justsomedesignthings

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Two Points | How does the shopping environment effect the shopping experience?

An exploration of the shopping experience through ethnographical mapping of two points 

LCC, GMD, 2017 

Brief This brief asked me to document the findings between two points. The points I chose were both in Brixton. One was an express supermarket and the other was an outdoor market street: Electric Avenue. Research I followed individuals on their shopping journeys, recording sounds and voices whilst noting down where they were walking and what they were buying and looking at.

Development I found that the conversations I was overhearing in each locations were very different. The ones inside the supermarket were more chaotic, fatigued parents wanting to get their children out without buying too many sweets, couples arguing about what to cook for dinner and staff members discussing the next task in the busy store. The outdoor street felt a lot more care free to be in, the shoppers were taking their time choosing vegetables and fruit and a lot of them were with friends whilst doing their shopping. The main point I noted through research, was that there was an element of human interaction lacking from the supermarkets. It was only the self-service machines asking if users could ‘remove the last item from the bagging area.’ Compared to the friendly interactions of the outdoor market vendors who would be asking if the customers ‘for a pound please love.’

Final Outcome My findings resulted in myself creating two maps, one for each location. These were to show the conversations overheard by myself, screen printed over the other layers which were taken from my sketchbooks. The screen printed A1 maps were created using scale, so the supermarket was smaller than the shopping street. The way the maps were folded mimicked the feelings one would get if shopping in each environment.

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Brixton Baskets | A campaign to promote awareness of the local Brixton Markets London College of Communication, GMD, 2017  Brief This self initiated project was a continuation of my thesis, I wanted to explore further how I could create awareness of the local Brixton markets to the new ‘gentrifiers’ to the area. Research I conducted research ethnographically, through observation in the form of photography, interviews and by experiencing what it’s like to be a market vendor and selling fruit and vegetables for a day. Through my research I found there were many different problems that new shoppers to the markets were facing; many felt intimidated to visit the stalls and they didn’t realise that the markets sold fresher and cheaper vegetables. Markets also reduced food waste as people weren’t forced to buy packs of vegetables, they could shop seasonally and could also reduce packing waste.

Development I decided I needed to create a campaign that could encapsulate all the advantages of the markets to convince people to shop there. I decided on the shopping basket as a common ground for both the markets and supermarkets. The campaign would run for a year and would be based on social media as well as seasonal zines. Local shoppers would be encouraged to take pictures of their fruit and veg baskets and upload it online using the hash tag ‘Brixton Baskets’. This would create conversations for people in the community to address packaging waste, food waste and other issues. Each zine would create awareness of local events, communities, recipes with food from the local market and interviews with locals.

Final Outcome The zines were produced for each season and Riso graph printed. These would be distributed inside the Brixton tube as well as in targeted locations that new comers to Brixton would be likely to explore in. There would also be stickers on the tube station that would promote awareness of the markets. As an additional feature to encourage shoppers to add their image to social media, local artists would be asked to create an image each month that would go to a random hash tag user. This would create an opportunity to give artists publicity as well as encourage users to use the Brixton Baskets Hashtag.

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Lets Change This | Service Design for social engagement 

UAL, GMD 2016  A service design project designed to encourage people to vote in the general election. This concept was targeting those who don't normally vote or understand the political voting system. It began by understanding their needs as a community and working together to define the changes they wanted to make. I designed a kit that could be sent to community leaders, to conduct a short workshop in which the participants (students, workers, local residents) could stick giant stickers on the things in the community they wished to change. Such as fly tipping, broken bus stops and abandoned buildings. These stickers could then be posted onto social media using the hashtag #letschangethis and #justvote. This would then encourage a discussion and get people to work together as a community and decide on their preferred party to vote for.

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BBC Design Sprint / iPlayer for Babies

We ran a one day design sprint as part of our induction in the BBC. We were in groups of three and our aim was to design iPlayer for babies. It was a really interesting brief and we really had to focus on our audience.

We started out thinking about what babies can achieve, and what their needs are. Our team focused on keeping their attention, and making them aware of movements. We also thought about the parents need to be with the baby at all times, we thought about how the app could give the parents a chance to have some more free time whilst entertaining the baby in an educative way.

We came up with some main focus points, such as sounds, colours, textures, reactiveness. With these points in mind we came up with a few ‘How Might We …’ sentences. Such as; how might we use physical objects (toys etc) to interact with iPlayer? How might we create a hand free interactive experience? How might we exploit AR to bring iPlayer content into the real world? How might we create a shared experience through parent and child? How might we create a response through engagement with sounds? How might we provide a visual response to babies sounds? How might we entertain babies using textures?

These helped us focus our idea again, and we then agreed on the values we wanted the product to include: Shared Experience, Engagement and Interaction. We then did a timed exercise where we had a 8 minutes to come up with 8 ideas for how the final thing would work. After discussion of all of our quick ideas, we decided on a concept.

The concept was to be based around a moveable patch that would be attached to a baby toy, such as a rattle. This would then link up to a device such as TV or iPad. As the baby moved the rattle, the objects or characters on the page would move around. The idea would be that the baby could detect the difference in visuals depending on how much it moved the rattle.

We thought about this patch being something transferable, that would last until the child grew up and it could be implemented within a new interactive product and more engaging visuals.

Team: Tom Anderson, James Robinson & Shalyn Wilkins

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Uncertainty Playground / Elephant Bee Club 

This was a project for the ‘uncertainty playground’ event run by LCC (London College of Communication) for London Design Festival. The event was all about imagining what the new parks around elephant and castle could be used for. This is due to the fact that many new buildings are being built, and the owners of the space want to try and be inclusive of the land - welcoming new comers as well as locals to the area. 

This was a project that my friend Liisa Roll and I designed in a day. Our concept was to create a believable ‘fantasy club’. LCC has just started to house 20,000 bees in a hive located inside LCCs courtyard. We wanted to make people aware of the bees in the area, and to become bee ambassadors. 

We loved this idea of these bees pollinating all the diverse gardens of people in the area, and then making this multi-cultural honey. It was sort of an elephant honey, and so from this we designed the ‘elephant bee’. 

We designed a landing page online to see if people would sign up at the exhibition and if this was something people would want to be a part of. The club would host events for children and adults to learn about bees, what flowers they prefer and where they can visit them.

https://elephantbeeclub.wixsite.com/join

http://events.arts.ac.uk/event/2017/9/16/Uncertainty-Playground/

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D&AD Academy | Day One

Today was run by B+A agency. it was focused on individualistic and collectivist values. First identifying our own personal values within an agency. Mine were definitely focused on social awareness, and how people respect each other within the work place. I also believe honesty and integrity are important factors.

We then created mini studios within our tables, ours was called Octo and we then combined our personal values together to come up with ten values. We then had to refine them to three. It was interesting to see how we had to give up our personal values in order to vote for the three best one we believed in as a whole.

Ultimately today, I learnt when it’s important to compromise and when it’s important to stand your ground. I’ll look forward to tomorrows session, it’s all about building ideas!

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D&AD Academy & Awards 

It’s been an amazing last week, with the D&AD New Blood Festival, followed by the ceremony for the New Blood winners. I was so amazed to find that I’d won a yellow pencil for my ‘Be Here & There’ project. It was so exciting to go and accept the award and meet some incredible people! 

I’m now onto the Academy for the next two weeks - I’m going to try and blog about it every few days. Friday we had the registration event and also a talk by Charlie Dark. He is such a cool guy - I really resonated with everything he was saying. All about your values, getting to know people that are different to you and collaborating to learn new things. 

Looks like an exciting two weeks ahead - I can’t wait to get going!

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Design Museum | California Exhibition & Radical Technologies by Adam Greenfield

I recently visited the design museum California exhibition. It was really interesting to see how so many design trends started from one location and how they evolved. 

What is also interesting was how you can see future careers in the things that were made before, such as designing the user interface for the computer screens. A job that now is a profession more than just a side task. 

I also attended Adam Greenfields talk about his book; Radical Technologies. He really brought our attention to future technologies and how they are already affecting us. I think for me the most interesting thing is the value in data. 

Its a strange concept that companies give us things for free in order to take our data, and the ways in which they use this data. It feels almost invasive, as if we won’t have a choice anymore in how we use products. They can learn our habits and form products and services around these needs and movements. What is more strange is that it’s almost out of our control. Its impossible to not be tracked, from listening to Spotify or simply tracking what you’re eating on an app. I feel that at the moment one can only accept these requirements in order to be a part of this technologically dependant era.

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Love this animation style and the whole thing is so well put together!!

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DPS Process Book

A book designed to share my experiences and things that I learn on my DPS year. 

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Thesis Artefact | What is the authentic Brixton? Has it been altered through gentrification?

My thesis looked at the gentrification process currently happening in Brixton, London. The intention of the thesis was to access the authenticity of the area and evaluate the contributing factors to Brixtons changing environment. I looked at this issue through the research method of visual ethnography using my own personal observations of the area.

As my thesis content revolved around the focus on Brixton as well as journals that i’ve used for research; I feel that the most appropriate outcome would be my thesis in the form of a journal wrapped in a map. There will be some aspect of it being a worn object, having been folded and used - just as a map is. I will use parts of the journal to record my handwritten observations that I made throughout my discovery of Brixton.

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Opened up Pages on my mac to find my thesis like this ... 

Oops! I quite like how it looks though! 

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Insights from expatriates and third culture kids showed their open mindedness and flexibility in moving to new places.

A way to see where their parents were from, where they were born, where they’ve lived and where they live now. 

Glimpse is a celebration of the aspects of their culture, sharing it with others.

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!! 

Smile !

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My final submission for first term of third year. 

A platform in which you can upload your daily commute in exchange for someone else’s experience across the world, created to promote inter-cultural understanding.

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ge·ni·us lo·ci ˈjēnēəs ˈlōsī,-kī/ noun the prevailing character or atmosphere of a place. the presiding god or spirit of a place.

Google Definition

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Museum of Innocence / Orphan Pamuk / Pamuk, O. (2010). The Museum of Innocence. Random House.

Some extracts from the book, so beautifully written. I visited the museum when it came to London earlier this year and only read the book after, what a lovely combination of reading and exhibition.