A design placement usually means shadowing a senior, doing some work and making the tea. Birmingham designer Luke Tonge, co-founder of the Birmingham Design Festival, thought he could do better, and for four years he has run what he describes as an “anti-placement placement” at The Jointworks in Birmingham, hosting a cohort of emerging creatives for two weeks each year.
There is no client work, no coffee-making and no free labour. Instead, the programme is structured to help young creatives gain confidence, make connections and find a place where they belong. The cohort meets each morning for an hour, opening with a “big topic” presentation followed by an open discussion, with two more sessions to come. Visits to printers, animation studios, printing agencies and fabrication houses are on the itinerary, along with guests such as freelancers and writers.
The only requirement is a personal manifesto, presented by the end of the two weeks, with portfolio reviews and presentations in the final days, because communication and confidence matter as much as the work itself.
“It costs me a lot of money,” Tonge notes. “It doesn’t pay me anything other than seeing them improve and succeed. But when I thought about what would actually be the best use of my time and resources, it was investing in people who really want to learn and watching them grow.”
The programme aims to demystify the creative industries, where a design degree can lead students to believe the only route to success is becoming a graphic artist. Tonge is there to correct that, helping students see the breadth of creative careers beyond graphic design. This year’s group of eight women, all female but not on purpose, met screen printers, leather workers, account directors, project managers, animators, authors and public relations professionals, many of them roles they had never considered. “Graphic design graduates shouldn’t see it as a failure if they don’t end up as a graphic designer,” he stresses. “It’s a success that they’ve found what they’re good at.”
The results are striking: three days after starting university, one student’s friends told her she seemed different. “They don’t have to wait 20 years to figure it out,” Tonge says. “Sometimes they just need the right environment to realise it.” He also challenges “cringe culture”, the tendency of young creatives to self-censor their passion for fear of seeming naive or too keen. “Studios need enthusiasm,” he says. “I’d much rather they lean into their weirdness, be sincere, be enthusiastic and really care about things.”
Tonge’s motivation is a mix of values: a commitment to service and generosity, self-awareness about his privilege as a man of colour with connections and a large platform, a long-running conversation about diversity in design, and a personal memory of being a shy student who did not always know how to navigate the industry. If he can shorten that journey for someone else, he says, it is worth it. The full Creative Boom feature has more on how the programme works.