As part of an ongoing poll on the UK’s creative hotspots, we asked one high profile creative figure from each of 10 major cities to argue the case for their city to be named the most creative.

Edinburgh

Manchester

Leeds

Nottingham

Glasgow

Bristol

Birmingham

Liverpool

Newcastle

Sheffield

Leicester
 
The Drum’s Creative Cities was inspired by Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw’s announcement that the hunt was well underway to find the first UK City of Culture (which has to be based outside London). 

But we thought it would be interesting to stimulate that debate further still, expanding it beyond traditional ‘culture' and asking our protagonists to draw on their city’s inspirational places, brands, agencies, and individuals; the architecture, clubs and arts scene, as well as the music, sport, history and its more niche sectors too...

Those arguing the case for their city were The Leith Agency’s creative director Gerry Farrell (Edinburgh);  Simon Douglas, managing director of Blue River (Newcastle); Jon Waring, creative director at 3Sixty Digital (Bristol); Richard Benjamin, Über’s managing director (Sheffield); Clusta’s Andrew Bowyer (Birmingham); Nick Howe, managing director at Uniform (Liverpool); Matt Davies from Attitude Design (Nottingham); Phil Dean a partner at Thompson Brand Partners and Paul Mallett, managing partner at Swamp (both for Leeds); Matt Beardsell, co-founder of Music (Manchester); and Daniel Ibbotson, creative director, Graphical House (Glasgow).

We now encourage you to read the arguments (links above) to add your support to the city in which you operate, or constructively debate the merits of each argument and vote on our poll (on the homepage) – which has already attracted well over 1,300 individual votes.

Of course, if you feel that we have neglected your city, get in touch to argue its corner too. (Ed - Twist and Shout did just that for Leicester's cause. Get in touch if you think we're missing anywhere else.)

(News photo on this page, courtesy of Alex Sican, Flickr)