Our Favourite Places is promoting the creative wealth of innovative Sheffield

Eleven is a design and visual communication studio based in Sheffield with its design inspiration and output firmly rooted in its home city. Priding itself on design that combines “high levels of craft, execution and clarity”, Eleven create accomplished products promoting the creative wealth of the Yorkshire city.

Its range of products showcasing the cultural achievements of Sheffield are available through its sister brand, Our Favourite Places. Set up by Eleven in 2010, it promotes Sheffield’s academic, artistic and industrial accomplishments. By gaining the “support of the city’s bigwigs (the universities, the council, major venues and festivals) we received ‘Cultural Destinations’ funding from the Arts Council and Visit England in 2014,” contributor Kathryn Hall explains. This funding has enabled Our Favourite Places to create an outreach to a wider audience – the readership is 55% based outside of Sheffield, 20% of that in London.

It’s products are soaked in Sheffield’s history with subtle visual references creating sophisticated souvenirs. Our Favourite Places Edition Four, is an anthology of secrets of the city, “Written by in-the-know locals, Our Favourite Places is an independent guide to the creative, unconventionally beautiful, city”. Eleven additionally sell individual maps catered for a tourist or locals personal taste, including ale. "Sheffield is much of a city of ale as it is a city of steel, typography, poetry and science,’ says the editorial. An illustrated favourite of ours is an A-Z of Sheffield, a collection of postcards each with “a mini Sheffield story or fact on the reverse – Richard Hawley’s quiff, Sheffield’s biggest hill and the birth of Bertie Bassett all feature”.

With both Sheffield Design Week and Offset Sheffield coming up in October, there has never been a more ideal time to be inspired by this hilly city of innovation.