'The Fayretrade Market'

On Wednesday 16th March my group carried out the final presentation of our 'Enterprise Project' in lectures. We had created 'The Fayretrade Market' where everyday, ordinary people could come along and trade homegrown produce with one another. The whole idea of this project was to create a business, a service or a product that would appeal to Post-Consumers. So we decided that creating a service where communities can come together and trade excess home grown produce would be ideal - not only would we bringing communities together, we would be encouraging people to 'grown their own' and not have to worry about the excess. 

Every 3 months we would hold one of these events in a local hall where anybody could come along and trade game, fruit and vegetables amongst one other. The entrance fee into each event would £6 but for those who know they will be attending all four events in the year they can purchase a 'Growers Card' and pay a one off fee of £18. 


Alongside this we will sell 'Grower Packs' at a one off cost of £20 which includes everything you need to get you growing. These packs will also be sold by large gardening suppliers and in stores such as B&Q. We have also included a booklet in the pack which contains the laws & regulations of game, where you can grow in urban areas, along with seasonal growing charts and information about our website.

In the first year we hope to get 'The Fayretrade Market' full established and well known in the Dundee area, in year two we plan to expand to Aberdeen and in year three to Edinburgh. Further expansions from year 5 onwards would include the trading of a wider range of products, more events and expansion to larger cities within the UK.

Our logo:

'Grower Pack':

Posters:

Website:

'People's Market'

Last week my design studies group met up (17th February) to refine our thoughts and sort out the FINAL service we want to provide for our 'Enterprise' project. We started to talk about the ideas we had liked the sound of the previous week and narrow down the group favourites. Within half an hour our service was decided and we finally knew the service we wanted to provide not only post-consumers but the general public.

So the idea is based on people growing their own food - their own fruit and vegetables and greatly encouraging its continuation. However, we are also trying to get people who don't grow their own food some incentive to start and open their eyes to the benefits.

Imagine a 'Car Boot Sale' minus the household items we all want rid off and replace them with home grown produce - this can be from fruit and vegetables to game. We will provide the venue and the ability to sell on the extra food produce from your household and all the community has to do is pay a fee for a pitch each week. This will encourage people to grow their food and not worry about waste, as they will know that they can make some money from produce that they normally would throw away. This will keep people growing their own and not have to worry about food that they can't use.

We will also provide 'Starter Packs' that will contain seeds, instructions on growing food in your area, a bag of soil and a container, to get you started. It will even information about where you can grow your crop if you don't have a back garden e.g. urban dwellers. Everything you would need to get started is in this pack. Another way to get the urban environment greener and growing. There's simply no reason why people who live in busy cities can't grow their own food, just as much as someone who lives in the countryside. Urban vegetable patches are what we hope to achieve.

In a previous meeting we liked the idea of 'Recipe Swaps' and getting people within the community together. So we have decided that we are going to incorporate this into our service. People can bring their recipes along and swap produce with other sellers, so that they can potentially fulfil their ingredient list. The bartering and swapping will be down to the discretion of the people, to get themselves a good bargain. We don't want to put rules and regulations on this as we believe it will deter people and also take a bit of fun away from the haggling.

Overall this is our 'Service' so far and our next meeting will refine and consolidate these ideas further. We may also even have a brand/name by then that will get us recognised and help our service move further financially and globally. We want our trading service to be in multiple towns and cities, running weekly and bringing communities together.

Lights To Inspire

This is just a quick post about a few lamps/lights I came across that I think are pretty cool and intriguing. Looking at the images below you will see they make use of everyday objects and recycle them to their optimum potential. These show that being 'Green' and Recycling can be fun, cool, modern and exciting.

Post-Consumer vs. Consumer

Last week my group met up again on Thursday for another meeting, this time to further redevelop the research that we had previously carried out on Post-Consumerism. We all agreed that for this week we would gather a variety of images that we thought best suited this topic and make a 'collage' of our thoughts. This would then be our poster for Assignment 2. We decided that one side of the poster would represent the lifestyles and the changes brought through Post-Consumerism and the other side would be all about Consumerism. Below are the images of our poster:

After completing this we decided that we should brainstorm ideas and niches in the Post-Consumer world - i.e. start to think of products or business opportunities that would appeal to the Post-Consumer and that would fit in with their lifestyle. This was us on our way to discovering what we would be creating for our group 'Enterprise' project. Each avenue was explored in depth and some long discussion took place to see what our initial ideas were. We managed to discover quite a few things that have potential,  however, will need a lot more research before a final decision is made. We also want to produce something different, exciting and that isn't so obvious e.g. repair shops, although an ideal concept for a post-consumer, is far too obvious, boring and they already exist. For the next meeting the plan is to research some of the ideas we preferred and then discuss them in depth together to try and narrow down a few of our ideas. Below is the brain storm we carried out:

Post Consumerism

The second assignment for design studies was here already. Another week, another group meeting and further discussion. Last week we had to research 'Post Consumerism' and discover what exactly it was all about. Then on Thursday 27th at 12:30pm, I met with my group to have a quick discussion and share our views and thoughts on this up and coming topic.

There were mixed views as to the ways in which post consumerism would change people's lives but overall everyone decided that those who wanted to adapt to this way of living, would in turn have a major change in lifestyle; however the extremity of the change would be entirely up to the individual.

Post Consumerism relates to products that have been reused or recycled by consumers. It is a change in lifestyle where brands are no longer dominant and being seen in the same clothes more than once will be the 'fashion'. Those who conform to this will no longer rely on huge supermarket chains, they will grow their own food and purchase anything they can't produce themselves from local shops, their personal values will change and their 'needs' will overtake their 'wants'.

I also personally feel that through this way of living 'Sustainability' and 'Green' methods will be easily and increasingly adopted for all the right reasons, rather than a fad and a business opportunity that looks good to clients.

Below is an image of our group meeting and a quick brainstorm that we carried out on this topic:

RSA Project - CIRCLE

This was a project brief set by RSA as a student design competition. The brief was to design anything for the elderly that would make life easier at home, prolong their time at home or that could be put in place in existing purpose built housing. I chose 'B: Purpose Built Housing'. When first given the project I started to think about the stereotypical views of the elderly and the type of environment a care home provides them with. So the question that I asked myself was 'Why is it that the elderly will sit for hours and tell you all about the 'Good Old Days' and their past but they never tell you of something fun or exciting that they did yesterday?'. So I have created a pod that encompasses fun, family, being social, reminiscing and creating new memories. It also has a retro theme to take them back in time, to help them feel young again and multiple other aids to keep them and their brain active. A space they can take their family and have a good time and get away from the clinical, horrible environment of the care/retirement home whenever they want. There would be multiples of these within the grounds of the home, each individual would have their own pod. I have also given it the name 'Circle' as I believe not only are circular spaces more social - in a circle everyone is equal. These are my final presentation boards for the project:

Bomb Project!

This week from Monday 1st November to Wednesday 3rd November all years of Interior and Environmental Design were given the 'Bomb Project'. Rightly named so, as the tutors emailed us all on Thursday last week to inform us that on Friday we would be getting a new project brief that would run for three days the following week. So we have all been jumbled up into groups all containing people from each year of my course. Not only was this to get the studio bustling and active for open days, it was to get the years mingling and get the first years more acquainted with everyone.

At first I think everybody felt the same on Friday, dread and wondering what is the point to this? I know that I have quite a lot of project work on at the minute along with my dissertation development, so it felt a bit  of a hindrance.  However, it showers your head for 3 days and would always be another experience and article of work for my portfolio.

So the project brief is pretty complicated but in short, each group were given a specific topic and 2 thought evoking images. Following on from this it was up to us where we wanted to go with it as long as we produced a 2D or 3D outcome that occupied part of the studio area. Then on Wednesday the 3rd we would have a quick informal presentation of the final outcome and get some feedback from the tutors. The images we were given:

I was in Group 10, which consisted of 8 people and we were given the topic 'CARE'. On Friday afternoon we did a quick mind map of our instant thoughts of what this title meant to us. The obvious things where coming up like the elderly, cotton wool, first aid, plasters and so on. We then decided that for Monday (the official starting date for the project) we would gather images over the weekend that encompassed the meaning of 'Care'. These are the images I gathered:

As you can see I gathered a wide variety of images. Meeting up on Monday morning, a few people had not got any images but through a discussion with the images we had, it lead us on to thinking about the other end of the scale. We were thinking very obviously of the things we care for but then we asked ourselves "What about the things that we should take care off and don't? 

We also had been thinking about visual communication and signage that give you warnings and cautions e.g signs helping you take care when driving. So we decided to try to combine the two. Was there a way in which we could gather a collection of items that we should take care with but don't and add a warning symbol to them, to make people pay more attention? 

So Monday night we went home trying to think of these items and add the 'Warning' signage to them in which ever way we wanted. I decided to find some less obvious images, get them into photoshop and incorporate the warning sign in an interesting and realistic way. The images that I chose all have a variety of messages to convey, some more serious than others and some even with a double warning meaning e.g. the bottle of water. My images can be seen below:

After creating these I started to look at creating 'Warning Tags' that could be attached to other everyday objects that wouldn't necessarily be able to have the logo incorporated in or on it. I created a simple tag and attached it to everyday objects that we know we should 'take care' with but don't. For example, we know we should take care when using safety pins but how many times have you been using one and ended up pricking yourself?

Tuesday morning came and we collaborated chosen images from each person to create an evoking visual presentation. We also printed out the 'Warning' logo we had been using and created some stickers and tags. These were then attached to items around our studio area that we should all take care with but don't. This reinforcing our concept and adding a 3D level to our presentation.