Alison moved from Cornwall to Manchester back in 1985 studying fashion and textiles, but it was the music scene that drew her to the city.
After a brief spell freelance designing on completing her degree, Alison became involved with radio and music and subsequently co-founded music PR company Red Alert Promotions. For 10 years she worked with many artists including Oasis, Prince, Depeche Mode, Bjork, Moby, 808 State, The Fall, The Charlatans, The KLF…and also presented/produced radio shows.
“I’d always been a fan of live music and clubs and used to spend my early days in Manchester hanging out a lot in Piccadilly Records, Eastern Bloc and Vinyl Exchange, where I met so many fantastic people – same with The Boardwalk, The Hacienda and Paradise Factory.
Alison now freelances under the name Clear as A Bell PR as well as for Liam Walsh at Ask Me PR. Aside from this, she organises celebrity in-conversation events, book launches and exhibitions.
More recently Alison returned to her artist roots and started designing name-chains which are themed collections of names, woven together, hand drawn and coloured in a crossword/scrabble-style. The first set of designs all had a Manchester theme.
When Alison was brought in as a Forever Manchester Ambassador she was asked to create a name-chains design with the theme of Manchester venues and iconic buildings to turn into prints and t-shirts.
Alison told us: “I really enjoyed creating this new design to raise money for Forever Manchester & loved incorporating everyone’s personal suggestions of venues and buildings into the design. It was a trip down memory lane!“
She added: “I also enjoy organising fundraising in-conversation events ~ my last one prior to the pandemic was with Noel Gallagher. It was good of him to do it and a great opportunity to raise funds for Forever Manchester by auctioning off some of the tickets.”
