On Thursday, October 3, 2013, Alex Bec and Will Hudson, of London-based publishing platform It’s Nice That and associated creative agency, INT Works, presented their work and process at the Tishman Auditorium at Parsons as part of the International Perspectives lecture series at AIGA/NY. Willy Wong, AIGA/NY Chapter President and NYC & Company Chief Creative Officer, introduced event.

Alex Bec (left) and Will Hudson (right).

As students and roommates, their first collaboration was an end-of-year university project called If You Could, for which they had to come up with funding by themselves. Instead of the usual bake sale, they reached out to artists and designers they admired to donate work for them to print and sell. These scrappy beginnings primed them to see the opportunities in people and platforms, and to explore their passion for creative work through curation and building relationships.

All this is evident in It’s Nice That‚ a showcase blog that would become a foundation for all the projects to branch off later on. Posting around 9 articles per day, the website cover a wide range of work, juxtaposing art, design, fashion, and film from both established names and emerging talent. The lifespan of a given post is about 24-48 hours, giving an immediate reaction to the content. “The best part is moving on,” says Hudson, which is not to say the post becomes forgotten.

It’s Nice That has over 350,000 monthly hits, and as Bec points out, sometimes makes appearances in Apple commercials.

To explore some of the projects in greater depth, Hudson and Bec began publishing a quarterly magazine containing exclusive content. Making the magazine worthwhile for audiences was important, and it took time for them to dispel the idea that the print magazine was just blog posts that had been printed and bound. Recognizing that It’s Nice That users don’t generally browse the archives, the team also created hard-bound annuals.

Hudson and Bec have a clear knack for the right time and the right context. “Those platforms exist so we can show the right stuff in the right way,” commented Bec. Their agility across many platforms and timelines is clear. “Change is inevitable,” Hudson explains, “you make something and you don’t know how it’s going to be viewed,” he said.

To present audiovisual projects in a more fitting context, Hudson and Bec started a separate website, First Broadcast. It’s Nice That also produces weekly podcasts to offer discussion around art and design. Additionally, the team produces monthly events featuring 3-4 speakers around a theme for people to get together, share work, and chat over a beer. There’s also an annual creative conference that gathers a global community, and a compilation of local events and job listings to boot.

Hudson and Bec shared a video of fashion designer Paul Smith showing the inspiration to his work.

At first glance, It’s Nice That is impossibly diverse and active. However, Bec and Hudson point out that the growth was organic. From the beginning, what they built came out of an authentic love for the work. “It’s what gives us the grounding to be good publishers‚ but also an agency that cares and wants to make the best work possible,” Hudson explains. It’s what brought them to New York, where they’ve been meeting with artists and designers. “These people are real! What’s really important is meeting up with them, having a drink, actually understanding who they are and what their work is about,” said Bec.

A few of the projects showcased on It’s Nice That.

Their more recent commercial venture, INT Works, seems a natural extension of these philosophies. INT Works is a chance for the ephemeral blog posts (an act of curation) to act as a database of creative talent in order to leverage for potential clients that would approach them for commissioned work (an act of creation). Brands that come to INT Works  with a project can be paired with creative talent found through It’s Nice That, which maintains an exceptional knowledge of what’s happening in the industry and how to bring people together to make the best work.

A simplified comparison of different processes between It’s Nice That and INT Works.

Closer to the end of the talk, Hudson reflected on some of the guiding principles‚ and the reasoning behind the work they’ve done in the past few years. Making art and design more accessible for audiences and for clients by cultivating relationships between creators was one of the key guiding principles. At Monday morning meetings, each of the 20-person staff are asked the question, “Who did you meet this week?” to share with the rest of the team. Approaching everything with this spirit of openness, generosity, and loyalty to good work, the team is able to transform their showcase blog into a lasting network and a nimble creative agency.

Short video of the It’s Nice That team talking about the people they met that week.

Hudson then played a clip from Men In Black, where Will Smith’s character is brought in to take a written test among the “best of the best.” As the characters awkwardly deal with writing their test in a tight space, Smith also struggles to write without a table. He then spots a coffee table in the center of the room. Instead of struggling like the rest of the characters, he gets up and drags the coffee table, screeching, closer to him to make himself more comfortable.

“Everyone’s trying stuff, doing it in a similar way. We want to move the table. There’s an opportunity here to do things differently,” said Bec.

Bec and Hudson get take a moment to settle in as the doors open and AIGA/NY audience members fill the auditorium.

Additional Information:
It’s Nice That
INT Works
Printed Pages — the It’s Nice That Magazine
First Broadcast
Here London
This At There

Event Details:
AIGA/NY International Perspectives: It’s Nice That — Championing Creativity Across the World

Event Photos:

Click here to view all photos from AIGA/NY International Perspectives: It’s Nice That — Championing Creativity Across the World on Flickr.
 To view additional photos, or to contribute your photos, visit our AIGA New York Flickr group.

Special thanks to contributing writer Mira Rojanasakul for the AIGA/NY International Perspectives: It’s Nice That — Championing Creativity Across the World event recap and photos. Mira can be found at rojanasakul and you can follow her @rjnskl.