todayiamawriter

Talking at the Narrative in Practice conference, Saturday 21 May

2011-05-11T18:34:00.000+01:00

Soundings’ Nina Honiball is co-curating a conference on Narrative in Practice, and has invited Associate, Caf Fean (me), to talk alongside a number of design practitioners on Saturday 21st May, 9am – 5.30pm at Toynbee Hall, 28 Commercial Street, London E1 6LS.

Details follow below, perhaps see you there!

- – -

Narrative in Practice

14 creatives explore how they use narrative in their work

Narrative in Practice is a one–day symposium exploring the value of narrative in creative practice.

The event draws together a diverse array of speakers from various disciplines such as architecture, exhibition design, public engagement and participation, interaction design, user–experience and design for urban initiatives.

We understand narrative to be a tool that creative individuals can use in their process and outcome. As a term it is subjective and illusive and has a wide variety of meanings. The speakers will share their insights on how they use it, ask critical questions and provide the audience with new knowledge the topic.

The symposium is curated by Despina Hadjilouca and Nina Honiball.

find out more here: www.narrativeinpractice.com

Imperica interview now live - Communities, Consultation and Cards

2011-02-04T17:24:00.002Z

Myself and fellow MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments alumnus, Nina Honiball were interviewed by Imperica to talk about the impact current trends and storytelling are having on the ways we engage with communities.

Click below to read more.

http://www.imperica.com/features/communities-consultation-and-cards#

NearLabs: Community participation + interaction design + storytelling = tangible results

2011-02-01T22:05:00.005Z

Just wrote this piece for the office blog - I will be helping Nina Honiball and Crystal Campbell of NearLabs to deliver a series of workshops around the themes of Community Participation, Interaction Design and Storytelling to deliver tangible results for people who wish to instil change in their communities.

NearLabs workshop series kicks off this weekend

Following the success of the Emotive Data, Narrative Mapping as a Tool workshop in April 2010 NearLabs return to Soundings office this weekend, Saturday 5th February 10am – 7.30pm to kick off a series of three workshops investigating various aspects of community participation and interaction design, mixed up with a dash of storytelling.

From NearLabs:

“A phenomenon of urban enterprises where citizen participation is implicit is on the rise. These community projects are about connecting like-minded members and localised services to each other within a local setting acting as Urban Apps.”

Find out more and sign up here

Thinkers and Doers:
Guest Speaker: David Barrie (David Barrie & Associates and The People's Supermarket)

Invited Participants: Tessy Britton (Social Spaces and Thriving Too amongst other projects), Kat Davis (Soundings), Pamela Parker (final year MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments student from Central Saint Martins) and Caf Fean (that's me - creative writer and consultant specialising in public consultation projects)

Workshop Facilitators: Crystal Campbell (Narrative Ecology and NearInteraction) and Nina Honiball (MAKEshift and Soundings)

- - -

Watch out for a posting on Imperica covering our process for developing StoryTelling cards.

Agenda for the first session below.

- - -
AGENDA

SATURDAY 5th February 10.00am sharp

1. Introduction and setting the scene

Themed introductions from each participant.

Guest Speaker.

Facilitated Q&A.

Introduction to Case Study.

Urban Apps Challenge kick-off.

Participants are divided into multi-disciplinary groups of 5.

- Networking and Refreshment Break -

2. Telling Stories & Mapping the Ecology

5 Minutes: presented by Caf Fean (creative writer and consultant specialising in public consultation projects at Soundings)

Telling Stories: StoryTelling work-cards are introduced as the greater framing structure towards effectively designing and creating solution to your challenge. Great stories stimulate both an emotional and a logical response. The StoryTelling cards are used throughout the workshop as aspirational and motivational pointers.

Mapping the Ecology: encourages each group to get to grips with the challenge by using the Sense of Belonging toolkit, -designed to establish key players, identify relationships, and easily examine multiple points of view.

5 Minutes: presented by Tessy Britton (Social Spaces and Thriving Too amongst other projects)

Inspiration Vault: free capturing of the group's collective inspiration examples coming from their individual multi-disciplinary professional experiences.

- Lunch -

Of Superheros: returning to the StoryTelling work-cards to discuss challenges and dream up superheros and superpowers.

Braving the blank page: working together with pens, pencils and sheets of paper, the group begins the search for solutions. This session is divided into two facilitated exercises, the collection of ideas regardless of their percieved relevance, and the combination and extension of ideas.

Design Thinking: clarification and evaluation of the groups collected ideas base, exploring the balance between practical functionality and emotional appeal using Narrative Ecology's FVD (feasibility, viability and desirability) and NWD (needs, wants and desires) scenario-building sheets.

- Networking and Refreshment Break -

Idea Synthesis: After-tea session starts off with a lively group debate, voting on the top 3 promising ideas.

Elevator Pitch: each group prepares a 3 minute Top 3 presentation that will be addressed to the workshop participants as a whole, ensuring shared knowledge across all participants, and opening the ideas to a greater audience for voting, one solution for each group will be chosen to take forward.

Questorming: this technique involves brainstorming the questions around the solution, because at the this stage there are often more questions than answers. The questions will form the framework for constructing future action.

Interactions: developed by NearLabs in partnership with NearInteraction, these cards are an exhaustive set of diagrams of up-to-date interactive technologies, exploring and de-mystifying concepts as varied as social media intergration to smartphone and tablet applications to tangible and gestural solutions. These solution provokers are guaranteed to entice you into talking big and thinking bigger about services that can make a practical difference when talking people to people interactions, matching people with a platform to connect and interact.

- Networking and Refreshment Break -

Wild Card: The StoryTelling work-cards are re-engaged, throwing each group an unexpected curve ball!

3. Good Participation: making it happen

Good Participation: a session intergrating the group's solution with the Good Participation flash set, an essential collection of valuable good participation touchpoints, this flash set creates a jumpstart platform for the analysis and establishment of effective solutions for participation.

Presentations: the workshop will be concluded with a 5 minute presentation from each group in the form of a narrative to the workshop participants as a whole, explaining the group's final solution to the Urban Apps Challenge.

- Workshop Wind Down over drinks -

Article - V&A Innovative London Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

2010-10-18T13:37:00.003+01:00

I am managing our office blog at the moment, and have just uploaded an article covering Christina Norton's talk at the V&A as part of the Story of London festival. The talk was coordinated by RCA Innovation. Other panelists included: Chris Wise (Expedition), Nick Talbot (Seymour Powell), Michael Casey (Caseyfierro), and Max Fordham (Max Fordham engineers) - see here for the article.

Theatre Souk - a great show

2010-10-15T10:07:00.003+01:00

I went to see Theatre Souk last night, just behind Selfridges in a disused office space.
Very very good. More coming soon - just need to write it up.

British Theatre Guide

Theatre Souk

London Theatre Review

.dash

Catie Wilkins blog about the same

Gnatcrobatics

2010-07-14T16:58:00.003+01:00

Mr McFiddle was so very small
when he stood on a pin-head you couldn't see him at all.

He entered a grand competition for gnats,
that was usually won by top tiny acrobats.

For the world's smallest man, a magnum achievement!
He pipped to first prize with his own 'Figaro's bereavement'

The crowd oohed and aahed as he grabbed with both hands
the trophy sponsored by Steptoe and friends.

As he tottered around, pride beamed through his dimples.

He set the prize down

and flew off

in a twinkle

* * *

Franco's

2010-04-23T00:27:00.005+01:00

Stormed out the office and into the brightness of an April afternoon.

After circling the block and throwing words down the phone I rounded back, via Tescos, full of uninspiring wet-looking made-yesterday sandwiches and went to join the queue at Franco's.

"Next"

"Chili Con Carne and Rice"

And I fell into a trance, listening and watching the people, until my order was called and I re-joined the life and buzz of the place.

Friendly brown Italian eyes asked me if I'd like pepper and parmesan. Yes.

Then my package was deposited on the counter and I gave him a note and a coin.

I waited for my change.

He held out his hand.

"Ups" he said, as I went to retrieve my money to find only

the stroke of his fingers.

I smiled as he candidly handed me the twenty pence.

Cheap thrill.

image courtesy of bixentro

The Ten Principles of Dieter Rams, or, how to stir up a good debate in the office

2010-03-03T12:08:00.002Z

I went to a talk last night at the Goethe Institut, where the Director of the Design Museum was discussing Dieter Rams' 10 principles with a panel of experts (see below).
More details here.

One of the panelists said the principles could be applied to system/ infrastructure/ urban design and architecture.

My 11th principle would be 'check your Gran gets it' - the panelists were quite anti-focus group for product development, and more interested in presenting the finished product and seeing how the market takes it as you should know your market (a laboratory approach). I wandered what their take would be on asking people and drawing them into the design discussion the way we do.

Ideas suggested by the panel were:

- product design is giving way to software design (products are often a vessel for the true product which is the software, rather than mechanics)
- all these things go in waves (miniature products, style over function, function over style etc)
- involving the sales team in the design process (as done at Apple) can lead to more successful sales of product/ mixing up designers and engineers can be good for the design... basically cross-disciplinary learning and design can be excellent for innovation
- giving the creatives some time for their own private projects can help boost creativity
- 'branding' is a bad word as it suggests imposing something upon something else, rather than letting something grow organically (I personally think Mark Adams had a problem with the word, he said the word isn't ever used in his shop)

Anyway, some food for thought. An exhibition of Rams' work and associated designs is currently on show at the Design Museum - it's in its final week.

What would your 11th principle be?

Dieter's are copied below.

Cheers,
Caf

* * * * * * *

Good design is innovative.

Good design makes a product useful.

Good design is aesthetic.

Good design makes a product understandable.

Good design is unobtrusive.

Good design is honest.

Good design is long-lasting.

Good design is thorough down to the last detail.

Good design is environmentally friendly.

Good design is as little design as possible.

Copyright Dieter Rams, amended March 2003 and October 2009

Panel Discussion: Chaired by Deyan Seudjic (Director of the Design Museum).
Speakers: Mark Adams (Managing Director, Vitsoe), Prof.Dr. Klaus Klemp (Head of Exhibitions, Museum fur Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt), and Sam Hecht (Co-founder of Industrial Facility).

Libyan Desert Sand

2009-04-28T20:54:00.003+01:00

Driving through desert, a smile on my face.

Ever had a smile you can't wipe away?

I highly recommend driving from Ghadames to Tripoli to pick one up,

though it might crunch 'tween teeth.

Let me know if you need a guide.

Mouse-click Keyboard Music

2009-03-19T12:21:00.007Z

image from [xinita] passed trigonometry!'s photostream

You're at work, you sit down, you start to type.

Listening, you hear the clatter of other people's keys, as their thoughts appear in front of them in pixels. They sound like small beetles communicating to one another.

Click crunch click.

Rather than the same tune every day, you are able to choose 'dog woof' or that 'chack chack' style 'clap' from a Yamaha keyboard from the 80s. Perhaps you can run a 'demo' or tune in to other people's compositions.

Perhaps some company somewhere could come up with a xylophone keyboard. Just think.
It'd be nice to have something as a tuneful haphazard distraction every now and again.

Snow in February

2009-02-03T20:58:00.002Z

Richmond is splendid in the snow.
You see people smiling, a rarity, and the place takes on a 'chalet' feel.
Envious of sledgers and snowboarders, I like it very much.
Today my arms ache from carrying the body of our snowman.
I wonder if he'll be there when I get home?

Ideas for a better understanding of someone else

2008-10-29T22:10:00.003Z

Old hoodies and young mobility buggies: a game where the elderly switch places with the young. Instructions: wear a hood, hang around and talk with your friends.

When working on the ageing population project a friend mentioned wearing clothing that restricts movement. Get a 'young person' to try texting with restricted movement gloves on.

Scenario: kid gets on bus with mobile phone slide speaker blaring. Everyone else on the bus starts to dance to the music/ sing along/ play their own music back.

Front room projects - bringing back the idea of the front room, people pop over for a pint and a chat, go round to other people's houses, spread this over a couple of months. Cheaper than the pub.

Or... switch front rooms with someone, understand more about how they live.

104 opens tonight

2008-10-11T12:24:00.004+01:00

www.104.fr

Handkerchief

2008-10-07T23:02:00.005+01:00

I wanted to write about an image that popped into my mind.
A young woman waves her parting beloved off to war.
I wanted this image to exist, outside of my head, perhaps online. So I tapped in etching and goodbye, specified image but, just as when you take a pencil and put it to paper, it never comes out the way you wanted it, so I did not find my dream image.

Instead, I found a book that you can read for free, with the most beautiful images illustrating it. I greedily scrolled through the sheets, but didn't read. Hopped, skipped, jumped, searching for my image. How would that person who wrote that feel? Me, sifting through with my sieve, searching for imaginary nuggets.

An Onlooker in France 1917-1919, by William Orpen

Next, handkerchief and wave - a load of handkerchiefs and their various purposes came back. I have seen them used for many things: washing a child's face before church, as a flirtation tool in a dance, on old men's heads to shield the sun, with a knot tied to remember something to someone.
And then, for magic.

Camille - Ta Douleur

2008-10-05T21:20:00.001+01:00

a good friend recommended her to me.

The Deptford Ballroom, by Linda Florence

2008-10-03T07:17:00.003+01:00

film by Linda Florence, guest starring Kirsty and Ed

Calling all Fred and Gingers!
Linda Florence invites you to sashay South East, to discover her latest creation. The ‘Deptford Ballroom’ is a shed on stilts: a private dance-floor. Wrapped in a new Florence design, this intimate shelter is transformed into a ballroom just for two. Enter, pull a cord and start up the band, then follow the instructions marked on the wooden parquet flooring, steps one, two, three. Soon you will be whirling in your own old-time movie, spun up in golden wallpaper. Above you a series of specially designed lampshades complete with authentic vintage ribbons and trimmings scavenged from nearby Deptford Market dangle daintily.
From the outside, on-lookers can see your feet, making some snappy moves and your dance’s shadows. Fred and Ginger doppelgangers welcomed warmly, for the less extravagant, a bijou-ballroom awaits you.

The Deptford Project Gaffs
With three other local artists, Florence was commissioned by Raw Nerve to reinterpret a ‘gaff’, a wooden shed on long legs, recently used as part of the London Festival of Architecture.
These provide shelter for visitors to the recently opened Deptford Project - a converted railway carriage café designed by Morag Myerscough and run by Rebecca Molina. 
The Deptford Project Gaffs is curated by Raw Nerve and funded by City Growth.

http://www.thedeptfordprojectgaffs.co.uk
121-123 Deptford High Street
London
Free entrance
Press release by Caf Fean

Max Tundra's new single

2008-09-29T21:56:00.001+01:00

'Will Get Fooled Again'
Take a look, it's fun!

Max Tundra - link
Joji (director) - link
Mike Chan (drummer) - link

Collaboration with Ayda Anlagan for Designers Block 18 - 21 September 2008

2008-09-19T00:32:00.008+01:00

I was asked to provide some stories with catchy endings for Ayda Anlagan. The stories are laid out onto her 'Every Drop Counts' bowls.

"The object, essentially, is a statement which embodies the theme of my MA thesis which is food wastage in the domestic environment. The aim of this object is to create awareness of the importance of finishing what is on one’s plate in a playful manner that doesn't preach, be it with stories which end at the bottom of the food or graphic narratives which encourage the user to finish every last drop. Customised graphics can be applied which make them ideal for dinner parties and special occasions."

Find these at Designers Block. Ayda is exhibiting with Future Living.

'CSM Sucks' by Ed Gold

2008-09-19T00:32:00.004+01:00

Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, circa 1998.
An in-joke and an introduction to Ed Gold, whose work is well worth visiting.

Beware the judder man

2008-09-17T00:33:00.002+01:00

Just thought I'd add this one to the list - unforgettable, and rather chilling.

Bread

2008-09-17T00:14:00.007+01:00

My first spelled-out word for which I got a 'well done' - that I remember, was Hovis.
'huh - uh- ver- ei- suh' 'hovvis'
that's what I said.
Mum said 'well done'.

I like the new ad because at first I thought it was for a new period drama, and I do love a good period drama, then I was taken by the stories it was telling, and it ended happily. And I like the way his jumper changes. Just realised it's more than just his jumper.

An enjoyable ad. Let's see if it tires with multiple viewings.

Hovis sign in Eton near Windsor, UK

Taking a bath

2008-09-16T23:30:00.004+01:00

The Flake advert sprang to mind as I was mulling over my experiences of the past few months. At the end of one long day I found myself in an hotel, having a bath. I'd like to say it was something similar to the scenario you see above this, but no, it was in an hotel, which was definitely a luxury, but instead of Opera streaming through the background, I had 'Britain's Got Talent' screaming from the telly I couldn't see in the next room.

I just had a thought - wouldn't it be great if somewhere in London we could go and have a nice long soak, and then perhaps a coffee or a refreshing herbal tea? A little time warp where you can take a bath and laze around with no worry of interruptions. Not a Spa, nothing that makes you feel guilty for not being eternally wholesome and 'green tea'. And perhaps not too expensive?

I envisage a room approx the same size as the Flake set above, or tonnes of baths, dotted through a landscape with geyser-style steam creating walls between baths... but then that's not practical...

In our halls of residence in Sheffield (circa '98) we had a bath to share on the corridor: it was not glamourous, and had the same standard gaps below and above the extended cubicle as you now come to expect of any public women's toilet. I don't think any of us ever used it, as we much preferred the showers.

Then there's the sustainability issue: how could this 'posh bath house' idea get off the ground when we don't want to waste water?

My posh bath. Molton Brown dispensers - you can't pick the bottles up though.

Alphabet Soup for a Murderess

2008-09-11T00:12:00.006+01:00

Astounding. Beautiful - that's how it began.
Contempt ensued, followed swiftly by Disillusion…
Eat - lost all appetite, not even Friendship.
Guillotine in the corner, smiles as we
Hurl
Insults.
Jealousy is a dangerous creature.
Killing him seems a splendid thought.
Lying there, morphine-viagra spritzer administered, suddenly realise
Mum's coming over
Norman, out cold.
O god, Please forgive me!
Quiet. Respond, my darling!
Slapper, Tart.
Unforgiving lazy eye stares back.
Vermin, good riddance.
What next?
X Factor on telly, only the innocent sleep ... ?
Zzz.

picture 1
picture 2

I love London in the rain because...

2008-09-06T13:00:00.002+01:00

To combat feelings of resentment to the torrential downpour that has been our experience of London over the past day or two, and to see what might come of it, I sent this text out to some friends last night. Responses below.

"Hello. Caf calling. I would like you to complete the following sentence.
I love London in the rain because... X x x"

... it dilutes the smell of urine on the streets.
(SS)

Because I am in Paris!
(AS)

... it's a great time for singing
(AM)

... my boots are waterproof!
(NM)

Because just got caught in the rain!
(CL)

I'm moving to Paris
(PD)

Soup Session at Le Gun

2008-09-03T23:45:00.002+01:00

Myself and Linda attended Soup Session on Sunday of last week.
Held at Le Gun, Shoreditch.
It was fantastic. The exhibition is well worth a look also.
More on Soup Session to come.

(image from Le Gun homepage) - also on wall of gallery when you come in. Made me like cats.

FFFFOUND!

2008-09-03T23:41:00.005+01:00

Thanks to Oway for introducing me to ffffound - an amazing source of inspiration.

image source:
Quoted from: jan von holleben - dreams of flying

www.janvonholleben.com/images/work/dreams_of_flying/08.jpg

Poetic Journey, upcoming workshops in Brixton

2008-09-03T23:36:00.001+01:00

My friend Hannah is facilitating a poetry group called Poetic Journey, starting this Saturday, September 6th in Brixton, London:

If you write poetry or just want to 'write your own road', it would be great to see you there (and please forward to anyone else who may be interested)...
Details below and at: www.poeticjourney.co.uk

POETIC JOURNEY
Write your own road…

Poetic Journey is a 12-week course exploring and creating the journeys of our lives – physical journeys and inner journeys – through poetry.

The course focuses on six key questions for every traveller:

ORIENTATION: Where am I?
PLANNING: Where do I want to go?
PACKING: What do I need to take?
COMPANIONS: Who will go with me?
NAVIGATION: How do I find my way?
STAMINA: How do I keep going?

Each two-hour session combines reading, writing, talking and doing. Everyone welcome, from total beginners to experienced poets.

WHEN? Saturdays 6 September – 22 November 4.30-6.30pm.
WHERE? Upper Hall, Brixton St Vincent's Community Centre, Talma Road, London SW2 1AS.
For map and directions see: www.bsvcc.org/contact.html
PRICES: £10 per session / £18 for 2 weeks / £90 for full course. Some discounts available – please ask.

For more information or to book please visit: www.poeticjourney.co.uk
or contact Hannah Lewis: hannah@poeticjourney.co.uk / 0791 9038778

Hope to see you on the journey...

All the best
Hannah

Post 101

2008-09-03T23:28:00.004+01:00

A bench sits under a lamppost by the sea in Calpe, Spain.
I captured it. June 2008.

The Black and White Uncertainty, Collaboration with Oceanwarmair

2008-08-03T18:44:00.004+01:00

Over the past 6 weeks I have been working with Oway of oceanwarmair to co-write a story which will be animated by her, with a set of collaborators, for a competition released by Channel 4.
Thanks to my friend Gigi for passing my details on to Oway, who was in search of a writer.

Here is a link to the panda narrative driver blog which tracks our process, more the written stuff than the animation, but more of that to come once we start to build the project. We should hear back from Channel 4 by 8 August if we are successful.

Ken Hollings' Blog

2008-08-03T18:35:00.003+01:00

My friend Ken has started up his own blog.

Tune in here

Find out more about Ken from his blog...

"Ken Hollings is a writer based in London.

His work appears in a wide range of journals and publications, including The Wire, Sight and Sound, Strange Attractor, Frieze, Blast and Nude, and in the anthologies The Last Sex, Digital Delirium, Undercurrents and London Noir.

His novel Destroy All Monsters was hailed by The Scotsman as ‘a mighty slab of trippy, cult, out-there fiction, mind-bending reading’. He has written and presented critically acclaimed programmes for BBC Radio 3, Radio 4, Resonance FM, NPS in Holland and ABC Australia.

His new book, Welcome to Mars: Science and the American Century 1947-1959 is due from Strange Attractor Press in October 2008."

Paris Quartier d'Ete

2008-08-03T17:21:00.004+01:00

Here are two videos I took in Paris a couple of weekends ago, the first is from a friend's flat. Someone practicing piano on a Sunday morning.
The second is from the Paris Quartier d'Ete events programme. We stumbled upon a recital of Bizet's Carmen Dance Boheme, made my day. Paris, magnifique.

Hard-fi Superfan Twitter for Radio 1

2008-07-18T16:23:00.003+01:00

A bit more of 'what I've done since leaving college'...
As part of Zane Lowe's takeover on Radio One, I sat in the Radio One studios, twittering what was happening as the show ran. This took place in January of this year, and Radio One wanted a way of keeping a memory of the event online, and so had superfans come in to blog the show. Podcasts can only last two weeks on their server.
Many thanks to Hard Fi for the opportunity.

Hard-Fi fan Catherine Fean was sat in the studio commentating via Twitter:

18:58 - Here I am at the bowels of the Radio One studio, and things are about to kick off. I've met Steve and Rich, very pleasant conversation...
18:59 - The show hasn't started yet... I'm sat at a window peeping in at the show as it goes. Ah they're on!!!
19:05 - The lads have dark clothes on, Rich is wearing red Doc Martens. I haven't worn those in a long while....
19:06 - Rich has taken a more relaxed pose, leaning one hand on the deck... More head nodding from Steve. In time... but then you'd expect that.
19:06 - Steve's clapping along to the songs and some good shoulder dancing is going on.
19:07 - Rich is scratching his back. A lot.
19:08 - We're singing along in the backroom!!! Kings of Leon. Oh yes.
19:09 - Wish you could be here.
19:09 - Five people in the studio: all smiling.
19:09 - Some chat's going on, the studio is only small, purple lighting and ... Steve is dancing robot style to Rich, who isn't
19:10 - The microphones are huge! (no rudeness intended)
19:11 - Drumming along in the backroom now.
19:11 - Rich's kiss curl is still there, despite headphone flattening attempts. Nice.
19:13 - Chatroom asking for Craig David version of 'Let's Dance' - that is so so so wrong.
19:20 - Feel like a right stalker behind this glass. Next to me is a chatroom monitor man and interactive specialist. We're eatin monster munch
19:22 - Think Rich has a bit of a cold.
19:23 - Jokes firing across, the boys were feeling the nerves, but have settled fine now. It's a bit like blue peter's birthday card bit ....
19:26 - Steve's headphones are one-on, one-off. Rich on the other hand, has both on.
19:28 - Playing Oasis... I was more Blur myself ...
19:29 - Backroom description: smells like monstermunch, SkySports on LCD screen in corner, Studio windows at all 4 corners
19:30 - Intelligence from Hard-Fi: Ross rode a camel this Christmas.
19:33 - I don't think he was one of the three kings, but you never know.
19:36 - I'm daydreaming and wondering if either of the boys have ever grown a beard...
19:40 - Steve's just pulled his boxers back up. I'm not kidding.
19:45 - Ross is on the phone, happy as larry, even though his tooth is aching.
19:49 - Ross wins 'most random phonecall ever' award: I don't think Radio One has had a tooth discussion in the past...
19:55 - Photos being taken of the band, looking bandy. Just spoke to Ross (they did) funny guy.
19:56 - Hard-Fi have decided to help some people with their homework, which is ace, except they don't know anything about physics.
20:06 - I've stocked up a question... 'have either of you ever grown a beard, and how did it go?'
20:09 - Rich leans back laconically as his hand sits in his pocket. Steve's head swings from side to side.
20:13 - Cheese is the answer to 'what's your last meal' back here, I think Monster Munch myself. Been too long since I ate anything this chemically.
20:18 - Just discovered Radio One is on Facebook, feel like I'm from the Dark Ages. Nice nice music coming on now. Hong Kong
20:19 - Hong Kong was called Honkers, back in the day.
20:26 - Been trying to communicate with the band, very difficult, feel like I'm aping strange shapes at some apes.
20:27 - Rich is explaining 'I shall overcome' and his body language is communicating real feeling.
20:27 - I just got a mention, asked a question bout a beard, made me night.
20:30 - Steve just 'dropped the bomb' and he's got a grin the size of his face on.
20:31 - Rich's quiff was a bit out of control for a minute then, the headphones did their worst, but he's just re-arranged.
20:32 - A comb for the top-pocket could be a good present for next Christmas.
20:34 - Rich making darts-playing movements when asking about 'do you have a darts sound effect?'
20:37 - Steve has his legs around the bongo now... knew it was for something.
20:39 - Relaxed tempo going on with the radio show. My friends in the backroom think this is a 'fireside chat' kind of show. I think it's more of a 'barside chat' meself
20:44 - 'Instrument corner' ... a bit more Blue Peter. However, if the Ukelele belonged to J Cash that can't be a bad thing. Stylophone great.
20:45 - sixteen minutes, that's all that's left of the show, which is a real shame.
20:45 - He really is trying to play it (Steve - the bongo)
20:46 - I could listen to these guys all night long.
20:48 - And behind the DJ.
20:48 - There's no forgetting where you are, there are Radio One signs all over the place. Well... on the window in front of me both sides...
20:49 - Is being a superfan like being a supergran?
20:50 - The whole operation is very well timed, and engineered. I'm impressed with Radio One's choreography.
20:53 - The Specials, Simeon Mobile Disco, Love Action Human League. Missed out on hearing these. The boys do a good DJ set. I'll give em that.
20:55 - You need to be alert to do this kind of job, and 'yourself' - Steve and Rich are both very easy-going and are performing well.
20:56 - 20 secs left... almost over... for now, woah ha haaa
20:57 - APPLAUSE.
21:00 - It has been a very exciting evening. Hard-Fi are a thoroughly nice bunch.
21:01 - I have been Hard-Fi's superfan, Caf. Nice to twitter

T minus 23 and counting

2008-07-18T09:47:00.005+01:00

Fred sat back and watched as the light outside the bus darkened, contrasting with the television-screen reflections of himself and his fellow passengers on the inside. Outside flashes of neon, selling deep-fried chicken dinners, cheap children's toys and price-slashed discount furniture sailed past him.

A south american family swung themselves into the seat infront of him, obscuring his view of the road ahead, cramming themselves (a mother and two little children) into the two-seater.
He watched the two kids wrestling each other for room, grubby hands on the greasy window.
The children seemed to be engaged in some sort of game, where each took it in turn to be the 'newsreader'. The elder, a boy with thick dark hair, would elbow the slighter of the two, out of the way and hold up an imaginary microphone, reporting on the weather, the latest hot news in the press, occasionally what his mother was doing. Chuckling, the smaller of the two would then pitch in, pushing the first out of the way to dominate the screen.
Fred smiled and shook his head, releasing a goofy 'heep heep heep' from his heavy frame.

His mind wondered to the last time he'd had an evening out - 'that had gone better by far', he thought.
In a favourite restaurant of a friend's, he'd met Emilie. Located in a less than appealing part of the city, where half the streetlights hummed greenish, and walking between them felt tight-rope. The place was tucked away in an industrial back-passage far from any sign of human activity. They sat down together, she wore a flouncy folky number, with cowboy boots, standard fare for girls from her neighbourhood.
The main event for the evening commenced.
Half a dozen waitresses, previously stood quite quietly by their candle-lit tables and second-hand flea-market chairs, swayed slowly, side to side and the waitress nearest them let out a high-pitched hum, joined by the others, one by one, until the wine glasses were resonating to the sound, now almost too loud to bear.
Then they stopped.
One then began, in a whisper, to describe the meal she'd had, her mother gave her the recipe. Another joined in from across the room, overlaying her voice, and her story, upon the former.
Soon the room was filled with delicious descriptions of food. Wine had been poured, without his noticing. Just how he liked it. Sweet, and sumptuous.

An evening nobody and nothing had quite yet matched.

Cockabondy

2008-07-12T18:46:00.003+01:00

"what an absolututely fantabulous example of modern day chirography; like the cockabondy of flies,this blog blazes with an incandescence that casts a penumbra over all others that i have witnessed. i look forward to further exploring your entries."

The above was posted by a close friend. I thought it deserved a post all to itself. Dictionaries are fabulous things. I believe they made up the word I've picked out to title this post.

Viktor & Rolf, Barbican

2008-07-11T01:11:00.007+01:00

find this here
this found here
find me here

Myself and good friend Satoko went to see the House of Viktor & Rolf exhibition at the Barbican, London this Sunday. We followed it up by a massage at a Chinese Massage place she knows on St Martins Lane. Really good. In case you're looking for something to ease those muscles.
Back to the show. And a show it was.
I love the Barbican anyway, but this was a special experience, as I had only ever been there for a pecha kucha event before, and that was brief and the time spent was dictated by someone else. This time round I could take my time and look and re-look at the things going on around me.

On entering the exhibition (and there's a very strict way to enter, we were guided thus by the bouncer man), you encounter a ceramic doll-faced mannequin sporting an old victorian-looking hessian-mixed with sequin dress. At once elegant and somewhat shabby, like the last thing pulled out of the costume department at a defunct play (perhaps Gone With The Wind)... this dress grows on you, as it becomes a landmark for the exhibition. Around every corner there's a new interpretation of the works.

Following the goth-drag-sequin-mother-in-law dress we are presented with very Juan Munoz - looking fragments of models with dresses, all in cream pvc and headless, armless, leaning against glass - as though someone sliced through them, suspended, as you see later in the exhibition, with uncomfortable looking wires.

Moving on, past mini-montages of designing the garments, little showcases depict mini-studios, with easel (ten centimetres high), sketches (thumbnails) and leftovers (scattered across the floor). The hangers to hang tiny clothes were the most engaging pieces within these tiny fashion design boxes, about five centimetres, and all the mini-clothes on display looked entirely in proportion to both our hands, and the hangars.

So much more to say.

I'll tell you what I said in my notebook later, and let you know what else struck me. I've been thinking about it ever since we left the exhibition, that's a sign of a good 'un.

Meeting Wally Olins

2008-06-24T23:49:00.005+01:00

He signed my book - I told him my name and he repeated
'Caf. C-a-f?'
'Yes C-a-f'
'Caf?'
'That's me!'
Head down, scribble, smile.
And my Wally Olins The Brand Handbook reads:
To Caf (nice name!) from Wally Olins, LONDON 2008

+++

D&AD invited student and new creative members to 'An Evening with Wally Olins' and to look at the New Blood exhibition which is currently on at Earl's Court.
'Wally Olins, renowned marketing guru and the world's leading branding expert, is releasing a new book entitled [well, see above]. The book... sets out the ground rules for branding success in the 21st century, explaining why understanding the links between business, brand and consumer has never been more vital.'

Olins gave a talk.
'A few thoughts on the future of branding'

He identified 5 big changes that will take place in the next ten, twenty, thirty years.
They may clash or cross over, but each will be important.

* a multipolar world
* new zeitgeist
* new role for corporations
* digital spaces
* sense of place

A multipolar world---
Hitherto the world has been dominated by two forces: US and Europe. Going forwards it will be a more even playing field, BRIC (Brazil Russia India China) will be influencing in equal measure.

Eames clutter ---
He presented us with a scenario: we're all parents, (the audience being mainly made up of students) and our kids look at an Eames chair we have and argue that it is ecologically unsound, probably full of lice and aesthetically grotesque. They would far rather use their ecologically ethical stool or rug they have, that cost hardly anything to build and is not costly to the environment in the long term.

Philanthropy and role models---
From conspicuous consumption to conspicuous compassion
'Giving is the new buying'
'We're becoming ashamed of buying and buying and buying'

Personal philanthropy and social entrepreneurship - 'people of your generation are a lot more comfortable with the notion of 'tithing''

What are the consequences of these key changes?---
A new role for corporations.
More libertarian, taking part in society, seeing it as a thing they ought to do.

In the old times it was the stakeholder to whom businesses were largely responsible. Nowadays it's the consumer. Gone are the days of 'greed is good' and 'you want loyalty? Go and buy a Spaniel.'

Businesses have to behave well.---
Benevolence
Corporate Social Responsibility is not an add-on - it is integral.

We will see more big corporates begin to partner charities. These craft-based organisations tend to be suspicious of brand promotion however, often charities fall down in terms of the output they generate, which Olins described as sometimes amateur, sloppy and ineffective.
To illustrate his point he remarked that HSBC would not try to tout for more business by using a clip-board brandishing young person to capture passers-by. The marketing of the charity can undermine its integrity.
However if they get it right, and some do, this can be a very powerful thing. Here Olins used the Red Cross as an example of a brand that manages to project un-vulnerability by being totally vulnerable.

There will be more emphasis on the corporate brand, less on sub-brands.
It will be about 'what it is' and not 'what it produces.'

We will see fewer more powerful and coherent charities with a commitment to co-branding and keen to generate long-term relationships.

Diageo was used to illustrate this point. The drinks group in charge of Guinness, Baileys, Jameson and many more, has launched a television advertising campaign warning consumers of the dangers of drinking too much. 'A major corporate advertising corporately on TV about behaviour.'

Digital Spaces ---

Who would have thought - facebook, You Tube, Alibaba.com.
Now it's 'famous IN 15 minutes, not FOR 15 minutes.'
The consumer will no longer treat what the provider claims as gospel.

Place ---
Nations are searching for 'who' they are and 'where' they come from.
The back of an ipod details its provenance as follows:
Designed by Apple in California // Assembled in China.
The world has seen 29 new countries in the last 15 years. A crisis of identity is taking place.
Of the central European countries, their straplines are entirely interchangeable.
Who would have thought Dubai would spring out of the desert into a City State.

'Just a few thoughts that's all'
is how he ended.

Here are some from the Q&A session that followed.

as a piece of work, designed six years or so before it is to be used it is very dramatic and works well alongside other brand logos.

If the corporation does not make a profit it will cease to exist.

We may see more use of movement and colour in our graphic outputs in the future.

Football is a surrogate for war.

People's behaviour doesn't change, there will always be an 'other' - this exists on every level. It is a basic element of the human condition.

She stood on the bridge at midnight...

2008-05-20T23:35:00.003+01:00

Her legs were all a quiver
She gave a cough
Her leg fell off
And floated down the river

+++

I wish I were down by the sea again
The lonely sea and sky
I left my shoes and socks there
I wonder if they're dry?

+++
These aren't mine, they come from my childhood. But I thought of them, so here they are.

Back on the blog

2008-05-02T23:04:00.010+01:00

Ok, here's a snapshot of what this year (well... the last!) has so far held...
Internship with dezeen over the summer of 2007, where I helped to coordinate Trash Luxe as part of the London Design Festival. This was an exhibition curated by Marcus Fairs, founder of Dezeen. It presented the work of designers like Ineke Hans and Max Lamb along with Greetje Van Helmond and Piet Hein Eek: all of whom use humble materials (often considered as waste) and turn them into something desirable.
The work was displayed on floor 4 of Liberty, a nice hat's off (for me, not intentional) to all the department store/ retail research of college days.

I also had the privilege of covering the New Designers 2007 show - a number of the works I saw were excellent, will try to get them down onto this virtual notebook before I forget them altogether.

Finally I covered Zaha Hadid's opening of the Lilas at the Serpentine Gallery: my full story (more of a photo diary) can be seen here.

End of update. Hello 2008.

It's been raining lots.

Mapping Sheffield

2008-04-13T15:58:00.004+01:00

Sheffield Galleries undertook a mapping exercise as part of an exhibition.
I contributed, with the below, in Hope, outside Sheffield.

Horseriding, losing control, 'how do I get down?'

On a break from the student experience of the City, which generally involved beer, dancing, and courting headaches, we went up to Hope, to ride horses.

It was in March, and the views were lemon-yellow. I had a fiesty horse, with its own sense of where we'd be going and what we'd be doing.

We rode high up a bank.

'How do I get down?!' I cried, to my companions.

I was led back down, with someone who had much more command over that horse than I ever would.
I am thankful to her, but part of me kind of wishes I could have stayed there.

Things to write home about: The Mask Of Red Death

2007-11-28T22:21:00.002Z

'Write Home About" A cliched line, but one that came to me. Perhaps it's just better to write something than nothing at all.
Went to see the Masque of Red Death production by Punchdrunk on Friday last, it was amazing spectacular superb thrilling scary frightening monstrous trippy wierd, and I loved it.
The entirety (or so it felt to me) of Battersea Arts Centre had been transformed into a set. Hosting a number of stories and poems written by Edgar Allen Poe, this experience involved the audience putting masks on and entering the action.

Scene 1, Act 1
Meet outside Battersea Arts Centre. Laugh, cajole, go in, after lengthy queueing.
We were greeted by stage hands, who took tickets and bags, and directed us upstairs. Something similar to the Birds experience (mentioned earlier in another posting) as we were ushered around to the back of the building to see the 'play'.
Once our queue had reached the top of the stairs into the draughty building, we were each given a mask - venetian style, long-beaked, white with circular holes for eyes to peep through. Nico had her glasses on over hers, as was the way for bespectacled audience members.
In, through a red curtain, to a chamber, surrounded by red velvet, gathered in the cieling.

'Ladies and Gentlemen'
Our new hostess/ guide, who had appeared from nowhere, greeted us and told us the rules. You are not to take your mask off, unless you are told to, you are not to talk, it is better if you travel alone rather than as a group.
A great build-up, and finally we were allowed to enter. Before we left her she told us that some of us may be seeking treasure, and that indeed, there was some to be found, should we be fortunate.

Next movement (Act 2)
So, through the curtain I go, my mindset switching from oberver to participant. I try to lose my masqued friends, other audience members, who seem so strange to me, sinister somehow, but who, over time in my new world, become backround figures, ghosts, spectres, as the action comes only from those without masks.
Difficult to lose anyone, and we've only just entered the maze, which is what it turns out to be, so on I go. Push this door, it doesn't work. The hallways smell cold. The air is like snowdrift, we're pushing through it. Ah, a door. Black laquer painted. It resists, then, a guide, (black mask, black cape, they say nothing but they guide you through the experience), motions to say that 'whatever is behind the door is not yet ready'.
I step back. Other beaked friends have moved on, finding other ways through the warren: am I missing something else? Still, I wait. Then, aha. I knock.

The same guide opens the same door and motions in the same way to say the same thing. Hmm.

This must be worth waiting for. Finally, the door breathes open, and I breathe in. In front of me is some movement, and I get the impression I've seen something I shouldn't have seen. It's not ready. I've interrupted. The guide from before speaks: "You can take your mask off." (Can I?) So, I step in from this shady corridor, into a room, full of light, and two women, all dressed in black. One of them (to my left) is on a ladder. The other, (to my right) is sat on a chair, with what looks like a dentist's tooth-scraping instrument, tending to a wound in her hand. There are prosthetics and stage make-up itinerary ordered in the corner of the room behind me. I look at the wall and see gashes of prosthetic, what look like wine stains, giving the effect of blood trickling down the walls.

I don't stay too long.

Got a job and stopped blogging

2007-11-03T15:21:00.001Z

I haven't been using this account for a while and really have been missing it. Since the last posting, I have joined Locum Consulting as a Research Consultant. None of the content on this blog has anything to do with that, which I hope goes without saying. todayiamawriter can no longer cover 'what I did at college', so I am taking some time out to work out a new angle.
Thoughts so far include listing 'people I saw on the train' and other character sketches, more on Frank and Sandy, and any other quirky design things that might come along.
Fingers crossed.

D&AD Global Student Awards - Winner

2007-07-15T14:47:00.004+01:00

We went to the awards ceremony to find that we'd won first prize for the Ageing Population brief. In the photo above (L-R): Jack Godfrey Wood, Rui Liu, Tom Ballhatchet, Daniel Meyer, Caf Fean at the ceremony. Prizes won listed below.

Jack Godfrey Wood , Daniel Meyer, Caf Fean (MACPFNE ): Product Design (Innovation) - Ageing Population: First Prize

Tom Ballhatchet , Jack Godfrey Wood, Will Gurley : Product Design (Innovation) 3D Brand: Second Prize

Tom Ballhatchet, Jack Godfrey Wood, Rui Liu: Product Design (Innovation) 3D Brand: Runner-Up

A special thank you to everyone who helped us with the research, and to G H Stewart, aka Bill Ellis.

Nominated for D&AD Student Award

2007-05-28T10:58:00.003+01:00

Myself, Daniel Meyer and Jack Godfrey Wood, colleagues from the MA Industrial Design course at Central Saint Martins have been nominated for the Product Design & Innovation category of the D&AD Student Awards 2007.
Set by the Design Council,"The Ageing Population" brief asked that we design the living components for the elderly in the year 2020.
We came up with a scenario that treats all areas of concern in a new way - a halls of residence for the elderly, grafted onto a University Campus. Carers would be selected from the student body, the University would offer all manner of courses to further the student's education whilst encouraging cross-generational exchange.
Riding on trends such as the Knowledge Economy, and following research which included interviews and field work, we put ourselves in the position of Bill Ellis: how would he communicate his experience?
Our solution was to represent the idea from Bill's perspective in the form of a journal or scrap-book. Below are images of the four boards that describe his scenario.
The awards ceremony takes place 28 June 2007 - which is when we'll find out whether or not our nomination is successful.

epaper:
"Welcome to the University of Wessex Lifelong Learning prospectus. After a trial year we are delighted to open up our residential courses to over 1500 prospective new applicants.

As a dynamic and forward-looking University and a Centre of Excellence in Teaching Learning and Enterprise, we have decided to open up our facilities to all ages and qualifications. Our students study with us for a period of 16 weeks, living on site to get the best out of campus life. The friends you make here will be friends for life, some living no further than a five-minute walk from campus out of term time.

At Wessex, we encourage our students to teach at undergraduate level wherever possible. Carers are often taken from the undergraduate body, allowing them to share skills, stories and experiences. Our college ethos is to create a platform for cross-generational exchange: our research department is one of the finest in the country, and your contribution can only add to our Knowledge (TM) status.

We are justly proud of our reputation as a modern and progressive University. This is a community, which will value you, your experience and personal perspective - and will help you get the very best from your chosen area of study."

© J.Godfrey Wood, C. Fean and D. Meyer 2007

Link to Jack's description of our project

Lightpool

2007-05-20T15:14:00.002+01:00

There is a portal between one world and another
just outside Central Saint Martins College, London.
It is to be found in a pool of light
swirling on tarmac
in wintertime.

Learning Outcomes for MA final presentation

2007-05-19T20:57:00.001+01:00

image: stairwell, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, Red Lion Square

MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments
Wednesday 16.05.07

Unit 3 Learning Outcomes:
On satisfactory completion of this unit, you will be able to demonstrate:

1. The ability to deploy high level skills synthesising visual, spatial, formal
and textual language to communicate effectively and inform specific audiences
in cultural and/or commercial environments.

2. An in depth knowledge of the commercial and cultural industries and institutions
that contribute to the ‘experience economy’and utilise narrative environments.

3. The ability to systematically research refine and argue a critical position in relation to your evaluation of current research and new models of practice at the forefront of your academic discipline.

4. The ability to evaluate your own personal; and professional strengths and weaknesses.

T minus 24 and counting

2007-05-07T16:15:00.002+01:00

He finished his beans, now cold, and cast a final glance at his greasy spoon companions. The napkin was slowly sinking into the yolk of Millie's leftover egg, which made the beetle look as though it had been prematurely squished.
"Oh well" he said out loud. He paid for the meals. "Thanks Tiger. Plenty more where she come from anyway." He mumbled something in assent and pushed through the swing-door back onto the street. The city noise hugged and squeezed him, riding up his spine, lodging itself securely in his shoulderblades. Hunched-double he paced along the road, eyes down, scanning the ground - newspaper, cigarette packet, newspaper. Grey grey grey.
And then the bus stop.
A crowd had gathered: something was up. The bus that had come to a halt and had clearly been stationary for some time, judging by the miffed expressions of the upper deck inhabitants.
Out of the bus, two women tumbled - one to the floor, the other bent over the first, screaming at the top of her lungs in a broad jamaican accent. "She took my phone. I need to call my mother in Africa and she took my phone. Give me it back - give it!"
The culprit, upright in a light grey silvery raincoat, had lank brown hair and a thin line of red for lips. She said nothing. The Jamaican woman was now pulling at the coat, "Look, see, it's ringing! It is my phone!" The neutral, absolutely entranced crowd stared at the scene. Sirens could be heard in the background. The Jamaican woman was tugging at the silver coat pocket. The phone continued to buzz and flash through the light grey lining. Then she pulled the coat to her mouth and tore the lining open with her teeth. The sirens were very loud, and blue lights flashed in conversation with the telephone she now waved triumphantly above her head. Briskly in came two bobbies and hauled the two away. The crowd dispersed. The bus doors beeped, and Frank hopped on, bashed slightly by the rubber-edged door that swung mercilessly toward him.

Kirsty Kirkpatrick - shortlisted for BFIIN award

2007-04-14T15:59:00.002+01:00

I nominated Kirsty Kirkpatrick for the British Female Inventors & Innovators Network (BFIIN), Environmental section. She has been shortlisted. We are off to the Showcase, Conference & Awards - London, 24 April 2007.

Find out more about Kirsty below, and on her blogsite .

The product or service

Kirsty Kirkpatrick is a designer-maker and producer of uncommonly beautiful things. Her fashion accessory pieces demonstrate an imaginative approach to transforming waste into something covetable and unique. Using found furniture and recycled content materials such as paper; cardboard; wood and woodchips; textiles; plastics and rubber; steel; aluminium and other metals, brooches, necklaces, bags and bangles are created and sold at a popular East London market and also through a wholesaler in New York. In her own words: “The idea came from personal work. There are so many designers and makers in the world: I felt it was my role as a designer to create a product that creates less waste.” Her production methods design out waste wherever possible, and she has plans to explore new methods where no scrap-pile would exist. Her work is a fine, designed and distinctive example of increasing the number of recycled-content products in the market.

How did you identify that there was a need/market for this product or service and any difficulties that you foresee/experienced with taking it to market

Forum for the Future undertook a survey in which it was found that our future leaders “expect the world they’ll be living in to be technologically advanced, but environmentally impoverished” by 2031. Today’s consumer is more demanding: wishing to know the origin of their purchases, and the environmental impact. Kirkpatrick’s work offers connection to a forgotten history. Pattern and different materials communicate a sense of nostalgia updated. Hybrid items; the unique quality of her pieces inspire notions of mending and re-use - stitching into a piece of fabric highlights a beauty cared for. Having started to sell at a popular London market, the difficulty she now faces is securing funding and business advice to push her talent and aspirations in the right direction. Kirkpatrick intends to further explore the potential of her unique and covetable aesthetic, expanding her collection and looking at other design areas such as interiors.

(reference: Future Leaders Survey 2006-7)

Describe how your product or service fulfils the category criteria for eligibility

Kirsty Kirkpatrick has designed a selection of products, which include the following recycled content materials as mentioned above. Furthermore, her design and make process designs out usage of precious resources and reduces impact upon the environment wherever possible. Her construction process involves a mixture of lo-tec and digital: cutting, sanding – to shape the pieces; deconstruction; wood is sanded and stripped down:

- The waste from a bangle is used to create a necklace. Pattern is created first through hand-drawing, then computerised images.
- Images are then printed onto heat-transfer paper.
- The images are then transferred onto the object’s surface. No dyes; No water: Kirkpatrick makes a point of not printing with screens or using inks.

This is more environmentally friendly: no water pollution or by-products are produced, (as with screen printing), and less solvents are used than in techniques used by other designers. She uses Beeswax to seal heat-transferred pattern and other decorative parts are created using the lo-tec craft of embroidery.

Future aspirations include intensive research into developing plastics: creating a fabric from used materials. In terms of improving the production process, Kirkpatrick would like to explore etching and laser cutting, as the whole piece is used and pattern can be drafted onto the wood.

Kirsty Kirkpatrick’s design philosophy is in tune with the Environment Award message: she sees the lifespan of her products as going beyond the point of purchase: materials are biodegradable wherever possible and as the abandoned new material is transformed and given another use, often from function to adornment, they are used and loved by the new owner. The objects present the issue of recycling in a new and imaginative way: an extremely attractive take on an issue that is often preconceived as unimaginative and worthy.

SHOP:PLAY, The Workshop - Experience -

2007-03-10T08:39:00.002Z

Laura's story

Laura works as a Textile Designer for high end retailers. We have adapted her story to communicate the workshop experience.

I was interested in coming to the workshop to find out more about Meaningmakers' approach to design, and to see how this fits within my industry.

The workshop took place on Thursday 22nd February, from 2-6pm at the Innovation Centre, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design. On entering the space, we were greeted by one of the Meaningmakers team, and were given a notebook and a name badge. I opened the notebook and was touched to read "Laura, welcome to our workshop."

I grabbed a coffee and waited for the workshop to start.

Soon a crowd of about 20 people had gathered, people were setting up film cameras, and we were all asked to sit down infront of a projection screen.

Caf Fean and Paula Delgado opened the workshop, explaining a bit about themselves, the course, and what their expectations were for the day:

"We are developing a new design methodology that will borrow from performance, scenario building and Narrative Environments to develop new retail experiences. By focusing on character-driven design, behaviours and Drivers of Change (Arup, 2006) we believe we can understand better the consumer and then develop captivating experiences in retail environments."

The three outcomes of this workshop for Meaningmakers are:
1- Develop interesting retail solutions
2- Gather feedback
3- FUN!!!

We were then asked what our expectations were. I said I was interested in seeing how their methodology could inform retail design.

They then introduced Ruth Briones, who ran us through the programme of the day.

We each had a copy of this in our notebooks.

Act I (1hour)
GET TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER
We will split into four groups and get to know the customer.
Objective: get to know your customer and the world s/he are living in. So you can afterwards design a retail experience for him/her.
After this exercise your new friend will go off stage.

First Interval (15 minutes)

Act II (1 hour)
DESIGN A NEW RETAIL EXPERIENCE
Based upon the customer profile developed in the last act, design a new retail experience for them.

Second Interval (15 minutes)

Act III (40 minutes)
SHOP:PLAY
We will watch the customers reacting to the retail experiences designed. Comment and even improve them ‘on the spot’.
– The End -

EPILOGUE
Feedback moment: your thoughts, what met or exceeded your expectations.

They then spoke about the time we were to think about when framing our design: the year 2027. As designers we're always thinking about designing for the future, but I could understand why they included this aspect, to open people's minds. Not everyone there was a desginer, I noticed, from a quick glance around the room.

So, 2027, and an "Imagined Harvey Nichols" we were to think of the Brand Narrative.
We were also to consider scenario building as a design methodology: they introduced ARUP's Drivers of Change cards, which look at key trends which will affect the way we live in the years to come: possible realities.

Then we were introduced to the customers: I hadn't noticed before, but our 'customers' were sat with us in the audience. They stood up one after the other and introduced themselves. From my notes:

Ada- Ambassador's wife, Malta
Sandra - Works in city, high pressured job, a bit surly
Andi - City boy
Jim - Stable boy, Wimbledon Village

Then we were introduced to our facilitators for the day: one by one the groups split to join their facilitators. I was in the yellow team with Susanne (facilitator), and Ada.

Act I
GET TO KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER

We introduced ourselves: my group had a mix of professional designers and non-professionals. Everyone had some interest in the retail or performance aspect of the exercise, or both.

We then received a letter from Meaningmakers:

First letter from Meaningmakers
(containing Drivers of Change and Briefing)

Thursday, 22nd February, 2007

Your mission:

Get to know Ada and build the world she is living in. In this game you, collectively, are The Matrix and Ada is Neo. By the end you will know Ada’s needs, desires and frustrations. This knowledge will take you to the next stage, where you will design a retail experience for her.

To help you understand this world you shall consider these key factors, which influence her world (Drivers of Change). These will act as catalysts to guide you through the game play.

RULES OF THE GAME

You can ask Ada different questions, about needs, desires, frustrations:

e.g. Do you like ice cream?
What’s your favourite season of the year?
Do you have a close relationship with your mother and father?

You can also provide her with a situation/ scenario:

e.g. Let’s consider that London is flooded because of Global Warming: What do you feel about that?
The questions should explore Ada's feelings: you are the scenario builder – not Ada.

Keep the narrative thread: if your team has found that Ada has a boyfriend, you cannot undo that part of Ada's life.

You have one hour to complete this task.
Trust your team and push your ideas.
Good luck.

Susanne then invited Ada to join the group.

We interviewed her, asking all sorts of questions. She remained in character throughout. I could hear laughter from another team, interviewing Andi. After an hour or so, she went away and we moved on to discussing what her needs and desires were.

Act II
DESIGN A NEW RETAIL EXPERIENCE

After a break we reconvened, and received another letter:

Second Letter from Meaningmakers

Welcome back team Yellow.

Congratulations on your good work in the first session. We have been watching your progress and are excited about this next stage.

Your second task: to design a new retail experience for Ada that will then be shown to everyone in the third act. Bear in mind that this takes place in his world. The experience is provided by Harvey Nichols.

You have one hour to complete this task.

Best of luck.
Meaningmakers

We discussed what

Act III
SHOP:PLAY

The Actor will react to the experience that the group designed.

5 minutes - play
Everyone watches the customers reacting to your designed retail experiences.

Facilitator: You can narrate the experience to the actor or you (and your group) can act the experience with the actor (improvisation).

5 minutes – feedback from audience

-END-
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

EPILOGUE

(Speakers: Caf and Paula)
Meaningmakers refer back to the flipchart of expectations

Feedback moment: your thoughts, what met or exceeded your expectations.

THANK YOU!!!!
----------------THE END----------------------------------

Framing Harvey Nichols // The Future

2007-03-10T01:05:00.001Z

In order to frame this, we scripted the "imagined Harvey Nichols" and
looked at how you can push current trends to 2020.
We wanted to give a sense of what might be possible in these semi-fact semi-fiction worlds of the characters.

Curated Groups

2007-03-10T01:03:00.001Z

We curated the groups to ensure a lively and engaging response to the characters.

Actors Rehearsal // Innovation Centre

2007-03-10T00:58:00.001Z

Dress rehearsal before the event, on the 21st February we gathered, Meaningmakers, Director, Facilitators and Actors, to prepare for the next day.

Ruth Briones, our director, took Maddy Carrick, Marcus Pickering and Chloe Metcalfe on a journey from actor to character.

This was another milestone moment in our design process: seeing your research literally come off the page, walking talking breathing.

Arup Drivers of Change - "The World"

2007-03-10T00:53:00.001Z

In order to frame the characters in the future, we selected key Drivers of Change from Arup's Foresight Innovation + Incubation team's research. These cards acted as plotlines to frame the worlds in which each character lived. The cards would be made available to the design team at the workshop also.

Facilitator Script

2007-03-10T00:48:00.001Z

Following initial meetings with the facilitators, it became clear that we needed to thoroughly script the event. This was a useful process for both of us, to tell and re-tell the different stages of the workshop to one another allowed us to clarify. Telling a third party (briefing the facilitators) served to further clarify any misunderstandings.

Once we completed the facilitator brief, we could brief ourselves and design the full event.

Actors Briefing

2007-03-10T00:45:00.002Z

We met with the actors and ran through where we were coming from, details of the project, and where they fit in.

Key Team

2007-03-10T00:42:00.001Z

our key team for the workshop to take place:

- writer
- designer
- director
- actors
- behaviour expert
- participants
-observer / recorders

Detail Design - Recording Team, Observers

2007-03-10T00:26:00.001Z

We recruited observers and a recording team to document the event.
Pernille Hansen watched and photographed the event, observing and taking notes, to provide sensitive insights into the workshop itself from an objective perspective.
Carrie Godsiff and Maria Eisl from The Design Laboratory recorded the event for the University archives. Jeffrey Koh set up audio and photographic recording devices to further document the event for our own purposes.

Detail Design - Sourcing Actors

2007-03-10T00:18:00.001Z

We approached Drama Centre London as we were keen to collaborate. Happily Alan Dunnett, Course Director of MA Performance, is also keen for cross-course collaboration.
We also alerted the college Performance Society, and spoke with friends. Through friends we managed to source three of our four actors, each fitting their role perfectly. On meeting the actors it was clear who would fit which role.
Discussing the project with the actors opened up a whole new range of possibilities: much of this shall be useful at the next stage: the Critical Review.

Detail Design - Project Management

2007-03-10T00:11:00.001Z

Throughout the Detail Design process we both took on the role of Project Manager/Producer.
This involved sending copious emails, making sure everyone was on board, sourcing actors, checking and double-checking that everyone was on the same page.

This included coordinating

- actors
- director
- facilitators
- venue
- date
- catering

Detail Design - Reference: Stanislavsky and Boal

2007-03-10T00:04:00.001Z

As points of reference for the actors and for ourselves, we looked at Stanislavsky's Method and Augusto Boal's 'Games for Actors and Non-Actors.' We also drew inspiration from the 1960s phenomenon of Happenings, and Tadeusz Kantor's practice of always being onstage as a director.

Detail Design - Character Sketch

2007-03-09T23:49:00.001Z

Concurrently we drew up, defined and redefined the characters we wished to 'play' with at the workshop. We used the Harvard Scenario Building method to begin to frame the character, then found that the characters didn't really fit into the axes we'd provided.
The characters themselves were constructed from fact and fiction: a bundle of research tied into a script that was then to be enacted.

Workshop Design - Consultation

2007-03-09T23:39:00.001Z

We drew up a workshop plan, with help from our key collaborator, Ruth Briones.
We spoke with several experts to assess whether or not the time plan, coordination of people and rhythm of the workshop seemed plausible.
Choreography is a key term at this point: one has to consider space, energy, group dynamics and willingness to participate.
We decided upon a fixed number of participants, to keep the groups small and intimate, selected experienced facilitators and set about sourcing actors and inviting participants.
Consultation was fundamental to our process at this point: we were concerned that some participants may feel uncomfortable if they felt they were required to act. By ensuring that there were enough 'supporting actors' present, we hoped to overcome this difficulty.

Detail Design - Workshop Coordination

2007-03-09T23:33:00.001Z

At the detail design stage we took on several new roles:

project managers
producers
scriptwriters

Our team of collaborators expanded to approximately fifteen.
The workshop set-up and implementation heralded a 'eureka' moment for our research.

Research - a deductive process

2007-03-09T22:28:00.001Z

image: Edward Gordon Craig - Steps

We took an interesting route through the research, one thing leading to another almost imperceptibly. On tracing our steps we have found that Body Space and Narrative are themes that run through, with scenario building and 'improving futures' as another key trend. On revisiting the research question we now feel that it is about making the case for Performance in the Design Process. Our methodology reflects our backgrounds, and our interests. Creative Writing, Design, Performance, Scenario Building. These are the building-blocks to our design methodology.

Interviewing Experts

2007-03-09T22:19:00.001Z

image: Parkinson
Interviews held with:

Denna Jones, Retail Design Expert
Andrea Cusumano, Performance Artist
Charles Hayes, ARUP Foresight Innovation + Incubation, Retail Expert
Elaine Wallace, Actor
Sylvia Sanchez, London College of Fashion MA Strategic Marketing
Despina Hadjilouca, Narrative Environments Expert
Alan Dunnett, Course Director MA for Performance, Drama Centre London
Duncan Wilson, Associate, ARUP Foresight Innovation + Incubation
Ken Hollings, Writer, Cultural Commentator, Broadcaster
Jan Spoczynski, Art Director, Set Design for Film and Television

Interviewing the above, and in some cases revisiting the experts at key points in our process was invaluable to the progress of the project: providing inspiration, helpful references and grounding us in reality.

Shop Girl - Undercover research

2007-03-09T22:08:00.001Z

image: Basil Rathbone as Holmes

Using observation and performance to inform our design process.

Working over the Christmas period allowed Caf to 'capture' several characters, in the correct segmentation for Harvey Nics. Selling to these customers was a performance in itself at times: when you put yourself in the role of observer/actor new and exciting insights are revealed. Immersed in the shopping environment and experiencing on- and off-stage, she chatted with the other shop assistants about what it was like to work there etc etc.

This action, coupled with thorough desk research, and other forms mentioned earlier helped spur us on to the character design phase of our process. Knowing how these customers look, behave, feel in a shop, greatly aided in the scripting for the actors.

Narrative Analysis - Conceptual

2007-03-09T20:14:00.002Z

This narrative map helped us to ground all of the research and comments we'd collected: we could then see that there were key characteristics to the Harvey Nichols brand. It was a useful tool for us, and helped us to frame the workshop.

By performing as Shop Girls at the work in progress show, we were able to engage our audience in a 'mock shop' setting, and quiz them as to their perceptions of Harvey Nichols, whilst assessing the merits and downfalls of the project at this crucial stage. The work in progress show was a milestone, and encouraged us to use performance in a more explicit way in the detail design stage.

Narrative Analysis - Site Specific

2007-03-09T20:01:00.001Z

image: site gallery, sheffield
So to analyse the space, the place, its location, who goes there: the Story... you have to go there. We compared and contrasted Harvey Nichols Knightsbridge's narrative with those of several other Department Stores, visits took place both in London (Selfridges, House of Fraser, Liberty, John Lewis, Peter Jones...) and abroad (Macy's New York, Galleries Lafayette Paris). All of these have their own distinct voice and product mix. Some hit lower-end customers than Harvey Nichols, but it was useful to couch our analysis in the Department Store frame.

As for Harvey Nics itself, we visited several times in different guises, sometimes looking smarter than usual (at least, this was true of Caf!) and sometimes with student-y looking rucksacks, sometimes handbags.

This point of analysis was invaluable to our process as site specificity is something lacking from many scenario building workshops, and our overarching theme of performance relies upon this phenomenon.

Narrative Analysis - reading the space

2007-03-09T19:16:00.001Z

image: the cave

On visiting a space, try to concentrate upon your experience of it:
What story are you being told and by whom?
Do these stories correlate?
If not why not?

There are two stages to Narrative Analysis.
One is Site Specific, the other, Conceptual. At the conceptual level you are looking at the perceived and intended narratives of your subject.

Site Specific
We found this a useful way to approach a problem site, questioning what it communicates well and not-so-well. In our method the narrative analysis of Harvey Nichols produced some confusion.

Conceptual
Inspired by Thomas Sevick of Arthesia's narrative map, map out how the brand narrative relates to those surrounding it. In the case of Harvey Nichols, who are the competitors, where in London is the store situated, and does this have an impact (or could it) on design?

The other angle on this conceptual narrative analysis is that there is always a perceived narrative of a place/ organisation/ brand: the average person will have picked up on a certain version of this, and we used the work in progress show to find out what the show's audience (design literate, engaged, interested in narrative environments) thought of Harvey Nichols.

Desk Research

2007-03-09T19:09:00.002Z

inkwell.za for image

By reading widely, absorbing media and discussing this we were able to gain insight into:

Harvey Nichols Business Position; History; Brand Narrative
Performance techniques
Fashion trends
Consumer behaviour
other ways of tackling the research question

Project Steps - write up

2007-03-09T18:54:00.001Z

We approached our research using a variety of methods, some included performance, some did not, some deconstructed ideas we'd already established.
Research Methods included:

Desk research; Market research; Active intervention; Site visits; Interviewing experts; Narrative Analysis; Brand Analysis; Spatial Analysis; Creative Writing; Discussion; Shopgirl experience; Work in Progress Shopgirls

... all of this with a view to Concept Development.

Some background to our collaboration:
Take Place: a project involving Performance and Community, Arts Council, 2015
Trip to Another Life: a project involving performance as a means to deliver content, ARUP, 2025

final presentation preparation; reflection

2007-03-08T16:19:00.001Z

To organise our work we have divided to conquer.
Over the next few posts I'll be drafting my part of this, which is to describe the meaning-makers process, where things came from, what drove what.
I feel that by blogging it I'll actually knuckle down to it. In this entry I've included a summary of this and the meaning-makers blogspot, and I've taken key phrases from my notebook to help clarify our journey.

+++

OCTOBER 2006
04 Oct Body Space Narrative Identity
“We want to establish new ways of understanding audiences”
“Getting to know your customer base better”
Presentation in itself a performance
16 Oct Small & Concrete: Doorsteps (Environment)
Public space vs communal?
“Look at experience prototyping and performance”
In a sentence, our project is about buildings that don’t work: how do you establish a vocabulary for public consultation where all parties understand each other?
18-20 Oct ARUP City Centre Retail 2025
(Caf)
30 Oct RIBA, Stirling Prize
“Style over substance”
CONTENT. People pictures of buildings without people: user experience
30 Oct Update, Retrospective, Reassessment
Dana Centre… other influences
31 Oct Information Graphics
Metamorphosis
Meaningmakers

NOVEMBER
12 Nov Trip to Another Shop
Selfridges 2020; Vesna: Harvey Nichols
“We feel that the current practice of future forecasting and scenario building only scratches the surface of the implications this activity may have for business in the long term.
In order to better understand these implications, a more complex narrative must be constructed, over a longer time frame, and the audience must feel a connection.”
14 Nov New Thoughts
Outcomes:
Event that tests and pushes forward a specific trend.
Could be a workshop held to analyse brand’s narrative. Experience prototyping.
16 Nov Meeting with Charles Hayes
2 projects:
Future of forecasting
Future of retail

DECEMBER
02 Dec ARUP Hotels of the Future
Susan Kozel
07 Dec MPP Presentation to Year 1…
“Do you want to design a new method or design the department store of the future?” (Rakhi)
“Methodologies from other disciplines e.g. performance – need to link up with some professional performers!”
(Hannah)
14 Dec Shopping for a Job
Shop girl
Character collect
18 Dec Tito’s Café seminar
Performance: personal interest
“Story workshop”
Our Major Project looks at turning the retail space into a performance space. Our work starts from finding out what the story of a place is: in this instance we've chosen Harvey Nichols as we have a potential contact on their Strategic Marketing team. Then, we intend to create a brief with the client, using scenario building techniques and the language of theatre and performance to express a new 'future' of Harvey Nichols through a script. This script would be played out and the retail environment (or 'set') transformed so that on entering you wouldn't be sure who was 'in' or 'out' of the game. It's a really exciting project with tonnes of possibilities ... we submit the project in March 2007.

JANUARY 2007
10 Jan SHOP:PLAY

We are developing a methodology that uses the performing arts to test future-based scenarios in retail environments. It is proposed that Harvey Nichols will be the stage and testing ground.

Shop:play will be co-written with the client, staff, customers, and actors. It will be staged using performance and improvisation techniques to combine user narratives and expert retail forecasts.

The ‘performance’ will be site-specific and open-ended responding to the physical space, the shopping culture and consumer expectations. We will mix fact and fiction in order to provide an exceptional shopping experience for the customers and the client. The play will enable us to envision and evaluate the potential impact of socio-economic, technological and environmental changes that are forecast to completely transform our lives.
29 Jan The Birds

FEBRUARY
03 Feb Plan of Workshop
10 Feb meaning-makers blog created
11 Feb Meeting with Alan Dunnett etc
22 Feb Workshop

MARCH 01 Mar Script of Workshop

Notebook_08 Oct 2006

10 Performance
10 Street violence, bus performance
Andrea Cusumano narr wksp Space as Narrative
Performance Art at the Lethaby (Andrea’s wife)
Body Space Narrative
Behaviour
Brand Narratives
Buildings, Architecture, Design
Dogville: all behaviour, no buildings
Max: Paul’s friend, ran Drama groups in the Sudan

Notebook_16 Oct 2006
Future focus
Intellectual Property, Ideas, Breaking rules
“Failed” space: success because of people
Apple Store: people make brand
Zoom in to zoom out
Performance
Technology enabling communication in schools
Intended & Perceived Narrative
Tadeusz Kantor – always onstage
Impression of Improvisation
Aristophanes
Dana Centre
Psychology of fear
Frisson

Notebook_05 Nov 2006

McKinsey Trend Report
Gustavo Strategic Marketing
Fast second
Innovation
Act upon small things: change (I-pods changed narrative)
Deconstructing Trip to Another Life
Visit to Harvey Nichols 07 Nov 06
Kabakov – Different structures for total installation
Medi@Terra
Visit to Harvey Nichols II 06 Dec 06
Gustavo acting
Workshop on futurecasting?
Peter Bond
Actors
Department stores, future
Meeting with Denna Jones 11 Nov 06
Department stores and retail types
New Audiences
Janet Cardiff
Narrative Driven
Atavistic (ancestral?)
Conscientious retail, food
Trip to Another Shop

Notebook_13 Nov 2006

Think Tank
Story-telling
Scenario Building
Liberty: trapped in time
Retail / Future: two sides

Notebook_27 Nov 2006

Able to create
Reflection
Analysis of Arup workshop structure
“Live” consumer culture analysis
Explore retail as a mirror of society
The shop as an area for performance and influence
People, Behaviours, Representations or Identity
Workshop performance
Retail, culture, consumerism
Matrix: high/low end; personal/impersonal
Design / Write / Perform
Acting used in training
Using acting and storytelling to enhance futurecasting
Refine scenarios: make more believable
Arup +
Can acting be used to improve futurecasting?
How can performance enhance / influence scenario building?
Wolford 24 Dec 06

Notebook_24 Dec 2006

ShopGirl
Performance and Retail: how can CP & NE test innovation in business?
Drama brings a whole new perspective
“Play of Shopgirl”
Selfridges revisited
Harvey Nichols Café
Narrative of Harvey Nichols
Matrix: time/no time; personal/impersonal
Desk research: HN perceived narrative
Medical: bedside manner
Army: simulating war situations
New York Retail Conference
Sylvia Sanchez, Sketch: High-Low Fashion consumers Lafayette/Selfridges
Ruth Briones – Studio Method, Becoming
Perceiving HN from conceptual level
Dialogue / Play
Designing Support Team
Rehearsal needed
Scenes from an Execution
Present workshop design to tutor group
Look back to look ahead
Discuss project with Spike and Antonia
Immediacy of Performance

Notebook_23 Jan 2007

Space Hijackers
Peter Brook: The Empty Space:

“I once saw a rehearsal at the Comedie Francaise – a very young actor stood in front of a very old one and spoke and mimed the role with him like a reflection in the glass. This must not be confused with the great tradition … of non-actors passing on knowledge from father to son. There it is meaning that is communicated – and meaning never belongs to the past. It can be checked in each man’s own present experience. But to imitate the externals of acting only perpetuates manner – a manner hard to relate to anything at all.”

“A word does not start as a word – it is an end product which begins as an impulse, stimulated by attitude and behaviour which dictates the need for expression.”

Aristophanes: The Birds
Using the Innovation Centre

Coordinating the workshop
Character Design
Christopher Isherwood: “Process” Esopus
Elaine Wallace
Character & Workshop: Andrea Cusumano
Lab/ experiment
Andrea:
The importance of the Director.
Goal of Workshop: ‘using acting to generate a methodology to find the right strategy’
Questioning actors v non-actors: ratio/choice
More information on Harvey Nichols needed
Use sector and performance as a starting point: achieve the right goal
Psychodrama, psychology: experience
“you can learn and are much more involved with things if you experience them.”
Frame. Knowledge. Public
Moreno: Psychodrama
Workshop design, refine with Ruth
Project management
Amy Lewis & Charles Hayes: Brainstorm Character/ Approach/ Workshop design
Not a ‘lights off, camera, action’ intervention
Performance: definition – upfront, more broad, versatile term for engagement (CH)
The Experience Economy
More character design
Character Sketches, assumed outcomes
06 Feb 07 Meet Chloe Metcalfe, Actor – test ideas
07 Feb 07 Meet Jan Spoczynski, Set Designer:
The architecture is formed from the nature of the character living in it: it becomes the parchment to what you do.
Directors: get inside skin of person.
Check and double-check in collaboration on set that we agree as to the nature of the character.
“Film is ultimately about illusion”

Ken Hollings, Writer: 07 Feb 07
Tom McCarthy INS – International Necronautical Society
Theatre/ performance: “hearings” McCarthy hearing, tribunal
Death and Technology
Cocteau
Feel as though you’re not acting
Danger of inappropriate intervention (beer and football lounge for husbands shopping)

Notebook_07 Feb 2007

Ken Hollings interview (continued)
Space produces script
Nietsche The Birth of Tragedy
Bring the customers in
Externalise character
Shopping Etiquette
Synthesis

Hunting for actors

Susan Kozel – choreographer, philosopher
Intuitive and emotional body state
Imagination

Bruce Mau & David Adjaye
Lead by example
Social ambition, introduction of ‘lifestyle’ to design of libraries
How make strategies / built forms that have enough built in to provide opportunities?

How can you use performance to re-think design?

Thomas Sevcik, Arthesia
“Logo is not a brand. Branding a city or a country is not like branding a sneaker: it’s alive.”
“Behavioural Branding”
“Perceptions are Reality”
Story structure, narrative model
Testing Albania’s story in its context

Haptic

Future helps us think bigger (Rakhi)

Scales of meaning
Shopping experience doesn’t start or stop at the door/ threshold

16 Feb 07 Meet the actors
17 Feb 07 final touches to workshop design concept
18 Feb 07 workshop design with help from Gustavo
19 Feb 07 meet with Susanne Buck, Demos cards
Scripting for facilitators

Notebook_20 Feb 2007

Marcus – playback theatre
Evening 21 Feb 07 – Innovation Centre: Actors in Character – Rehearsal
26 Feb 07 Improvisation & Scripting (key terms)
De-brief with Andrea: ‘switch’ option
Using acting in a particular reality
Hybrid: Performance / Futurecasting / Retail
Narrative Surgery with Tricia
Augusto Boal
Theatre of the Opressed, Games for Actors & Non-Actors
Performance and performativity
Happenings
Psychodrama
The Writer’s Journey: archetypes & hero’s journey
Design a new story relevant to the environment
Making the case for performance in design
Eureka moment: workshop and feedback
“We became meaning-makers” (Sylvia Sanchez)

Project thinking - Caf Project Think

2007-03-03T02:38:00.001Z

Some illustrations from my project thinking today.
We are meeting tomorrow to rationalise and place and ground the project.
Deadline: March 14th.

Writing for Design - My Creative Practice?

2007-02-27T21:28:00.002Z

"Who am I and what am I good at?" an attempt to rationalise 'stuff' in relation to my position in the world of Creative Practice for Narrative Environments.

Narrative Environments has thus far taught me many things. You always come back to what you know - your experience. I joined the course for several reasons: to meet new and interesting 'like minded' people, to work with these people, building invaluable design and interpersonal skills essential to the collaborative process.

From Humanities... why study Design?
Design opens up a space for change, and a space for ideas. I get excited about the generation of ideas, in a group of people: watching a concept grow into a reality, even if the reality remains on paper, is a very special thing.
Design also allows change to take place: it changes things. We're all designers, problem solvers, and by solving problems you open up a new space where more problems may well arise.

Protection of Ideas?
I don't believe you can protect an idea. Once it's out there, it's out there. If you want to do more to it, you can, it'll have your particular thumbprint, which makes it unique. Ideas held close stagnate and lose their potency. Best to get them out in the open.

Story Economy?
It could be argued that we're living in the era not only of a knowledge economy, with the emergence of the creative class, what with Britain trading on its ideas over manufacture. Could it be (or has it been) posited that we are living in the age of the Story Economy? Linked to the experience, the story, the way you communicate your idea, sells it. Equally haven't we always traded on stories? Chaucer, Pardons, Grand Narratives, The Oscars... we're all story-tellers. It's important for memory. Iterating. Repetition. "How was your day?" a generic phrase, but essential. We also love routine. Routine is a story on a loop, or perhaps a spiral or a double helix. Points look similar, look as though they may meet, but never feel quite the same each time.

Interpretation
I was speaking with Paula about the project, and the risk of over-writing and pre-determining scenarios. In the end even if you over-write, you cannot predict someone else's interpretation, or manipulate it to a great extent. Writing, and Design, is a dialogue.

Writing for Design
In writing for design, you introduce an idea. You frame it. It needs to be concise, well communicated, and to the point. You need to consider the audience at all times. Who are you communicating with? It's never 'everyone' or 'anyone.'
I envy writers of novels: they have the opportunity to explore concepts, characters, intertwine narratives. I don't have anything like their timeframe: if I did, perhaps I'd get bored? The course has made me something of a concept-addict. Once one project finishes I need another to start.
I see my version of writing for design seated somewhere between branding, journalism, copy writing, and creative writing such as screen, script, novel, novella, characterisation. It's a new field, and it's opening up.

Project coordination and creative chitchat
I find it important to discuss the issues surrounding a project, also things that seem totally unrelated. Try to find new links.

Invisible skills
In a collaboration it is difficult to tell how some things came about. I imagine in 'normal life' you may not question this. In the lab-world of the course, you need to be reflecting upon who did what where, in order to identify what you bring to a project. Here I lean hard on my skills developed from my admin days, and also my love for literature, art and design.

Look back to look ahead
I checked out my old school reports from when I was 7 - 17. Very telling. Favourite subjects: English, Art, Design.
Below are some key phrases that have helped me clarify what my skill set is, and how to apply it in the context of the MA.

1988

- Autumn Term

ENGLISH
Catherine absorbs language like a sponge, even though she does not always find it easy work. Her stories have recently become a delight to read - long, interesting, and with a gentle touch of humour.

MATHS
seems to have developed more self confidence regarding maths, and is not put off when she makes mistakes any longer. She is learning to draw on what she already knows and understands, and to apply it to new work - with very satisfactory results.

- Spring Term

ENGLISH
enjoys her time in the Library, written some very imaginative stories this term

TOPIC
has shown an interest in the scientific investigations she has carried out. Her environmental work has been of a very high standard. She absorbs all she sees.

ART
continues to produce some very original work

1989
Summer Term

ENGLISH
Catherine's favourite subject! Ability to manipulate language beautifully, and soaks up new vocabulary like a sponge.

1997
English A Level

seemed to find it difficult to see a way into the question, but this may have been because she was not prepared to start, at least, by stating the obvious.

General:
although confident, sometimes disappointed in situations where she might have been more dominant and proactive.

Art 2D:
needs to be more self-critical in a positive way.

How science is changing us

2007-02-03T22:13:00.001Z

Stumbled across these when researching characters for the workshop.
BBC Science Human Body competition 2004

'Bring on the Clones'

Redesigning the traditional animals of the field for the convenience of the consumer may result in them disappearing from our fields, leaving only shadows.

John White, Winner, Over 18 Category

'Possibilities 1964'

This is a picture of a time machine - one that can instantly transport me back 40 years - to the days when Dr Who was monochrome, when the moon was untrampled and when everything was still possible.

Patrick Andrews, Highly Commended, Over 18 Category

'Towards the Light'

My Grandmother is 101 and the eldest of 4 siblings, all of whom have celebrated their 90th birthday. My mother has cared for her for 20 years and, like many other carers, continues to face the responsibilities and anxieties created through the increase in life expectancy.

Chris Francis, Highly Commended, Over 18 Category

'Technology will never stop the rain'

Even the technology of today can't hold back the rain. People are still resorting to broken umbrellas and putting up with wet trousers legs.

Claire Cartwright, Highly Commended, Under 18 Category

Workshop plans, sketches

2007-02-03T21:30:00.002Z

The Birds

2007-01-29T22:52:00.001Z

Thursday 25th January 2007
The Birds
An adaptation of the classic text by Aristophanes
Cochrane Theatre
Eight students from 3rd Year BA (Hons) Theatre: Design for Performance.
In collaboration with CSM BA (Hons) Fine Art, LCC BA (Hons) Sound Arts and Design & Jeremy Catterton.

At first we were confused: it was 7pm, and it looked as though people were filing out of the theatre sit-down area. Then we heard an announcement that the play would start at 7.30pm... Went to the bar to get a second beer and the girl told us to go outside the theatre and round the corner for the start of the performance.

In the foyer of the Innovation Center we were greeted and given a programme by a guy behind the reception desk, and a performer, in full bird-garb, with padded downy bed-cover plumage hanging heavily from her arms. The Installation had begun.

We rounded the corner: the usually pristine green-glass walls of the centre were dotted with origami birds. Hundreds of them.

In a corner, (a broom cupboard?) a girl with a chicken-wire beak was embroidering or doing something. A quick glance, and walk by.

Next we get to give our tickets to a friendly official-looking (but still quite bird-like) person.

Ah, we're in.

Turning another corner a sign warns of trip wires and strobe lighting: taking drama from the most dramatic of stagings. But it adds to the anticipation. "What if I trip up?" I want to trip up.

In the main atrium, which at other times is used as a clean white reception space, the rhythm of the room has been totally altered. Chairs have been changed into birds. A strange 'watch the birdie' style birdhouse area has been created. A man with wild curly hair and a Levellers style waistcoat flits (gracefully, slowly, with deliberation) between two stands, his stick plus 'birdie' entering the bird house, then exiting.

As I was saying. The atrium space.

The floor is covered in brown paper, criss-crossed with brown wrapping tape. Parts are torn from previous visitor intervention.

A lot of movement, building, a definite sense of building. At the high point of the room: a girl singing beautiful lament: shredding paper in rhythm.

Through the atrium and into the car park, led by others who've gone before.

Here some real activity and curious interaction:

A bird-boy stalks towards us. A girl on her own behind, follows us shyly. He approaches. Bends his knees. Cocks his head. Hops a couple of times, and scratches the floor with his foot.

She giggles. He moves away.

At the same time a friend is trying to fly. A man attached to a contraption, flapping his umbrellas first in, together, out, together. Then he runs. Then again. Then he drops an umbrella (on purpose? or by accident?) then runs again.

The air outside is very cold. The lights in the car park: yellowy. Our friend with the hair and the waistcoat is up on a wall whirling a stick with a ... bird at the end?

The last thing we passed was a pinata style bird thing. And a red cut-out bird, to signal the next event. His friend (I omitted to mention) signalled our entry before the girl with the bed-wings. Like the London Griffins.

Then we're back in the Cochrane, near the bar. People buy drinks. Not us ho ho. Then, find a seat, file in, wait and watch. A lot of hubub from the audience. A social space. Then, the sound of birds. "It's like being in an aviary" says I.

Then more sounds, movement of light across the blue backdrop of the stage, clouds.

Parts of the installation from earlier make their way into the theatre, accompanied by their puppeteers. The familiar swooshy stick and the conference stand, now a pair of intricately laced plastic geometric wings.

More come in. One cries out at us with a balloon for a tongue.

Lights down. And we're transported to a cinema. The play opened with a three-tiered screen projection. We met Pez and Eck. Chatting somewhere like Brighton on a bridge. They fish, get a bite, scream, and suddenly the projection screens lift, one ... two ... three ... the screaming transforms from screen scream to real, and the two thunder across the stage brandishing the fishing rod.

Up in the air, on a white stage with strips of muslin as backdrop.

A large projected bird's eye blinks on the muslin. "Who dares disturb my peace" or somesuch booms from the speakers.

T minus 25 and counting

2007-01-25T17:50:00.002Z

'Would you like to do this again some time, it's just - I have to go.'
'Yes. What, right now? You've not even started to tuck into your veggie sausage yet.'
'Hep. Sorry. Call you.'

Fred watched as Sandy awkwardly raked all her belongings back into her oversized bag, blushing as she went. A waft of perfume and that was it, gone.

Confusedly, he pushed a few beans around his plate. Watched the red orange yellow mix and swim to the tune of his fork.

'Did she even pay?'

He looked up and shook his head slowly.

Then he reached into his bag for his notebook: must capture this emotion. Never felt it before.

Fred's notebook is full of scribbles and nonsense. He carries it like a comfort blanket, from place to place, passers-by will slow to watch, until they realise all there is is unintelligable scrawl zig-zagging up and down the page.

On the tube, he writes and rewrites. Then he scribbles over the top until the paper becomes thick oil marks, with slender white tears cutting them sideways.

He looks up and catches the eye of a puzzeled co-traveller: 'yes, why scribble it out with such force?' Her eyes meet his. He glances away. Imnotcrazy.

Pictures from Work In Progress Show

2007-01-17T16:02:00.002Z

courtesy of Hannah Lewis

SHOP:PLAY

2007-01-10T22:52:00.002Z

link to Meaning Makers blog

SHOP:PLAY

We are developing a methodology that uses the performing arts to test future-based scenarios in retail environments. It is proposed that Harvey Nichols will be the stage and testing ground.

Shop:play will be co-written with the client, staff, customers, and actors. It will be staged using performance and improvisation techniques to combine user narratives and expert retail forecasts.

The ‘performance’ will be site-specific and open-ended responding to the physical space, the shopping culture and consumer expectations. We will mix fact and fiction in order to provide an exceptional shopping experience for the customers and the client. The play will enable us to envision and evaluate the potential impact of socio-economic, technological and environmental changes that are forecast to completely transform our lives.

Extra small

2007-01-06T00:30:00.001Z

No time, enough money

2007-01-06T00:29:00.001Z

Happy couple

2007-01-06T00:28:00.001Z

Credit card signed?

2007-01-06T00:27:00.004Z

Thesbian

2007-01-06T00:27:00.003Z

Rusharound Darling!

2007-01-06T00:26:00.002Z

Passer-by

2007-01-06T00:25:00.001Z

Facelift

2007-01-06T00:24:00.001Z

Doctor, taxi waiting

2007-01-06T00:23:00.001Z

Shoplifter

2007-01-06T00:20:00.001Z

Kids in cafe

2007-01-06T00:19:00.001Z

These children were having dinner with mummy and daddy in EAT opposite Harvey Nichols. I was on my evening break when I saw them.

Bar props

2007-01-06T00:16:00.001Z

People: a collection

2007-01-06T00:12:00.001Z

Opening the notebook

2007-01-06T00:10:00.001Z

In the following posts I have captured characters from my shopgirl experience.

T minus 26 and counting

2006-12-28T22:55:00.002Z

Ahead of them was a local cafe, popular with locals and visitors alike. They'd struggled through the market to get there, undulating sails of black and white tarpaulin sloshed with the spitty rain that hadn't stopped in three weeks. A grey day for a grey city, the cafe's yellow plastic chairs, familiar squeezy nozzled bottles and salt and pepper shakers were a relief to their colour-starved eyes. They sat down and shook off cold and coats. A pair of elderly ladies followed them in, greeted by all the customers as they came to sit in what could only be their usual places. "Hello Tilly" said one, "Hello Milly" said the other. The women were dressed identically, with nineteen-eighties style velour jackets with gold fabric-pen detailing on the elbows. One wore a hat. Both ordered tea. Frank and Sandy watched, mesmerised, as the two lit up, perfectly synchronised, and sat back to enjoy their afternoon.

"Alright mate, what can I get ya?" The cafe owner was leaning in a friendly fashion over her immaculate plasticometallic counter.
"Umm, two teas, ham egg and chips and...?"
"A veggie fry-up please."
"No problem tiger be with ya in two ticks"
She moved away to follow up on the order and to deliver two brimming mugs to TIlly and Milly.

"Veggie eh?"
"Yep."
He looked bemused. Goodness knows why, he knew she was - it was part of the reason why he'd found her interesting. Silly thing, memory and it's trickery.
"So here's a napkin and here's a pen." She drew a beetle and let him look at it.
"An artist as well!"
"Yes. This is my interpretation of your story."
With that she sent the napkin spinning across the well-greased table. The napkin span and the beetle turned into a disc of black and white, all legs and arms, until it took flight and found itself under Tilly's elbow.

She hadn't noticed.
The two sniggered.
Milly gave them a look, and then a wink.

todayiamashopassistant

2006-12-19T23:46:00.004Z

todayiamashopassistant

Got up, showered and donned my gear: make up. Pretty understated, but necessary, foundation, eyeliner (dark brown, thick lines like in the sixties), lip balm. Put on tights. Black. Skirt – pencil style, hangs below the knee, two slits at the back to ease movement when tottering. Shirt: wraparound, silver lines going through, black jacket, Sgt Pepper style with brass buttons. Phew. Ready. Black raincoat, wrapped around waist and tied. Orange scarf (dash of colour) chequered black hat with black ribbon detail. Handbag and pristine paper bag with bold black print to carry magazine and diary (oversized for bag). Check handbag for essentials: travel pass, lip balm, eyeliner, purse, notebook, passport, National Insurance Card. Check checkitty check.

Look in the mirror, ready to go.

Walking down the road in my new gear I feel as though people must think I’m someone else. For the first time in a long time I feel an equal with other young female tube travelers, pristine hair, manicured, nice teeth, un-scuffed shoes. Looking down I notice I don’t really pass at all, my boots, nice as they are, are terribly scuffed.

Totter over almost as look up to take in the view of London. Maybe the trick is to stay looking forwards. Certainly feels that way. Pick my heels up, they clonk a few times and make a special spangly sound on the grills beneath my feet. Wow I’m noisy.

Tit tot tot tot down Oxford Street, weaving in and out of the pedestrian shoppers, til I reach Margaret Street. A classy street with high buildings and white walls, neat entrances and a feeling that I’ve stepped into the past. Not finding the door immediately brings me rapidly into the present. Aha. Buzz.

“Hello it’s Catherine Fean, I’ve come to see Penelope?”

“Come in, first floor.”

Buzz.

As I walk in I remember the small office, the friendly staff. A nice recruitment agency, definitely more approachable and personal than Adecco for instance.

The layout hasn’t changed much, but there are fairy lights bordering the entrance to the MD’s office, and Christmas cards pepper the available sideboards (dado rail or did I imagine that?) of this converted terraced house. I meet Penny and Helen, who deal with the retail side of the operation.

“Hello, sorry, cold hand”

“Oh don’t worry, it is cold out there.”

“If you’d like to come with me, I just need you to fill in some tax forms.”

I am ushered through to a small room lined on the right hand side with beige filing cabinets, topped again with Christmassy things: definitely a tree, lots of cards, and some promotional material about the company and its special offers: Performance, Retail, Administration. On the far wall above the computer testing equipment, there is an art piece made of reclaimed pieces of wood, painted bright red and teal in places: a donation from an admiring student perhaps. A creative agency. I know of them because they supply temps to CSM. When I left my old job to start the course I met with Alison Jones, the MD, to talk about working part-time at a different college. That was about two years ago, and she had said if I ever needed extra cash to tide me over, they did recruit retail temps for Harvey Nics, Harrods and Selfridges.

Filled in the forms and did a small maths test: quite scary really, haven’t done maths in years. Remembered calculator on phone and felt a lot better. As I was waiting for forms and photocopies, Helen and Penny were chatting happily through the closed door, things about skiing holidays and Christmas Shopping.

Then once the forms were done, they both came in to interview me. I replaced the copy of Glamour that I’d been flicking through for the past few minutes and it greeted its friends Vogue August 2005, other Vogues, none of them current, Elle magazine. I was slightly irritated that there weren’t any up-to-date, possibly because I wanted to check my star sign.

Penny sat in front of me, Helen back and to the left. The interview commenced. God I feel quite nervous. Echoes of many moons ago when I’d apply for temp work suddenly returned: I suppose I’ve not been to an interview in a while, but this one was particularly strange, I felt kind of shy and hopeful, just like when I was sixteen.

Penny has a bob haircut, chestnut hair and smiling red lipstick lips. She has extremely kind eyes and a nice official manner. Helen looks pretty bored, sat alongside, hunched over although her long limbs deserve to be kept upright, straight and shown off. Possibly shy, after a few smiles she seems to perk up a bit.

I can’t remember the interview now, so I’ll list the parts that stood out.

+++

"First of all Catherine we love your name, how did that come about?"

"Some of these customers know exactly what they want when they’re there, and simply need you to provide that for them. Others may need some help. If they come to you, they’ll be stressed, they might not know if it looks good, they need your help and attention. If it looks god-awful make sure you let them know in a discreet fashion. Russian businessmen will be straight in there and straight back out again, but they have to get the Harrods bag. They’ll know their wives shoe size, they’ll want it now, and fast and boom they lay down the money and they’re gone, hopefully happy after your good service."

"I’ve worked with a lot of Arabs and underneath their gowns they’re wearing top designer labels. They’ll come in with their husbands, or sometimes on their own. The husband might think she’s only going to buy one thing but you can (quick motion of moving merchandise along the counter) help her to buy two or three: he surely won’t notice!"

"There are a few things you need to know Catherine if you’re to work in one of these boutique concessions. The customers are entirely different: though Harrods and Harvey Nics are only twenty yards away from one another they’re a million miles away from each other in terms of the customer. Harrods has a lot of tourists. You haven’t been to London for many of these people until you’ve been to Harrods. The list would be incomplete. Harvey Nics gets its highest spend from 3pm until 7pm on weekdays. These are the women who lunch. They get up late, having been to a party last night, meet with their friends and have lunch, then shop then they have to be away by seven, in time to prepare and go out to the next party tonight."

"Harrods on the other hand, you have a diverse mix of cultures coming in and spending."

"Catherine, so why Harvey Nichols in particular?"

Well it’s the one I know the least well – I know Selfridges and I know Harrods, but I don’t particularly like Harrods: my friend took me to the food hall the other day and it looked like Disneyland. So packed! I’ve worked in boutique stores before, but not a department store so I’d like to try that, and I find the women what lunch thing fascinating.

"It’s a difficult time of year, people are stressed, they’re looking for something but they can’t find it, time’s running out, how would you deal with a difficult customer?"

Well, it’s not retail but it is servicing the customer, though a slightly different customer – I was working on the front desk and a woman who was partially sighted got upset with me because I fined her the full amount of money instead of a lower rate. She started shouting at me and saying “you think this and you think that”, I tried to calm her down, but it didn’t work so I went to get my manager, who handled the situation.

"That’s right Catherine, you failed, but actually you did the right thing. I used to work as a flight attendant for BA, and if you have an unhappy customer there’s not much you can do about it when you’re up 1000s of feet in the air with them! At BA we were always told to bring another face to the problem: these people need attention and feel a lot better when they have the full attention of two people."

She told me about the history of La Perla and the other brand that I would be working for at this point, starting with ‘made in the fifties, a hosiery luxury company which was formed in response to the fact that women were starved of hosiery during the war. She said that these hoses were in fact the best. Once you’ve worn Walford you’d never go back. Seams, a foot, it’s in the design and the manufacture. God she could walk in there tomorrow and sell the stuff. I need to do some research on these brands!

"As for La Perla, Italian, really expensive knickers and brasiers. We’ll show you the catalogues later."

"This isn’t like working for boots. These people are after something specific… and so on."

"We expect our girls (I say girls, they usually are but I’ll come on to that in a minute) to be on time and well presented. If your shift starts at one, be on the shop floor about ten minutes before booted and ready to go. Walford like you to wear make up, not excessive but nice a bit of lipstick, a bit of glamour, black or skin tights, black shoes – nothing fancy, no buckles or bells. Jewellery: no necklaces, are your ears pierced? Just studs, no danglies. (I nod). No long necklaces, one bracelet perhaps for Walford, and at Harrods they allow you to wear a string of pearls, but no other kind of jewellery."

"You’re at Central Saint Martins right now? We do say to all of our temps to remember, you may be a famous designer one day, but these people, the permanent staff, it’s their job for life. Please treat them with respect. (No problem thought I, but this did show that perhaps they’d had trouble in the past?)

If you are running late, let me or Helen know, it always sounds better coming from us than from you, and if you’re ill we can send someone else in at the last minute. We are your employer, so any extra hours etc have to be cleared (check this), and finally if you do get a call from us, we’re not just trying to find out how you’re getting on and to have a friendly chat, it’s about work. If you can do the shift say so, if not please also say so and that way we can ask the next person.

I think that’s all."

(Wow thought I)

Helen then ushered me back out of the back office, as a new potential recruit had arrived for their computer test. I checked whether or not my boots would be suitable: no. Has to be shoes. And then Alison came in and I met her again, shook Penny by the hand twice as I missed her thumb the first time (awkward but hopefully she forgot about it as soon as it had happened) then good bye and I was back tottering down the stairs, clutching my dress rehearsal sheet, specifying what to and what not to wear as a shop assistant in a luxury store.

Pillows at Dawn

2006-12-18T10:12:00.003Z

Myself and a couple of friends signed up as actors for a pillowfight on Hampstead Heath, for Action Aid's Bollocks to Poverty campaign.
It was fantastic fun, we all ended up covered in mud and feathers.

Seminar Tito's Cafe London Bridge Street

2006-12-18T09:44:00.001Z

Since last updating the blog a lot of thinking and direction-changing has taken place.
Following consultation with friends, family, tutors and mentors we have changed the emphasis to one more fitting with our personal interests: performance. Here's an extract from an email written after a moment of clarity:

Our Major Project looks at turning the retail space into a performance space. Our work starts from finding out what the story of a place is: in this instance we've chosen Harvey Nichols as we have a potential contact on their Strategic Marketing team. Then, we intend to create a brief with the client, using scenario building techniques and the language of theatre and performance to express a new 'future' of Harvey Nichols through a script. This script would be played out and the retail environment (or 'set') transformed so that on entering you wouldn't be sure who was 'in' or 'out' of the game. It's a really exciting project with tonnes of possibilities ... we submit the project in March 2007.

From the seminar we're clear that our next points of action are

-Understand the profile of Harvey Nichols
-Understand the narrative of Harvey Nichols
-Prepare presentation to client
-Create outputs for Work in Progress Show, 9th January 2007
-Plan story workshop
-Create contingency plan

Shopping for a job

2006-12-14T01:40:00.002Z

Some action research: hoping to work at Harvey Nichols over the Christmas Period... fingers crossed.

Images from
-MA Communication Design Work in Progress Show, June 21 2005. Claire Scully and Susie Wright (top) fly-poster outside exhibition, Catton Street, London.
-Interior shot, Graphic Design, Catton Street 1st Floor Studio, London.
-Airport Shopping poster in Zurich Airport, March 2006.

In which caf makes a podcast... and very nearly gets away with it

2006-12-13T01:08:00.002Z

Part of the City Centre Retail of the Future research for Arup.
This conversation ties in many of the themes we explored whilst looking into city centre retail, also interestingly airport retail, and future trends.
Ken Hollings is a writer and broadcaster with so many exciting projects on at any one time I wonder how he manages it all with such terrific energy.
Link to podcast: Arup's Foresight+Innovation+Incubation blogsite

Major Project: crossing the I's and dotting the T's

2006-12-10T10:37:00.001Z

Following the presentation I consulted with various mentors about where to go next. Then I came to this blank space to synthesise the feedback to share it with P.