RE : CREATIVE COLLECTIVE
A business that offers low cost, customizable services that leverage the presence of the creatives in the Brixton community.
Ethnography Research | Business Design | Service Design
4 Month Project – Spring 2016
London, England
Team: Tiffany Soohoo, Marius Jackson, Andrew Trenton
Laura Wright & Ken Chen
ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
UX Designer & Graphic Designer
- Responsible for conducting research in the Brixton neighborhood.
- Created cultural probes, customer journey maps and engaged with Brixton residents through interview sessions.
- 1 of 3 graphic designers to create the branding identity and design a research and development book showcasing the entire project.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Adopt a neighborhood of London, engage with the community, conduct ethnographic research and discover a design opportunity.
WHY BRIXTON?
Our team selected Brixton in South London as our neighborhood because of the potential design opportunities we saw. From the iconic Brixton market, independent creative shops, restaurants to the local artists, singers, and businesses, we were captivated by the community pride.
Although its creative energy was exciting it was being overpowered by the commercial appeal of the high street and fast food businesses that posed an interesting jumping off point for further investigation.
FOCAL QUESTION
How can design help revitalize and preserve the rich history of the Brixton community by empowering its small businesses against the commercial appeal of the high street?
OUR DESIGN PROCESS
RESEARCH PHASE
– INTERVIEWS –
“We use the Brixton pound as a way to reinforce local economy and identity.”
“I miss how quiet it was in the past, its been 20 years now.”
“For the most part I feel like I’ve ‘done’ Brixton, since I’ve lived here so long...But there are so many changes, which are new! But, they feel very generic”
– CULTURAL PROBES –
EXQUISITE CORPSE: We had members of the Brixton community complete this exercise and subsequently posted them around the neighborhood to start a conversation.
CARD SORTING ACTIVITY: As a group, we split up among the community and asked participants to rate these images 1–10 according to which images represented Brixton the most (1 being least like Brixton). Secondly, we asked participants to circles the images of items they thought would be around in the next 10 years. This activity was used to understand how people felt about their evolving community.
INSIGHT ANALYSIS PHASE
Plotting how people felt about their changing community.
INSLIGHT CONCLUSION
1
The Artists, Designers and Musicians of Brixton are the Stronghold of the community.
Local artist, creator of housewares
2
Small businesses do not have the finances for creative marketing to compete with high street brands.
Brixton High Street with commerical businesses
3
Businesses and Individual Talent with a specific "Cultural Capital" tend to last in the community.
Pop Brixton – a bussiness space that rotates local artists
OUR SOLUTION
A business that offers low cost, customizable services that leverage the presence of the creatives in the Brixton community.
AFRICAN QUEEN FABRICS CASE STUDY
We approached African Queen Fabrics a small business located in Brixton Market to run a case study through their shop using our business model and how to expose their product and drive more traffic and attention from visitors and locals.
FEEDBACK
Owner Biali was very interested in the ideas we had presented to him and encouraged us to continue to use him as a case study.