‘The future is clever’: an interview with Let’s Be Brief

Let’s Be Brief is a learning platform that champions the work of creatives doing things differently. Often focusing on socially impactful work or entrepreneurs from BAME backgrounds, it equips creatives with the tools to take their ideas to the next level, democratising the design industry and helping people to start their own studios on their own terms. We caught up with its energetic founders Stephanie McLaren-Neckles and Ansel Neckles…

Coming up with a concise and pithy description of what Stephanie McLaren-Neckles and Ansel Neckles do is quite the challenge. They’re just so prolific. As well as running online platform Let’s Be Brief, they founded community engagement agency Twenty%Extra, which helps companies meaningfully work with groups to co-design projects, opening up the design process and empowering local people. They publish toolkits to help the next generation of creatives get their side hustle off the ground. They work on their own graphic design projects. They teach. Oh, and they have a monthly NTS radio show… 

Their current projects range from a podcast series created with the British Council to champion creatives from Subsaharan Africa; to a series of prints (called of Modes of Thought) that distill their creative mantras into graphic form; to a gigantic youth violence report for the Royal Foundation where the duo researched potential interventions that would give young people life-saving alternatives to crime. But what ties all of their inspiring and important projects together is a drive to platform unheard voices and work with people to unleash their own creativity. ‘The potential for “opportunity” is greater [than ever before], yet the divide between the ‘haves and have nots’ continues to widen,’ the pair write in their manifesto. ‘It makes the need for insight, knowledge and critical thought all the more poignant.’ Given the lack of diversity within the design industry (only 13% of designers come from BAME backgrounds), sharing the tools that can help people create their own opportunities rather than wait for a dinosaur-like industry to change, is more vital than ever.

‘There are only so many seats around the table,’ Ansel tells us. ‘So it's about making people realise that they can make their own chairs, their own table, and have dinner with each other, and that their new table with their new chairs is “the creative industry” if they recognise themselves as such, without waiting to get hired.’ Steph adds, ‘You see a lot of innovation and people starting their own things because that's the only option they see open to themselves. People from immigrant backgrounds will always be resilient, because that is the nature of being an immigrant – making things work with what you have.’

Let’s Be Brief itself started around nine years ago as a resource to share some of the insight Stephanie and Ansel were gathering from their work in the education and co-design. ‘We met so many great minds, it seemed a good idea to pick their brains, celebrate and champion their thinking,’ Steph says. The topics found on the site are as diverse as the creatives themselves – from financial literacy and leadership to how-to guides to starting your own podcast or making personal work commercially viable. ‘We’re looking for that impulse of necessity, people that look like they need to be doing what they're doing – need to affect a cultural space with the work they're creating,’ says Ansel about how they pick who to interview. ‘Anyone can move a cursor around or put a gradient on things but it's the reason why that distinguishes it.’ When the pair interviewed legendary techno producer Theo Parrish a few years ago, he talked about the distinction between attitude and skill. ‘Attitude is something that needs to be there first and foremost and from that people can become anything,’ Ansel says. With Let’s Be Brief, the pair encourage creatives to believe in their own vision, cultivate their attitude, and then furnish them with the practical skills to make it happen. 

This journey has led to programming offline events like the Alternative Careers Fair (which invited local young people in Hackney to talk to employers in the creative industries, social enterprises and tech) and the LBB Pop-Up School. Here carefully curated talks and workshops offer access to the world of work often out of reach for people without family connections. The pair also work one-on-one with young entrepreneurs to help them develop their personal brand, embed progressive values in their ways of working and overcome hurdles they might experience early on in their careers. ‘It's about working with clients that have a vision but are open to the means by which they achieve that vision,’ says Ansel. ‘It's just about listening to them to pick out core elements, then giving companies the confidence to pursue those values.’

Encouraging progressive values has also been a huge part of the pair’s teaching approach, especially during their tenure at Ravensbourne. There Steph and Ansel teach an elective on co-design to a cross-disciplinary group of students buzzing with ideas. ‘Why we were quite excited about [starting teaching] was because it’s an opportunity to shape the creative industries by shaping attitudes before people become part of the industry,’ says Steph. Currently they’re working with students on a brief for Times Up UK, a social enterprise which promotes gender equality and highlights sexual harassment in the workplace, to develop ideas that resonate with a youth audience. What’s special about the project, explains Ansel, is that the students are just as invested in Times Up UK’s aims as the organisation itself. He says, ‘This project is about setting up a path of proactive engagement with cultural issues, and allowing students to recognise that their designs have a place in changing and affecting behaviour.’

Learning, Steph and Ansel believe, is not something that that should be restricted to schools and universities but should be a big part of everyone’s lives. The vital step – and something LBB does in droves – is to make it fun and approachable. ‘Why can’t learning be sexy?’ laughs Ansel. ‘Education systems may have put us off wanting to engage in the process of learning from a very young age. Learning is a life-long experience, so let's make it a dynamic one. It’s about democratising the process of learning, and saying it's not just for this one particular group of people that can afford £9k a year. It's for the people that really want it, and if you really want it, let's find a way to do it.’ Given our position at the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution, with the AI set to change the world of work irrevocably and huge issues like climate change on the horizon, learning has never been so important. ‘We're just at the beginning of major shifts in society where people really will have to embrace life-long learning as a notion, and be adaptable,’ says Ansel. ‘People are going to be forced to find new ways of working and supporting their families. We're here to engage with that future process because thing’s are going to get real and that requires real solutions. Creativity can't just be about the fluffy shit.’