Playplax

This was the set of Playplax i (Lizzy) had as a child. It was the beginning of my obsession with all things plastic, see-through and colourful. Well, perspex i suppose. Not to over egg the cake, but this genuinely was one of my favourite toys.

Kin informed us that the original Playplax was invented by a chap who went to the RCA, and was in fact not perspex, but polystyrene!  

(K)inside-out!

Today saw us sat in the studio at Kin design in Farringdon. We all very much respect their work and also felt some similarity of interests between what they do so well and what we hope to do. So it was an exciting moment for us to see if they saw some promise in the idea, or indeed even liked it. As ever, it is also a testing moment for a project when you have to present it and see if you can make others believe in it in the way that you do. It went really well though. They were kind enough to offer all kinds of support (time and space permitting) and also to talk about helping us out with our placements. Hopefully we will be able to have a beneficial relationship and even perhaps work on a project together at some point. So we go into Christmas with a renewed zest and vigor for InsideOut Studio.

Logos

Ok, I know were a bit text heavy so I'll keep it brief. Here are some logo ideas, please do add comments on the comment button underneath. We want feedback all the time, ideas, suggestions. Get involved! Or use the email on the right.

Creative Lewisham

So today we took our precious baby ideas out into the real world and shared them with someone else.

We had a meeting with Andrew Carmichael, of Creative Lewisham, at the Old Laban Centre in Laurie Grove. Since 2001, the Creative Lewisham Agency has, in their own words, "sought to develop, in any way appropriate, the scale and level of activity of the creative sector in Lewisham." Lewisham Council itself recognises the value of the 'creative sector' of the borough, in urban development and culture. This can be no bad thing.

Having prepared a small booklet, with a brief introduction to us and to our philosophy, we turned up for the meeting expecting to be brought down to earth a little. Right now, it seems like we're thinking really astronomically - shooting for the stars, if you will - and it'll gradually narrow down to specific projects with specific people with specific outcomes. 

Andrew was able to point us in the direction of plenty of existing organisations in the area who we might find useful/be able to make ourselves useful to. The main points we took from the meeting, aside from all of these really useful contacts, were:

• We need to be clear about exactly what we're offering. If we go to an organisation such as Voluntary Action Lewisham, for example, and present ourselves and our variety of technical abilities, then we are much more likely to get a response taking us up on our offer. We should think of ourselves as a package; we are four designers willing to work for three months. That's about 500 hours at least, and at a modest rate that's about £5000 of design time, we're offering free of charge. 
• Expectation Management. If we were to collaborate with an existing organisation, we need to be clear at the outset about what it is we're going to provide. Similar to the first point really, but for example, if they think they're going to end up with a fully printed brochure, and what we provide is just the design for the brochure, they might feel we've not delivered what we promised. 
• It could be a good idea to approach existing not for profit organisations in the area (there are plenty of them!) and find aspects we can contribute to/improve. For example, there are plenty of organisations out there with really good messages, but those messages are not being communicated very well, because it's just not something they can afford.
• The Stephen Lawrence Centre would definitely be a good organisation to get in touch with regarding some kind of studio space.

Ultimately, today's meeting was a gentle dose of realism. 

But even if we left feeling a little deflated, we expected to be. And actually on reflection, there are a lot of really exciting opportunities out there for us to really make a difference with design.

Two become four

So we had our second semi official meeting today. We introduced the idea to Vilma and Rada, so now we are a team of four, Lizzy, Rada, Vilma and Ben. The idea is a complete four way share of work, ideas and effort. We hoped that what we had would interested Rada and Vilma and it did which is really pleasing and we will hopefully work really well together.
After they had said they were interested we got on to areas that we should go onto look at, such as the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust. We also prepared our presentation for our meeting with Creative Lewisham tomorrow, which we can also hopefully use when we visit Kin on wednesday. Other than that it was a question of eating pate and scones and discusing ideas for the website. Oh and looking at ideas for the logo.

First Steps

Ok, our first post! Today was our first official get together (if that can ever be official). Our first task was to transfer some of our thoughts onto the page in what some might call a 'manifesto'. We think that this is a really good way of getting a strong conceptual base from which to grow. With a couple of concrete principles that you can turn to when you can't remember why your doing a project. It also helps to clarify to everyone who we are and what we are doing. These two principles are by no means inflexible, but they are what we start this project hoping to achieve and aiming towards. 

This all sounds very well planned, but we are really just accepting our ignorance with this project, asking for help where we can and finding ways of working through it. Every failure enriches the process, fail better next time. 

So the moment you're all waiting for, what are our principles?

Engaging with the local community and discovering design needs through new interfaces.

Work transparently and expose all parts of the design process, as well as the minor details of the gestation of the business.

So thats where we are at now, building on those principles (including working on a business plan) and trying to move the project forward.