Yesterday was the first day of GDFS 2015, kicking off at 10am with a brief intro from Beth and James who founded the festival. It was a day jam-packed full of workshops spread across The Lighthouse and as far out as the Barrowlands.

In the GDFS Hub Workhorse Press got to work teaching their group the joys of risograph printing, inviting them to create images then layer their work over one and other’s to produce a series of collaborative posters. These were then displayed in the glass hallways of the Lighthouse to create a backlit installation.

Over in the Barrowlands, Recoat and Harvest Skateboards worked with a group to create a collaborative mural to surround ‘On The Corner’ creative hub. Inspired by imagery the participants had collected around the centre, the final mural was put together as a collaborative view on the area, and the future of it.

Downstairs STV Creative set out an assortment of fictional objects – welly boots stuck to disco balls, coffee cups tied to helmets and foghorns attached to clocks to name a few – and asked groups to take turns in marketing each strange item. After a midday judging session, two groups came out with the strongest ideas and had professionally made adverts created for them by the STV creative team by the end of the day. Totally hilarious and somewhat ingenious ideas – well done everyone!

Back at The Lighthouse the CodeBase team were hard at work coding and programming an entire website each, all in one day. Led by Diego Herrera they were coached step-by-step through the mysteries and marvels of code, and hopefully will be inspired to develop their own sites in future.

Thanks to everyone involved on the first day and a big shout out to Handpicked for providing the soundtrack! Hope you enjoyed the workshops along with the ping-pong, beer, sweets and bean bags, see you tomorrow for day two of GDFS and for those who couldn’t make it, hope to see you next year!