The focus this week is to come up with some ideas for a new digital tool that we pitch – we then choose one to develop further next week… Throughout the last 7 weeks I’ve had so many different ideas about this it was tough reducing it to just 3 ideas.
It’s also difficult to find if there is already something similar – so if anyone reads this and thinks it’s already been covered let me know!! 🙂
1. Speculative Open Design Platform – Sarah Boris mentioned digital platforms and how these can be used. Made me think about a new digital platform that can bring together hundreds of different disciplines and is a sort of “open” space for people to ask pertinent questions about the world we live in. If there is an active project that piques your interest, you can access this online space and, taking into account your specialism, begin a discussion with other practitioners on a world wide basis to solve this problem. I think it’s currently almost too open – it would be a space for specialists to be able to work on something they are passionate about, but on the side. So we get a range of disciplines, all able to voice their thoughts on a larger specific issue (eg. A speculative product that could help solve the issue of migration – subject matter taken from the Migrant Journals). It could also help designers, engineers, scientists etc explore a bigger issue and give them the ability to talk to other practitioners around the world.
2. Creating a free digital tool that can connect local artists from around the world – meaning artists from anywhere can easily share and provide their work for a specific project (take Pearlfisher’s approach – what if they could get local artwork without having to fly out there themselves)… Questions for this would be how could everyone access the tool – could be difficult with areas with no infrastructure or access to internet etc. Is this just Instagram?!? How could I make it different? Could it bring up some major copyright issues?!
3. Global collaboration for children – I worked at the Smithsonian Museums Summer camp a while ago and we did a great collaborative project with the children – as we looked at a specific museum or subject area, the children would pick something they all really liked and we’d run with it. We’d spend 5 days working on this project to create something new together… It ended up being a lesson on how to use inspiration to inform your own work – but the children each contributed something different to the artwork or sculpture. I had pictures of this but since deleting facebook can’t get it back!! I love the idea of creating a digital tool for children to work on collaboratively – it could even be an opportunity for two schools from different countries to come together and create a piece of work in a collaborative, global environment…. It could even be a monthly art project and have different schools each month from different countries or parts of the UK.
These are only my intitial thoughts and will develop!
Pitch number 1:
Having spoken to Alec, I decided to focus one of my pitches toward my future business – something that could potentially be brought out a few years down the line to enhance the specialism of the studio. I want the Studio’s main focus to be this mentorship programme offered and collaborate a lot with the local universities and colleges to get students on board. It could be used for partnerships or endorsements and could get really creative. Video below of the first draft idea of this collaborative process we could initiate within the city.
Taking Alecs advice I’ve chosen to look at a collaborative process that can help my business in the future. Being a mentorship programme, my process will utilise the 3 different educational insitiutions we have in York to showcase the work of undergrads or even postgrads and researchers. Creating a collaborative event across the three institutions means we can combine artistry, experimentation and technology to really showcase the local talent we have in this city. Hopefully by this point in our business journey, we will have strong relationships with the colleges or universities so these events can also promote our mentorship programme within our business. For next week, I’ll be speaking to contacts at the different educational institutions as to how this could be used effectively and how this idea can be developed to create an effective and functional process or tool.
Pitch number 2:
I decided to follow through with the more experimental and global pitch from my initial thoughts above – I still love this one, it’s a much larger and ambitious digital tool but still something I could see benefiting a lot of people.
Hannah Elizabeth Design 