Despite signs that the UK economy was heading towards a crippling recession, it was important to remember that we were living through a period of tantalising and unprecedented opportunity. The availability of cheap, digital technology and fast Internet access has empowered the innovative and enterprising like never before, and nowhere was this more evident than in Britain’s creative industries, where the level of upheaval in the face of digitisation over the past few years has been, and continues to be, seismic.

In issue seven, we investigated how these changes were being manifested in an industry sector that employs close to two million people and accounts for a whopping 7.3% of the UK’s GDP. We looked at how the London-based web publication WGSN dominates the global fashion industry, interviewed seven of the most groundbreaking young creative minds from around Britain, and learned how aspiring film directors are rendering gatekeeper film distributors obsolete through their use of crowdsourcing, online alternative reality gaming and Google maps.