Week 12: Promote and Test

Tasks

• Research, analyse and select media that can be deployed to effectively solve a creative challenge related to location.
• Develop a design approach to solve a creative challenge.
• Make, design and deliver a two minute film presentation that highlights the challenge you have tried to solve and the design you have created to solve it.

Research and discover issues that relate to your locality and post them on the Ideas Wall. Direct engagement and potential collaboration is encouraged to engage with relevant local communities to identify issues.

Ideas Wall

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Week 11: Develop and Design

Tasks

• Research and contextualise how disciplines outside of the design industry could help you solve a design challenge.
• Analyse how intercultural insights and appropriate media can be deployed to solve a creative problem.
• Contextualise your research into a strategy to help solve the project.
• Develop and design a creative solution to solve a design challenge that was posted on the Ideas Wall in Week 10.
• Collaborate and provide feedback on the design solution made by another student to your original challenge on the Ideas Wall.

 

Contextualise your research into a strategy to help solve the project.

I have chosen J’s brief, because it captured my imagination when he presented it in the crit:

Here is some preliminary research I did on LA and water usage:

Jay has also provided some context for me, via Whatsapp:

Callum utilised the Reddit community for his project to contact people in his area because we are all in a lockdown. Yay, Covid-19. I thought I could do the same. Here are the questions I posed, and answers I received (questions seen in the numbered list below):

Perhaps Reddit is not going to give me the widest sample of people, true, and I have no way of verifying this information. It does highlight the difficulty of working from afar: how does one source reputable information from a community a long way away (and within a week, thanks Falmouth). If I had the luxury of travelling to LA, I would try asking questions in community centres, workplaces and public spots around different neighbourhoods to get a thorough idea of people and their lives through focus groups and interviews. From there I would build PERSONAS.

This interaction does give me information about population and its reaction to reducing water usage.

1. Agriculture has a bad reputation (deservedly so) for high water usage, and therefore people feel their use is insignificant compared to major corporations
2. There is a divide between people with high income and low income: those with low income feel that people high income use water frivolously because they do not have the same incentive to pay attention to water use (cost)

Going back to the Geert Hofstede and his six dimensions, I can look at how my perspective and that of a Los Angelian might be similar or diverge. Both the UK and US score very highly for individualism, which I would expect, compared to countries like China. This is important: to appeal to the Los Angelian, I need to apply a similar perspective to that of me and my community. In reducing water usage, what is in it for me? Appealing to the collective good might work on a few people, but to really make a mark on the overall population I should appeal to how water usage reduction can help them as households.

So I went back to the Service Design Tools website to use some of the tools they have on offer. I started building three personas based on what I have seen from LA so far – though I would try to build more thoroughly on these in normal times.

Now I have an idea who I am designing a solution for I can think about different ways to add intercultural knowledge. Although the user on Reddit was dismissive of personal water usage reduction when the agricultural industry uses so much water, I thought that I could put this into perspective. In 1969, the average person in LA used 189 gallons of water across residential and commercial settings. In 2015, that figure is 131 gallons, of which 67 are used in residential settings. Here are four other cities for comparison:

Clearly, even if some citizens feel that their water usage is low, citizens in other cities use less. Full disclosure, I’m not 100% the figures are comparable but the figures do suggest that LA uses more water.

Intercultural Insights

I live in London, near where a huge water plant that supplies fresh water to London. Just to the west is New River, which was built in 1631 to draw water from Herefordshire, River Lea and other local springs to central London.

Over the past five years, utility companies have been installing smart meters for gas and electricity so people can easily see what they are using and the cost. It allows peopelt to adjust their usage according to how much they want to spend.

If water ones were installed, then water usage could be monitored in the same way.

In Berlin, climate change has resulted in longer, hotter summers and the city has been devising ways in which to make sure its water supply is sustainable. One study suggests that “in the 1980s, with increasing success, to influence the use and consumption of water resources by applying economic instruments such as fees and price increases, along with subsidising water-saving gadgets and equipment. According to the Federal Statistical Offices of Germany, in 2007 the per-capita consumption of water in Berlin was estimated to be 112 litres per day as compared to 122 litres for the rest of Germany (Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland, 2009 & Amt für Statistik Berlin-Brandenburg 2009).” (Salian)

In addition, Berlin’s residents received 25 to 60 Euros /m² in subsidies for their investment in green roofs and further domestic measures can be credited:

• “Higher tariffs for water to encourage customers to adopt a more economical use of water.
• Effective publicity campaigns and well-organised public relations and instructions for water saving (in the 1980s first in West Berlin, later in the 1990s in the former Eastern sector of Berlin).
• Temporary subsidies for the purchase and installation of water saving equipment. “

(Salian)

Saliently, it seems that PR played a huge part in people reducing water usage: “water issues in Berlin gained an important boost in public awareness during the 1980s, when environmental activism gained momentum.” (Salian)

This is impressive! It is a campaign that has taken nearly forty years, but one that has changed the city forever and made it a model for me to consider and draw intercultural insight from..

Small changes

Rather than expecting residents to make huge changes, I think small aims and goals would help people make sustainable long term changes.

Fab is an app that promotes healthy living and gives users a few things to do each day in order to build habits that last.

The Forest app is a productivity tool: you set a timer for an amount of time, and you see an animation of a tree growing over that time as motivation to not go on the internet or to waste time. The progress of seeing trees, and then a forest grow, is intended to be motivation to stay productive. I like the idea of having residents’ water usage shown in scale of saving water and how it can help the environment.

Develop and design a creative solution to solve a design challenge that was posted on the Ideas Wall in Week 10.

Going through my research, I think the best approach wuld be to combine the service with the current municipality system. This would give a thorough base and a way to integrate with the current system, as well as compiling information all over the web to one place.

The plan would fall into two categories: Smart Meter and Smartphone App.

Water meters

Smart meters provide real-time information about how much of a resource you are using, and make adjustments to your habits accordingly. By using existing technology, this scheme can allow a conumer to view all their energy and water usage in one place.

The visuals would be similar to the ones we are familiar with the UK.

[VISUAL]

SMART PHONE APP

This is connected to Smart Water Meter, or is can

 

 

Resources

• https://www.designsociety.org/publication/30271/The+Cultural+Dimensions+of+an+Interdisciplinary+Design+Approach
• INNS, Tom. 2010. Designing for the 21st Century : Interdisciplinary Methods and Findings Aldershot: Gower.
• http://www.switchurbanwater.eu/outputs/pdfs/W6-1_GEN_DEM_D6.1.6_Case_study_-_Berlin.pdf

Collaborate and provide feedback on the design solution made by another student to your original challenge on the Ideas Wall.

Week 11: Research

Tasks

• Research and contextualise how disciplines outside of the design industry could help you solve a design challenge.
• Analyse how intercultural insights and appropriate media can be deployed to solve a creative problem.
• Contextualise your research into a strategy to help solve the project.
• Develop and design a creative solution to solve a design challenge that was posted on the Ideas Wall in Week 10.
• Collaborate and provide feedback on the design solution made by another student to your original challenge on the Ideas Wall.

Research and contextualise how disciplines outside of the design industry could help you solve a design challenge.

Whilst a practical necessity, the division of labour since the industrial revolution has meant that people in roles have had less opportunity to cross between disciplines. In the design industry, though relatively young, new categories are created to define awards categories and work output. Whether this is helpful to recognise different projects or leads to the segregation of a practice that is largely holistic is up for debate. A lot of projects use design as the ‘outside discipline’ to make sense of their project, and I will look at examples of this, does it matter which is the first discipline and which is the one being brought in to solve it? I ask this because the world’s problems that service design tries to alleviate are not design problems, they are practical problems that design has been brought in to help solve. Or, can problems be design-based first?

Redesign of Rape Kit

Through being an advocate for domestic abuse victims at ER and health centres in New York, Antya Waegemann came to understand how traumatising the process of collecting forensic evidence could traumatise the victim and take an unnecessarily long time. Instructions for nurses about each stage of collection and what evidence would need to be collected was unclear, particularly because each nurse would not use a kit that often in comparison to other tasks they took out.

Waegemann used her final project to redesign the rape kit to answer the question of “How we can remodel the rape kit to lessen the cognitive overload of the nurse or doctor so that they can focus on care-giving?” By providing clear instructions broken down into steps, with clearly marked sections for each step, Waegemann wanted to make the process as easy as “building an IKEA chair”. Alongside the kit, she has developed an app for patients that they can download on their arrival at the hospital. This gives them information about what to expect through the process and provide them with a sense of control through the procedure.

Whilst researching, I came across Geert Hofstede and his 6-D model of National Culture. Each country can be represented on a scale between six axioms:

• Collectivism – Individualism: “Individualism is the extent to which people feel independent, as opposed to being interdependent as members of larger wholes.”
• Power Distance (small – large): “Power Distance is the extent to which the less powerful members of organizations and institutions (like the family) accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.”
• Femininity – Masculinity: “Masculinity is the extent to which the use of force in endorsed socially.”
• Uncertainty Avoidance: “Uncertainty avoidance deals with a society’s tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity.”

Found later were:

• Long-term Orientation (Flexhumble – Monumentalist): “In a long-time-oriented culture, the basic notion about the world is that it is in flux, and preparing for the future is always needed. In a short-time-oriented culture, the world is essentially as it was created, so that the past provides a moral compass, and adhering to it is morally good. As you can imagine, this dimension predicts life philosophies, religiosity, and educational achievement.”
• Indulgence: “In an indulgent culture it is good to be free. Doing what your impulses want you to do, is good. Friends are important and life makes sense. In a restrained culture, the feeling is that life is hard, and duty, not freedom, is the normal state of being.”

This is a framework where every country has its own mix, but comparisons on the separate axes can be drawn between countries and communities to see how they hold different values. This can highlight whether design strategies can be as effective in one community as another.

Analyse how intercultural insights and appropriate media can be deployed to solve a creative problem.

I had a think about my first reactions to design about the benefits and problems we can encounter with intercultural projects on a mind-map.

Design has been used to highlight health crises through the years, and the UN has recently announced a brief for people to design information posters to help stop the spread of Covid-19.

The brief includes this copy:

• Use any creative medium to produce work that captures one of the coronavirus key messages below, in a clear, impactful and shareable way
• Capture one of the UN key messages in your work:
  • Personal Hygiene
  • Physical Distancing
  • Know the symptoms
  • Kindness contagion
  • Myth-busting
  • Do more, donate
• The UN needs a range of creative solutions to reach audiences across different age groups, affiliations, geographies and languages
• Keep in mind that submitted work will be reviewed by the UN and considered for co-branding and distribution through UN and supporting platforms

You can view submissions from all over the world, and how different culture create content their peers will respond to.

This is similar to an Ebola information poster designed in 2014 by Unicef to educate non-literate people about the symptoms of Ebola by showing illustrations of a person with these symptoms. In different countries, this poster looks different.

By seeing what people are creating in their own cultures in response to the Covid-19 crisis, we can see what might resonate with cultures around the world, Unfortunately I can’t filter by country of entry, but even in the screen shot I took you can see manga influences, maybe from a Japanese submitter? Further down there are suggestions to “Do it Like a Canadian”, an Indian Odissi Dance video, and photos of people making guns with their hands to demonstrate how dirty hands can kill. The submissions are, in essence, crowdsourced propaganda in a way that I haven’t seen before and it is a snapshot of how different cultures are reacting to one event at the same time.

Resources

• https://www.designsociety.org/publication/30271/The+Cultural+Dimensions+of+an+Interdisciplinary+Design+Approach
• INNS, Tom. 2010. Designing for the 21st Century : Interdisciplinary Methods and Findings Aldershot: Gower.

Collaborate and provide feedback on the design solution made by another student to your original challenge on the Ideas Wall.

Week 10: Research and Reveal

Tasks

This week we want you to identify a theme or issue that relates to your locality and present your findings on the Ideas Wall, prior to the design phase.

• Research and discover issues that relate to your locality and post them on the Ideas Wall. Direct engagement and potential collaboration is encouraged to engage with relevant local communities to identify issues.
• Distil your research to identify one issue you would like to resolve and reveal through a visual outcome.
• Write a short 200-word project brief that reports on the issue to be solved.
• Design and produce a visual summary to contextualise your issue and project brief. Your summary can be a digital, print or moving image, but it must be succinct, to enable third-party viewers to quickly understand the requirements, needs and challenges.

 

Research and discover issues that relate to your locality and post them on the Ideas Wall. Direct engagement and potential collaboration is encouraged to engage with relevant local communities to identify issues.

Right now, we’re in the middle of social lockdown for the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s a new way of living where we are restricted from our usual spaces of work and play and our house/flats/rooms fulfil the purposes that whole cities previously did. We won’t see friends and family for months, and yet, we’re never more connected. Conferencing programmes such as Zoom have seen huge growth from companies and social groups alike, social media is awash with lockdown challenges, and thank god for companies that can deliver essentials to vulnerable people.

Artillery CIC, based in Walthamstow, was set up in 2003 by the founders of the E17 Art Trail and “has been creating, curating and commissioning projects and festivals that celebrate and engage with the Waltham Forest’s diverse and dynamic artistic and creative community.” Over the lockdown, Laura and Morag from Artillery have been organising meetings online to engage local people with their programme and to support artists, many of whom might not have any other income, through this time.

I went to one of these Zoom meetings to meet with people and to hear their stories. It was very informal, and most of the meeting we were talking about who we were and in what position we were in. From a choirmaster, to circus skills teacher, to organisers of Amdram, to art teachers now teaching online, there was a wide range of people involved in the arts in different ways.

Some people were trying to make a living, and questioning how was it possible to teach circus skills remotely, one teacher was reeling from the full-on-ness of teaching online, whilst the choirmaster was trying to keep their community together.

Distill your research to identify one issue you would like to resolve and reveal through a visual outcome.

Everyone is exploring technology to keep their communities together and we informally swapped ideas about different platforms that worked well for us. What was apparent that we all had a wealth of experience in our own sectors and reminded me of a project that I set up at work where people shared their skills to teach one another about the publishing business and printing.

I would like to add a bit of formality to this and suggest that the local community can come together to teach other simple skills at first online, and then in person that

There’s an issue of pay, which was brought up by Richard in one of our tutorials: people in the arts are often asked to do things for free and are taken for granted. How could a project take this into account and teach people skills in a way that is non-exploitative?

Write a short 200-word project brief that reports on the issue to be solved. Design and produce a visual summary to contextualise your issue and project brief. Your summary can be a digital, print or moving image, but it must be succinct, to enable third party viewers to quickly understand the requirements, needs and challenges.

Ideas Wall

Week 9: Service Design and Saving the World

Tasks

One: Research User-Centred Design Processes or Tools

• Research three user-centred design processes or tools that can be used to discover a core need or problem e.g. customer journey maps, service safaris, a day in the life, cultural probe, double diamond.
• Select one process and write a short 100-word description to illustrate how it can be used to discover an insight or challenge.

Two: Research Existing Campaign or Service Design Project

• Research and select one existing campaign or service design project that tackles a social problem and analyse its effectiveness. Please remember to include information about any user-centred design processes that may have been used and the impact it brought about.
• Write a 300 – 400 word description with screen grabs to illustrate your research findings.

New week, new brief!

One: Research User-Centred Design Processes or Tools

Research three user-centred design processes or tools that can be used to discover a core need or problem e.g. customer journey maps, service safaris, a day in the life, cultural probe, double diamond.

User Scenarios

The three tools I have chosen revolve around different parts of the process of the service design process. The first one, user scenarios, begins to imagine why and how a user might begin to engage with the service and give context around the service. Personas are a precursor to user scenarios, and then the scenarios take the personas through the service to question whether it would allow the user to meet the goal. It should avoid stereotypes and unrealistic assumptions, and include story items like a plot, context, motivations and how the service allows them to fulfil that. Breaking down the users’ needs like this allows the designers to define suitable requirements for the service that will match the scenarios.

Concept Walkthrough

Later in the design process, the designer will need feedback from potential users so that they can identify what works and what can be improved. Prior to this, the concept might only have been tested within the designers, and a concept walkthrough is an early way in which to test its effectiveness. To make this tool effective, a designer needs mock-ups and images to demonstrate the service to the users. A concept walkthrough is task-specific, rather than heuristic and gives a holistic impression. By slowing down the process and allowing users into the design process at this early point means that each decision can be validated or changed and real-life insight into users minds.

Success Metrics

The previous two tools have been qualitative: gathering information from users. Success metrics are quantitative and measure how users are engaging with the service in real life. The number of users will be higher than can be captured by interviews and can be conducted remotely by questionnaires during and after user engagement. Metrics are vital to how the service is actually serving the users and whether any adjustments can be made to enhance the experience.

Select one process and write a short 100-word description to illustrate how it can be used to discover an insight or challenge.

User scenarios are a tool that begins to imagine why and how a user might begin to engage with the service and give context around the service. Personas are a precursor to user scenarios, and then the scenarios take the personas through the service to question whether it would allow the user to meet the goal. It should avoid stereotypes and unrealistic assumptions, and include story items like a plot, context, motivations and how the service allows them to fulfil that. Breaking down the users’ needs like this allows the designers to define suitable requirements for the service that will match the scenarios.

Two: Research Existing Campaign or Service Design Project

Research and select one existing campaign or service design project that tackles a social problem and analyse its effectiveness. Please remember to include information about any user-centred design processes that may have been used and the impact it brought about.

I’ve always found this campaign to get more women into exercise and sport very inspiring because it shows exercise to be something we enjoy, rather than school PE lessons that most people hate. Exercise is for everyone and is essential to staying healthy. The campaign focusses on different women and reasons why they don’t exercise and shows them pushing through that. For the task I’d like to go more in-depth in the campaign to see how they built different personas that lots of people can identify with.

This is my research which I will distil into the description below.

• First TV ad aired in January 2015, with hashtag this girl can
• Created in response to Sport England’s Active People Survey in  2014 that found 75% of women aged 14_40 wanted to exercise in more, with 2 million fewer women exercising than men.
• The task was to get more women aged 14_40 exercising regularly
• Research done by Sports England Active People Survey
• Agency FCB Inferno needed real women what they thought of each response
• Gathering lots of information, they looked at what was common across demographics: fear of judgement
• Focus groups at this point to analyse this response, which was positive
• Wanted to know whether people engaged: “Sport England didn’t just want to know how many of a focus group liked it, they wanted to know the semantics of it, what words they were using, how they expressed they liked it. They didn’t want their research just regurgitated back to them.” DandAD
• Ability to empathise with women they were aiming it at
• Relatable women – chased down people outside sports centres to get as much variety in the people involved – Personas
• Although they wanted to show the barrier they wanted to show people overcoming them
• Feedback from the hashtag allowed them to see what women thought
• In the past five years, the campaign has helped more than 500,000 women and girls to become more physically active. Guardian
• Sports England continue to survey and found that women are still afraid of what people think of them and that they are worried about speaking out about things such as periods and menopause that affect their activity levels
• Women not told they have to exercise, they are shown ways in which they can overcome, and the positivity it can bring
• Research affected creative decisions: “It found, for instance, that using photographs of women in the context of the activity rather than actually doing it was more effective in promoting it.” Guardian
• 2015 Missy Elliot, I jiggle therefore I am, sweating like a pig feeling like a fox, I kick balls, deal with it, same right I look hot
• 2017, campaign narrative phenomenal women 1978, Maya Angelou, Women Phenonmally – emphases womanhood, mother, grandmother, up the generations. In everyday situations, a wider range. “Unleash your inner beginner’ and ‘Take me as I am or watch me as I go’. The mantras are based on research from a survey of 200,000 people that highlighted common worries such as not being good enough, or overcoming stereotypes about what women should or shouldn’t do.” The Drum “addresses the mental hurdles which people feel when returning to exercise after taking a break, which often makes the idea of exercising all the more daunting.”
• 2020, Me Again,

Write a 300 – 400-word description with screen grabs to illustrate your research findings.

Sports England identified in their biannual survey of 2014 that women were far less likely than men to engage in regular exercise, even though 75% aged 14–40 said that they wanted to exercise more. The campaign This Girl Can was underpinned by five years of research, conducted in a random sampling of households across England with around 175,000 people completing each survey. Each local authority had a minimum sample size of 500 people, to ensure that the results reflect the English population.

With Sports England, agency FCB Inferno conceived a campaign that aimed to get more women exercising. The survey had given them metrics about why women weren’t exercising, however, they thought that women would not respond well to being told that they should exercise and so they began to GENERATE HYPOTHESISES. Across different demographics, they found a common theme: fear of judgement; that their bodies or skills at sport would be judged. Later focus groups responded that this was true. They dug deeper because Sports England “wanted to know the semantics of it, what words they were using, how they expressed they liked it. They didn’t want their research just regurgitated back to them” DandAD and wrote OBSERVATION NOTES of their focus group feedback.

To find women that people would relate to, FCB Inferno approached people outside sports centres to learn about the barriers that they overcame to be there, because they felt that it wasn’t only about showing the difficulties that women face to get into sports, but how women overcame them. From these experiences, they built PERSONAS that felt true to life.

The first campaign in 2015 featured taglines like, “I jiggle therefore I am”, “Sweating like a pig feeling like a fox”, “I kick balls, deal with it” and “Damn right, I look hot” that emphasised the features of women’s bodies and what women were afraid of when exercising. The hashtag #thisgirlcan meant that Sports England and FCB Inferno could get direct feedback and SUCCESS METRICS, and the tag went viral in the days after the release.

The feedback was really positive but some felt that using “girl” was demeaning to older women. In 2017 they released a new campaign that built on the success of the previous one but addressed the criticism. They emphasised the everyday act of exercising with a broader range of women, with Maya Angelou reading her Phenomenal Women poem in the advert. From more research, they created mantras such as “Unleash your inner beginner” and ‘Take me as I am or watch me as I go” that highlighted common worries such as not being good enough, or overcoming stereotypes about what women should or shouldn’t do, as well as why women start and stop exercise.

In 2020, the campaign released a new advert that centres on the defiance of the women who have had to overcome societal barriers to get active. They used real people that their personas would relate to: a woman with three children who struggled to find time to exercise, a woman with painful periods who felt this stopped her from exercising and a woman whose menopause made her feel the same. The film did not shy away from issues that women feel, and affect their exercise but do not feel they can talk about, and brought them to light so that women can start talking about menopause, about periods and about family. The advert showed these women getting back into exercise with the support of their friends, family and community to show that we can all be part of the solution.

The advert reached over a million views online before it went on air and entirely through digital word of mouth.

Over the past five years This Girl Can has inspired nearly three million women to get more active, and over the next year aims to get 250,000 more. From 2015, the campaign has developed from a set of survey results to continue listening to what people have to say about why they wanted to get more active and what was stopping them. By centring on the women they wanted to inspire have built a successful and engaging campaign.

 

 

Week 8: Progress

So to keep people up-to-date … I have gone through many changes with the content and I’ve settled on a multi-narrative of a run I did on Sunday morning with experiments on music beats and intersecting reality coming in. Here’s a Google doc to show where I’ve got to. I understand that in this form that it’s not very easy to ‘get’ but designing will help with this. In plain text form, it’s not clear which voices are which and why.

I must say that I owe a lot of dues to Annie and J who really helped me talk through my writing block in the Peer-to-Peer session on Sunday. I began writing not in this form, but with a pen on paper on the way to the race, a scribble on paper, and then on the run informed this narrative. I’ve been adding to it over the days, and used my running playlist to jog (ha!) my memory of thoughts that I might have forgotten at the time.

I carried on writing on scraps of paper, and as I’ve got bits typed up overwritten these in pure desperation of paper! Stuart’s notes from our Essay tutorial last night are also there, and I’ll type up here to solidify them in my brain.

The format came much quicker, and before the firm narrative. At first glance, it looks like a book.

and when you open it … a series of concertinas. This text is screenprinted in green over the top. I’d like the text to be more distorted and Wim Crouwel, so I’m working on it.

I’d like the text to be more distorted and Wim Crouwel, so I’m working on it.

Hidden behind those is the narrative (you can see the text boxes in red):

I’m now going to start laying out my text using feedback from Stuart and a strict 3pt baseline grid…

Not sure how I feel about the columns being so narrow as that means that the differentiation between left and right align isn’t so apparent. I also need to create more space.

To add interest, I need to design the subtitle that is the first thing you see as you open the booklet. I’ve done this in Illustrator so that I can place it in Indesign whilst slicing it and retaining the ability to edit it.

This will be split across the panels. A bit too bright, but this is just a low-res output.

I’ve also exported the map course to use as a background

Pulling it together… Some of the text is designed and some isn’t. I’ve rearranged it so that the booklet can be folded similarly to a map. This means I can save on print costs by folding it. The size of the piece of paper is 571.5 x 381mm so can be printed on A2 paper.

Week 8: Production Processes

Analyse methods available to designers for self-publishing.

With the gentrification of Walthamstow post-Olympics, a number of industrial estates around Blackhorse Road that contained small printers have been sold to housing/foreign speculation developments, so that is out. However, there are craft businesses still open around me.

Paekakariki Press

This letterpress studio regularly holds workshops and takes commissions from for letterpress books. It uses a press that was the same model that William Morris used for his Kelmscott Press, so printing my project on this would draw on Walthamstow heritage.

However, the process will mean that I can only typeset, and I would really like to include images, so it would be a double process with another printer. I’d like the images and words to be more integrated than this. It would also be expensive to print a small number of copies.

Hato Press

Annie and I took a riso class here back in November, and this is a very possible technique for printing a piece. The bright colour printing and combination of colours make a punchy and eye-catching publication.

London Centre of Book Arts

To make a book, I could go to the London Centre for Book Arts to produce the book from scratch. It’s located very near the Olympic Park and is on an industrial state that survived the flattening of the land next to it. It might restrict me to a book (which is good in terms of giving myself boundaries) but that might not be the best format to produce this… I’m thinking.

New thought, it wouldn’t necessarily restrict me to a book. On sale in their shop was interesting formats including the A6 publishing, which has all its publications in A6 format: a simple but effective spec to keep the same to establish identity.

G.F. Smith

The obvious choice for paper! A few years ago they launched Extract, a paper made from recycling paper and coffee cups. A recycled paper would be the way to go. G.F.Smith has a digital booking service called Make Book, where your book can be made and printed in their factory in Hull to a high standard in small qualities.

Let’s think outside the box…

Exhibition space at The Mills

Now, Richard gave us some interesting ideas for what this project could be. It doesn’t have to be a book/magazine as such. So. There is a community centre in St James Street in the centre of Walthamstow that has an exhibition space. I could create the 3,000 words as part of exhibition displays – it wouldn’t be designed for a graphically literate audience though – it would be for people of Walthamstow.

Neon

As I reported for Week 1, neon has a huge part in the history of Walthamstow. As neon is supposed to draw attention to recreational places, so it is the perfect medium through which to display a piece about the Olympics.

Chalk Writing

I suspect the theme of my article will be that despite the billions poured into the area, the benefits to the local community were somewhat fleeting. The Olympic Park is full of vast paved areas that would have carried thousands of people a day, but are now barren years after. Once written, I could write the article on the paved areas in chalk and it would last as long as it didn’t rain.

Maps

To show the degree that the Lea Valley has been built over, I could create a map of the area and the facilities have been built. I would use mixed media in the form of wetlands paths to show how much the landscape has changed.

Week 7: Content Review Redux

This is a new version of this post. I’m going in a new direction and want to start afresh, keeping old work separate.

 

Studio Practice

1. Research methods to structure and edit a written document.
2. Analyse methods available to designers for self-publishing.
3. Deliver an A3 landscape format interactive PDF to present your initial design ideas (typeface, colour, format, print / digital production) about the design of your article.
4. Document your research, ideas and visual development on your blog.
5. Participate in and reflect on the debates raised on the Ideas Wall.

Essay

1. Deliver the first draft of your 3,000-word article, which is to be saved as a Word or Text Edit document.

Well, this week is going to be fun!

Research methods to structure and edit a written document.

All the sources from this week say to really know what your project is about and why you are doing it. What is the question I am trying to answer? This is it:

Printing

Analyse methods available to designers for self-publishing.

OK, so this exploration is in this blog post, so that this doesn’t get too bogged down.

I like the idea of using lenticular-style media to tell different parts of the story, like this garage door in Walthamstow:

OS Maps could create this effect, and I could get them printed here.

Deliver an A3 landscape format interactive PDF to present your initial design ideas (typeface, colour, format, print / digital production) about the design of your article.

Participate in and reflect on the debates raised on the Ideas Wall.

Week 7: Visiting Paekakariki Press

This morning I spent a delightful two hours chatting to Matt Mackenzie of Paekakariki Press in Walthamstow. He set up the printing press in 2010, buying the unit and the land, and has presses, type and casting machines from throughout printing history. The press also works as a publishing house, where he publishes sewn handbound works of poetry and literature to a select audience.

He is studying for an MA in Local History, for which his dissertation is on the correlation between rising literacy rates and the printing industry in East London.

His father was a printer in New Zealand. He worked in sound in West End Theatres until redundancies coincided with his wish to reduce days.

When the screen has called for printing machines, he has played a consultant role to ensure the actors use the machine correctly and look like they know what they are doing! He helped on the filming of Pennyworth (Batman spin-off) and Paddington 2.

Some further questions I’ve asked Matt:
The name Paekakariki is a Maori word – why did you decide to name your press this and what significance does it hold for you?
paekākāriki – perching place of the little green parrot
pae – perching place
kākā – parrot
kākāriki – little parrot & green

I’m a great fan of alliteration: Paekakariki Press also I have a house there.

Whilst I was visiting the studio, you had two students on placement with you from university. How do you think this kind of training helps with their design training?
It’s a very good discipline having to arrange physical blocks of letterforms and seeing how it affects the design.  I had a little discussion on that subject as they were leaving today and that is what they found.

How does it differs from the traditional print apprenticeship?
The traditional apprenticeship was 7 years, so it in no way reaches the same level of skill and competence. You just can’t hope to meet and resolve all the physical issues that might occur or come up against all the design problems in 5 weeks.

How were you taught printing and letterpress?
My father taught me a great deal at his Bibilo press at VUW NZ. Subsequently I have learnt from various retired practitioners who have very kindly shared their skills and knowledge.

What is your favourite part of your printing process?
What is unusual here is that I have to be able to do all the tasks that would have been split between many different people and commercial companies. Obviously that means I cannot approach the technical excellence of my predecessors who were specialists. I do not attempt four colour photographic reproduction! Sadly the skill level in general has generally declined to that of the 1880s and very few could hope to emulate the work displayed in the Penrose Annuals from the early 20c.

Why is printing important to you?
I suppose because I grew up with it. It’s also very creative in a human way rather than the way Graphic Design has gone with the reliance on the computer.

What advice do you pass down to new printers?
I am trying to uphold the standards of the 1880s and rather advise against the current fashion of printing for the blind

Would you design your own letterforms? What would they look like?
Interesting. I often wonder whether the world needs any more typefaces, but then find one that I feel needs a little tweaking to make it perfect…

What does a typical day in the studio look like for you?
The good thing is that there is often not a typical day. There are so many different things that need doing: book design, casting, imposition, printing, binding. And then all the commissions that clients ask for which are often outside what I would normally do so provide a learning opportunity for me.

Favourite typeface? (difficult to narrow down I know)
Somehow Garamond features quite often.

Piece of typography you’d like to create?
Sometimes I think I would like to do some Kurt Schwitters like creations, but never seem to have the time.

Typographers/designers you admire?
Jan Tschichold, Berthold Wolpe

Favourite piece of type history/equipment?
The Hoe Type Revolving machine

Piece of type history would you most like to own?
I suspect I have most of it, somewhere.

Week 7: Content Review/WRITE THE ESSAY

Studio Practice

1. Research methods to structure and edit a written document.
2. Analyse methods available to designers for self-publishing.
3. Deliver an A3 landscape format interactive PDF to present your initial design ideas (typeface, colour, format, print / digital production) about the design of your article.
4. Document your research, ideas and visual development on your blog.
5. Participate in and reflect on the debates raised on the Ideas Wall.

Essay

1. Deliver the first draft of your 3,000-word article, which is to be saved as a Word or Text Edit document.

Well, this week is going to be fun!

Research methods to structure and edit a written document.

All the sources from this week say to really know what your project is about and why you are doing it. What is the question I am trying to answer? This is it:

How has being part of a host and legacy borough of the London 2012 Olympics affected the community of Walthamstow?

Analyse methods available to designers for self-publishing.

OK, so this exploration is in this blog post, so that this doesn’t get too bogged down.

I like the idea of using lenticular-style media to tell different parts of the story, like this garage door in Walthamstow:

OS Maps could create this effect, and I could get them printed here.

Deliver an A3 landscape format interactive PDF to present your initial design ideas (typeface, colour, format, print / digital production) about the design of your article.

Participate in and reflect on the debates raised on the Ideas Wall.

Week 6: Critical Reflective Journal

To start off this week, I went on a mission to the local library to see what they had on the local area. Here is what I picked up:

I know that Vestry House Museum, a former workhouse in the area, holds a vast archive of local history, and so I have made an appointment to go there next Saturday (it was too late to go yesterday).

Looking through the books that I picked up, I found some interesting information that could go on to form the basis of my article:

• 
  • 1991 was the year I was born
  • Just kidding – I think I’ll focus on other topics
• The Bremner car, built in Walthamstow, has been acknowledged to be the first motor car, ever!
• The Lea Valley, in which Walthamstow is situated, links all the way up to Hertfordshire and is an essential waterway for transport and cargo, and water supply to London. The New River constructed to bring water from Hertfordshire to Islington in London and is sloped at a descent of a few inches per mile to flow water into the capital
• Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe tested his Avrplane, a triplane, on the Walthamstow Marshes in 1909

Today, I went on a “structured wander” around the area. My first place to visit was  The Mills”, a community centre by St James Street. They have a space for children, sports activities, a lending library, and an exhibition by local artists.

They have a sewing group on Thursdays that I might start to attend so that I can get to know more people in the area.

I picked up a copy of the local paper, the Walthamstow Echo, whose front page covers the maternity cover for the MP Stella Creasey. The area is very artistic, and murals can be seen everywhere, here are some I saw today:

And look at the purple silver sparkly house!

Near my house, the railway bridge has been painted with William Morris-esque patterns by the local primary school, as well as some amazing yarn bombing on the bollards. There’s a soldier, a snowman, a Tardis. I’m not sure if they are associated with the primary school, but they definitely brighten up the area!

Next up was the Pump House Museum. Originally a pump house, obviously, for Thames Water and Sewage, it has been listed and converted into a museum displaying fire brigade history, transport history and local inventions.

The first duplicator for offices was developed in Walthamstow, saving typists hours of time copying documents.

Next up was a walk around the Wetlands. I wanted to go to the Copper Mill Pump House on the Wetlands but it was closed thanks to the storms over the weekend.

Since the development of the water treatment works and the local ordnances to prevent industry polluting the rivers, the Wetlands have been established as a centre to protect and regenerate the wildlife in the area. Look how clean the water is! You can also fish here.

The Wetlands gave me a great view over London…

With the water treatment plant in the foreground, you can see the economic hubs in the background, Isle of Dogs (Canary Wharf) to the left and the City on the right.

I didn’t realise how close Alexandra Palace was either.

This part of London is very suburban, with most buildings being residential or low-rise industrial. So, where tall buildings are developed they are very visible. They are mostly residential blocks built next to the transport stations: Walthamstow, Blackhorse Road and Tottenhale, see the images below:

Following the transport link, the borough is trying to encourage people to cycle more, building Quiet Cycle routes and measuring their usage:

From the research I have done so far, the common themes I have seen are arts and craft and transport, both through the centuries. Why is this? More research will reveal…

Links to follow up:

When and How to Use Ethnographic Research

https://www.guardian-series.co.uk/leisure/latest/16418379.a-peoples-history-of-walthamstow-draws-on-stories-and-photos/

http://www.walthamstowmemories.net/html/losttrades.html

https://walthamforestecho.co.uk/the-mums-who-made-homework-pay/

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.falmouth.ac.uk/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=e6ee26c1-f80e-4f2c-890d-e31532e0a5f4%40sdc-v-sessmgr03&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=31768384&db=ufh

Week 6: Research and Curate

Tasks

• Research and find two possible stories that reflect a viewpoint of your own town, city or locale.
• Create one image to represent both initial story concepts, using a variety of methods, which must be original and not sourced from the Internet or a third party.
• Present two short proposals with title, original image and a short 100-word synopsis (elevator pitch) about the concept of your article. Please note, we will provide a prepared Keynote slide template for you to present your findings.

To see my general research, please go to my CRJ post for this week.

Research and find two possible stories that reflect a viewpoint of your own town, city or locale.

After posting initial ideas on the wall, Stuart and Syed helped me to narrow it down to two: the history of London Rubber Company and the brand Durex, and the legacy of the Olympic games in Waltham Forest.

London Rubber Company

Olympic Legacy

The winning bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012 was

In comparison to other cities

[TBD]

Create one image to represent both initial story concepts, using a variety of methods, which must be original and not sourced from the Internet or a third party.

Present two short proposals with title, original image and a short 100-word synopsis (elevator pitch) about the concept of your article. Please note, we will provide a prepared Keynote slide template for you to present your findings.

Running is the way in which I process my thoughts and allow myself to open up to new ideas and how to share them. Many a workshop challenge has been conceived and developed on my feet, with the environment outside my bubble intruding to spark my inspiration. My project is a play based on a recent run, comprising of three acts (lap) and scenes as each kilometre marker. As I process the project and my recent research of the printing in Walthamstow, I recall my stream of consciousness with lyrics and sounds from race officials interjecting, with the narratives interacting as they do in my mind.

Collaborate through group discussions on the Ideas Wall.