Last Friday we attended the first official event at Hyper Island Manchester. As regular readers of our site will already know, we have been heavily involved with the project and Hyper Island globally, so we were excited to check in and meet some of the students from the first-ever class and catch up with some of our other Manchester friends.
Arriving at the Watts Brothers building on Lever Street we, along with the Hyper Island UK team, felt a bit like proud parents watching something that we have all worked so hard on, come to fruition. The first Hyper Island facility outside of Stockholm is a massive step for the brand, but one that we all believed would be a great success. The industry obviously agreed with the likes of Google, MTV, Channel 4, Wieden + Kennedy, Saatchi & Saatchi and loads more getting involved with the project.
It was really nice to spend a bit of time with the new students. They are a real interesting bunch! In just a couple of hours we had been involved in conversations about the city of Manchester, the fashion industry, the use of the word 'viral', the re-birth of speed garage, problems with restrictions when working in government and loads more random yet facinating subject! We are sure that some amazing people and projects will come out of Hyper Island Manchester in the coming months. You can see from their video above, they are already getting in the zone!
Check a couple of our previous posts related to Hyper Island here:
Hyper Island Arrives In Manchester
Creative Spaces Are Key To Creative Culture
We will keep you posted on progress of this first class on here over the summer months. In the meantime check out some of the pictures from Friday's event below:
The first class along with Hyper Island UK Director David McCall and Programme Assistant Amir Lodge
Shang Ting hanging with some of the students
Lee getting excited about something geeky no doubt!
David McCall and some of the students along with representatives from Google, NESTA and Code Computerlove welcome everyone to the event
The Hyper Island way already kicking in
Collecting souvenir stickers of all the students :)