. Before finishing today with a session on discovery and strategy/ research, audience and competitor analysis and customer journey mapping.

- - BLICK CREATIVE RESOURCES - USEFUL AUDIO TOOLS & RESOURCES - - 

In October 2025 we collaborated with Homewerk and radio and audio producer Owen McFadden from WhyFi Productions, who drew on his experience of creating award-winning audio for BBC Radio Ulster, Radio 4 and more, to give insights into the basics of recording, editing, and shaping audio into compelling listening. Here are some brilliant audio resources Owen shared with us.

Transform media – Global tips about recording and audio

Epidemic sound – a global music-tech platform that provides a direct-license catalog of over 50,000 music tracks and 200,000 sound effects for content creators and businesses

Sadie software – For decades, SADiE has been a trusted tool for audio professionals, offering precision and reliability in recording, editing, and production.

Reaper software – REAPER is a complete digital audio production application for computers, offering a full multitrack audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing and mastering toolset.

Adobe Audition – Audition is a comprehensive toolset that includes multitrack, waveform and spectral display for creating, mixing, editing and restoring audio content. This powerful audio workstation is designed to accelerate video production workflows and audio finishing — and deliver a polished mix with pristine sound.

Trint – AI transcription software turning speech to text isn’t breaking news. But Trint is. Convert video, audio and live conversations to text in 30+ languages.

Otter – Full AI-powered transcripts with automated summaries. Archived audio and video imports. 
AI chat, and more.

Full list including links on our web resources: https://blickstudios.org/resources/useful-audio-tools-resources/

In October 2025 we collaborated with @homewerk.project and radio and audio producer Owen McFadden from @whyfiproductions who drew on his experience of creating award-winning audio for BBC Radio Ulster, Radio 4 and more, to give insights into the basics of recording, editing, and shaping audio into compelling listening. We learnt so much from this amazing workshop, but here are our key takeaways

Lovely sunny days and a more relaxed working schedule over the last few weeks, but back properly in the studio this week with our new collab residency with @belfastdesignwk starting and some other exciting new projects!

This week we are going to share a bit more about our newest studios, our Great Northern Street studios. The studios provide shared and private workspace to over 15 creatives and are located just off the Lisburn Road in South Belfast in a modern glass fronted building nestled between traditional red brick Belfast terrace houses.

You can find out more about our Great Northern Street studios and available workspace on our website (link in profile and below)

 https://blickstudios.org/locations/great-northern-street/

We have one dedicated deskspace coming available in our Cotton Court shared creative coworking space:

– £130 per dedicated desk per calendar month all inclusive utilities, rates, broadand etc (No VAT)

– 7am – 10.30pm access

– Industrial style building full of creative organisations in the heart of the Cathedral Quarter

– Cathedral Quarter location opposite the Merchant hotel

– Minimum 3 months contract then on a rolling monthly contract

– 1 months rent required as a deposit

– Email christine@blickstudios.org for more info or to arrange a viewing

Or visit the Cotton Court page of our website link below and in profile:

https://blickstudios.org/locations/cotton-court-belfast/

1 week left to apply for our new design residency in collaboration with @belfastdesignwk this summer!

Design Hothouse is a new Blick Shared Studios X Belfast Design Week collaborative residency, that will support two emerging designers from different disciplines as they work together over a 2-month period from 17th July – 18th September on a live brief.

The Brief

The brief will be to work together to co-design and co-create a body of digital and printed work to promote Design After Dark, a new Blick X Belfast Design Weekinitiative that will bring a series of seasonal evening celebrations of contemporary design in Belfast.

The Details

The residency will take place in Blick Shared Studios, Hill Street Studios from 17th July – 18th September. The selected applicants will have access to workspace to work on the project, weekly workshops, mentoring and professional development support from established creatives. They will each receive a bursary of £800 that they can use for their time, materials and expenses.

Selected participants will be required to attend each of the weekly workshops (time to be agreed based on participants and facilitators availability) and provide weekly reports on project progress. They will be responsible for working together collaboratively to create the digital artwork to promote Design After Dark, Belfast Community Plant Library and Food Loves Design. In addition they will get the opportunity to exhibit printed versions of their work and talk about their experience on the residency during Design After Dark.

Applicants can be emerging creatives (working in industry for less than 2 years), students or graduates or self-taught designers looking to build their skills, experience and connections.

Visit our website for full details ✨️

On Tuesday 9th June I was lucky enough to attend the Creative Health Northern Ireland: Co-creating a Policy Framework for Northern Ireland event, so much great information to take away and thought provoking conversations that hopefully can inform some of our programming at Blick and Belfast Design Week.

It was great in particular to hear illustrator Conor McClure talking about his work on Graphic Medicine and to see his beautiful accompanying illustrations.

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- - OUR COTTON COURT STUDIOS - -

Cotton Court is a converted Cotton Mill. Throughout the 18 and early 19th Century, Belfast was a landmark city for the textile industries of Linen and Cotton. By 1804 there were 27,000 people in Northern Ireland being employed in cotton mills, one of which was Cotton Court. Cotton Court is our smallest studios, making it a more cosy and intimate space, we have eight desk spaces and four private offices in our Cotton Court studios! It is also our most affordable space with dedicated deskspaces costing just £125 per calendar month all inclusive!

Cotton Court is part of a managed workspace building, which operates in the Cathedral Quarter with a focus on not-for-profit organisations from the Arts, Cultural & Community Sector. Other businesses who reside in Cotton Court include Belfast Print Workshop, Destination CQ and Young at Art!

As well as the industrial interiors and creative feel of the building it has an amazing location in the Cathedral Quarter right opposite the main entrance to the Merchant Hotel on Waring Street!

You can find out more about our Cotton Court studios and any available workspace on our website:

https://blickstudios.org/locations/cotton-court-belfast/