On Learning: Design Brigade Week 8
A project co-sponsored by the Yale Center for Collaborative Arts and Media and Atelier Cho Thompson. For more information, visit Design Brigade.
Design Updates
Guidebook:
During week 8, our biggest focus was on the next draft of our guidebook. We aimed to have all text for the guidebook done by Friday, July 24 and have our pages for each model done by our meeting on Monday, July 27. Like in the past, we equally divided up the work so we were each responsible for one of the five models. We all also took on smaller tasks to fill out the guidebook: Kayley worked on creating a map of New Haven, Jessica developed our Gantt charts, Anjiang fleshed out how we moved from research to design, Soomin wrote the conclusion and information on hiring, and Robbie wrote the preface and generated a lot of visuals for the guidebook. It’s fair to say that we each had our work cut out for us and we worked successfully as a team.
For us, the most challenging aspect of developing our guidebook this week was expressing all the research we’ve done. Although we have sent out a lot of surveys and held many interviews, it was challenging to represent all the research we had done. Anjiang came up with the idea of dispersing quotes from surveys and interviews across an abstract map of New Haven. From there, we had to explain how we moved from research to design with the five models of community engagement. One of our professional advisors, Brian Stromquist, was super helpful in providing examples for visualizing the transition from research to design. He stressed the importance of clearly linking what we’ve heard in our research to our design intervention. As a result, we’ve identified a series of metrics (feasible and affordable, engaging and intimate, and accessible and adaptable) that are derived from our research and will define each design proposal. After a lot of back and forth, Anjiang found a super creative and representative way to lay out the guidebook pages for our research to design section.
We also spent a lot of time working on the visuals for our guidebook. Even though we’re proud of the version of the guidebook we created for week 6, we felt like the visual language could be further unified. We agreed we wanted to add some more of the colorful and curvy icons Cat had created for the Small model across each of the models. Jessica also created a visual identity for the title pages of each section that features various sized dots in our color scheme. The visual identity of our guidebook could be unified slightly as we finalize the document, but thus far it is colorful and consistent.
NXTHVN
In addition to our work on the guidebook this week, we have also been preparing for our next meeting with NXTHVN to figure out next steps for a Fall program. In our last meeting, Nico and Terence left us with a number of questions to think through, with a main one being “how would NXTHVN fellows and apprentices participate in and/or drive certain projects?” In order to learn more about the fellows through remote means, we spent a lot of time looking at the online material for Countermythologies, NXTHVN’s last exhibition. We watched the “Artists on Artists” videos, looked through the collection, and read the accompanying exhibit book. Soomin luckily was able to see the exhibit in-person last week as well. This research has given us a greater sense of what issues, themes, and memories drive the fellows’ work, and given us a greater understanding of how NXTHVN’s overall mission plays out in real life.
Finally, this week we also tried to gain a better understanding of what has been going on in Dixwell lately in terms of community efforts. We checked in with Dixwell CMT leadership and also looked into what the People’s Collaborative of Dixwell has been up to. Those conversations are ongoing and we hope to find some way that this program with NXTHVN might align with these efforts.
Breakthroughs
The Design Updates above essentially summarizes the biggest breakthrough this week: the next draft of our guidebook is finally done! This week we also managed to make contact with many advisors and potential partners. Hope Chávez, the artist producer of Long Wharf Theatre provided us with great insight on relationship building with the community, as time and action is the vital factor for it to take real effect. Her question about how to get people involved in public events during quarantine made us rethink the practical issues in terms of building physical engagement, the answer to which was later incorporated in the section of “How to Use This Guidebook”.
Roadblocks
One thing that needs to be addressed soon is how we are going to implement the guidebook according to the abundance of feedback that we have received from advisors and community members. Ideally, we will continue the work on the guidebook even after Design Brigade, but as of now, we only have another week to adjust the individual models and to have the final version of the book ready. We also need to find a way to maintain the relationship with the parties that we have talked to and continue their involvement in this program.
Next Steps
Next week, we have another meeting with Jay and the NXTHVN apprentices to discuss which models speak strongly to the apprentices, and what role the apprentices would like to play. Our team would also like to ask them questions regarding collaboration with other individuals or organizations, such as Ice the Beef. This meeting will be a crucial part of adapting our models in a way that serves NXTHVN’s fellows and apprentices, as well as the Dixwell community.
We have sent out the most current draft of the guidebook to our clients, internal advisors, mentors, and professional advisors. In the coming weeks, we will collect feedback from them and make necessary adjustments to the book. Regarding distribution of this guidebook, we will talk to Daniel Fitzmaurice, one of our advisors and the Executive Director of Arts Council, who has been a tremendous help to our team. He has communicated to us that the Arts Council would be willing to partner with us in organizing some sort of a virtual “launch” of the guidebook; we look forward to discussing this further with Daniel.
While we have a tentative title for the guidebook in mind, we will keep searching for a catchy and proper title. Some of the keywords we are considering include: connect, care, New Haven, play, learning, and adaptability. We are open to suggestions, so connect with us if you have any ideas!
