Observations: Who's the most greatest young British talent? You decide...

Helen Smith
Thursday 23 October 2008 19:00 EDT
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The Independent has teamed up with Vice magazine, Volvo and Yahoo! for Creative 30, a search for the UK's most promising young creatives. Hundreds of nominations were received from individuals, friends, colleagues and industry gurus alike. The shortlist of 30 has been announced, and now it's over to you to choose your favourite before 16 November.

Some in the line-up were lucky enough to receive personal recommendations from some of the biggest names in their field. Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood put forward former protégée Zoe Lee, 30, a shoe designer from London. "Zoe was such a fantastic talent when she worked with us," Westwood said. "She picked up our aesthetic perfectly and worked with such diligence."

In music, Grime MC Wiley chose Scorcher as the man to "carry the flag for the grime community for the next generation", comparing the 22-year-old to a young Dizzee Rascal or Kano. Blaine Harrison, lead singer with the Mystery Jets, praised the homemade sound of Micachu, 21. "Her arrangements are like patchworks," he said. "There's a certain fortitude to the way she presents her songs so rawly and confidently."

The Klaxons' James Righton has nominated outside his own field, drawing attention to Harley Weir's "amazing" photographs. "They capture the weird and beautiful while being ethereal and nostalgic without ever feeling retro," Righton said.

Other young talent in the creative world includes Joanne Robertson, a 22-year-old artist and singer, who was put forward by Martin Creed. "She wears her heart on her sleeve and paints and sings directly from it," said the Turner Prize-winning artist. "She's a natural. I would like to be more like her."

The Illustrator Daisy de Villeneuve sees promise and a "sassy sense of humour" in the drawings of Jessica Pemberton. And finally, the Booker-nominated author and Independent columnist Philip Hensher predicts great things for Ross Raisin, a 28-year-old writer from Yorkshire. "God's Own Country has a terrifically exciting plot and exists wonderfully within its medium of words. A writer who loves the oddities of the language, and who can create dialect both observed and fantastic out of his collected material, is a writer who will go far."

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