What if: Sydenham
The idea’s simple.
- Take a photo of a run-down or unused shop-front where you live.
- Give it a digital refurb.
- Present to shop owner, potential developers, or local council.
From the what if? website:
“If one shop, business, bench or sign is improved due to the work we are showing in here, then we will consider it a success.”
(before) Craft Shoe Repairs
(after) Billings Quality Fishmonger & Butcher
(before) Sydenham cinema
(after) Sydenham Picture Palace
It’s a lot better than doing nothing, one way to improve your local neighbourhood, and something I plan to do for my hometown Bangor.
what if: sydenham, designed by Good People.
Great idea.
——
Update:
“I did the same thing for a local park with an idea to improve it. The local council listened and gave us funding. We now have an outdoor gym, outdoor classroom, community garden, updated adventure playground and people are using it again.”
— LEE NEWHAM, GOOD PEOPLE
——
Excerpt image courtesy of Thinkstock.
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30 appreciated comments on “What if: Sydenham”
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This is absolutely brilliant. The law of attraction, put to good use!
Thanks for posting about this David. Both Billings and the Cinema were nice projects to do.
Our local high street in Sydenham was in a state. Surveys I conducted revealed that most people regarded the high street as being ‘shabby’. But whenever I tried to talk to people about it, they dismissed any idea of getting shop owners to do up their shops or that it was even an issue. Shop owners were spending thousands of pounds ripping out shop fronts and changing things that made no difference.
I thought they could make a bigger difference, save money and make the high street a nice place to be by improving their design.
So one day on the train up to Leeds to see a client I thought I’d show them what the difference would be. I posted the before and after on a local forum and the response was incredible. So I started the blog and did some more.
It got the same response. People started talking about it.
I did the same thing for a local park with idea to improve it. The local council listened and gave us funding. We now have an outdoor gym, outdoor classroom, community garden, updated adventure playground and people are using it again.
Originally I planned on spending no more than 2 hours on any of the what if’s. They were just simple example of the difference a bit of design thinking made to a shopfront. That changed when I did the cinema design and Billings, they took a lot longer.
It’s all a lot of work and It’s free work, but the rewards are worth more than money.
Can design make a difference? Yes. Definitely.
That’s superb with the local park improvements, Lee. Well done.
A lot of this needed on High street in Bangor, not to mention Main Street now a lot of the temporary shops are opening up along there, a great way of getting rid of the eyesores, and a great pro-active way of getting business in the current climate.
Thanks David. It’s been nice doing work for things you believe in, we have created a load of posters for various events etc. you get a chance to indulge a bit and experiment. It’s not always successful, but as someone once said, it takes a lot of sh*t to make a beautiful flower.
You don’t get a chance to experiment with clients as much (if at all). And if you love design, then why not give some of your efforts to helping your local community?
Worth pointing out that the old cinema building is actually in the area now better known as Crystal Palace, and there is a massive campaign to get the cinema re-instated (it’s been bought by an evangelical church).
http://www.campaign.picture-palace.org/
The cinema looks superb!
Bangor is crying out for a good designer to re-model it. The seafront/queens parade is nothing short of a disgrace.
Looking forward to seeing the Bangor designs…
This reminds me of a project Ken Garland set when I was at uni. He had tried to improve the shop fronts in Camden by approaching all of the owners and saying he could improve their design for a greatly reduced fee (his design office was nearby). All of the owners thought it was still too expensive and no one took him up on it. A pity. People forget that they have a collective responsibility and focus on the bottom line. Making things nice is always worthwhile. Still it was a great project for us year 2 students — our street looked great!
These projects look fantastic. They have given me great ideas and inspiration for where I live. I’m up in the East Bay Area in California and there are certainly places that need sprucing up. I’ve always really enjoyed doing work in the community and I now have some new projects to work on. Thank you David.
That cinema would look fantastic if it was revamped. But the chances are it will be left neglected and they will build a brand new one somewhere.
If you liked What If Sydenham, I created a sister blog for the place I used to live in after being approached by a local newspaper:
http://www.whatifilfracombe.wordpress.com
This is a really great idea. I’m in a small town in Northern New Jersey, and there are a bunch of places in town that could use that sprucing up. Would certainly make for a unique project, even if in the end it was just relegated to the realm of pixels.
Great idea David. I really like this suggestion in how to generate some potential new client work. Great visuals by the way.
Hi Mark,
Don’t think of this as a way to get new work. It isn’t. We have been running this scheme for over 1.5 years and it has taken this long to get one shop to adopt one of the design we have produced for free!
While you can add to your portfolio, it hasn’t led to any paid work. This is purely a social enterprise to raise the debate locally for good design and hopefully get some shops to adopt the designs.
Many people hate the idea of ‘design’, they think it is about making things more expensive, about conning people. Design has almost become a dirty word. The only time you see design talked about in the papers is when something costs a lot of money like the 2012 olympics logo. This was an opportunity to show that design can make a difference in a good way.
Shop owners first question was always ‘how much will this cost me’. Small businesses have both eyes on cost, they often simply don’t see design as an investment. It’s a cost, an expense.
It took a lot of hard work to persuade people otherwise, but now it is a hot topic. I lobbied a lot of people to get to design the Billings shop front. It’s hard to get a job you do for free, imagine how hard it is if you actually get paid!
Regards
Lee
Brilliant post David, it’s a great idea. I’m trying to learn photography with my new DSLR and it is a greta way to get some ideas.
Best wishes all
Graeme
Hi lee,
I’ve tried your idea twice to a new potential client. The first one was a big failure, but the second one was a big success. They liked the concept i gave and they agree to redesign their identity.
This idea may not always work, but it is worth to try. Just keep trying and you never know what the result is
cheers,
Tobias
This raises an interesting debate Tobias which I was about to start blogging about.
Should we be giving work away for free to get work? Does this undervalue design and ideas? When a lot of clients don’t value design or even understand it, how do you get them to invest in it?
That’s why I distanced the what if project from my normal business. without the what id project no stores would have adopted anything as there was nothing to adopt. It’s a bit ‘chicken and egg’.
Facts and figures help, but ultimately stories are the best way to get people ot believe in it. Most new work for clients comes through personal recommendations. I’m sure David will say that this blog is a fantastic tool for new business which works in a similar way. It’s about a positive conversation which acknowledges your expertise.
Anyway, I will be writing more on this soon.
What a great idea David, i think a lot of the town centers, have small run down shops or empty ones, due to the supermarkets or large chain cooperation’s taking place of the small business owners by selling everything under one roof. You have inspired me to go and use these examples to help improve the chances and aesthetics of the individual businesses in my area. Very Mary Portas “Queen of Shops!”
It is very interesting…..
maybe i have to tell the complete story about what i did.
One day my friend recommended me to a new client.
On a short brief on the telephone,
she asked me to design her menu restaurant to attract new customers.
So i do a little research on her restaurant, and i found that it is better to redesign her restaurant identity than just to design only the menu, which i believed this is an effective way to develop the restaurant brand awareness.
Since i never designed a restaurant before, i designed an example identity of how her restaurant should be.
A week after, i meet with her, and i proposed the ‘example design’ to her and she loves the concept.
And then after we agree about the design fee, we proceed to make the ‘REAL design’
For me it is not about undervalue design and ideas.
It is about how to convince client the importance of design, how design can attract customer and how design can sell….
How do u guys think about this?
We were contacted by a film company about doing a Mary Portas style program (although I believe we started this before her programs came on TV!) but it never came of it. Funny how your stuff gets out there though.
Your version of picture palace is gorgeous.
Great subject and it’s something that I’ve been contemplating for a while now myself in my little corner of Montreal.
I agree with you Lee that the word DESIGN is getting an unfair bad rep but I still believe that for the best interest of our industry and fellow designers we should not be giving out our work for free or for peanuts.
If one designer chooses to give it a shot at redesigning a store front without actually having the assignment that is one thing that the designer has a right to do but if he or she decides to present it to a potential client and it is accepted design fees should be discussed and applied. Besides if a client can pay for elaborate renovations, design fees shouldn’t be a hurdle.
The only time I accept to do free work is when there’s an exchange of services or when it’s Pro-bono work.
I agree with you Giuseppe. This started as a project to improve the high street and raise the subject of design as an issue. It wasn’t meant to get new work. It has led to a lot of good will and discussion and a move towards getting a better, more attractive shopping district (and the park improvements). I find clients don’t care about you if you give them work for free, if they aren’t able to pay for the work, then they simply don’t care abut design and will probably be a rubbish client.
I don’t believe in free pitching. I remember travelling up to Harris brushes 3 times for meetings before they asked us to free pitch. We said no. The guy Isaw got quite angry because we wouldn’t do work for free. But I don’t paint the walls with his brushes to see if they are any good before I paint the ceiling.
There should always be a payback for the work you do. In the case of the what if Project it was improving my local environment. We had two stabbings, one fatal near where I live recently. It’s not a bad area, it’s just one of those things. I saw one of the young brothers of the murdered teenager in the park yesterday, near the spot where is Brother passed away enjoying using the new gym equipment we managed to get installed.
That was worth more than any client fee.
What a fantastic idea, a kind of ‘build it and they will come’ showing the potential of forgotten high streets. Like it.
Great idea and article David. I’m definitely going to create a visual for the vacant cinema and accompanying shops for my local town of Tunbridge Wells.
The locals have been waiting for years for the council to redevelop the cinema building and now we’re waiting for a buyer to come forward (the site is up for sale for £8 million!)
Kind regards,
Designmatic
Of course I’m not shocked by how much of a difference design makes, but goodness, I can’t believe people actually listened to you! :)
You must be stoked about that!
I must totally agree with Tobias in that when it comes to clients, I also take the same approach that there is no point trying to paint lipstick on a pig.
If they are coming to me for marketing collateral, but their brand identity isn’t up to scratch, I talk about that for sure. It’s for their own good to at least hear it. Whether they want to ignore me or not is another matter (they usually don’t).
Amazing idea, how inspiring.
Plenty of them up north, I might give it a go when I get some free time :D
The only debate about producing spec work to get paid work is whether or not you have the time. When we campaign for new business we have two criteria- show value to the client and demonstrate our creativity and difference. The above idea does both and, although nothing is a guarantee for work, these potential clients had to be impressed. In a small town where referrals are everything, that has value too.
The caveat it that the design standard has to be tight like these examples. If you don’t go in with a strong standard and original, effective identity treatments this idea won’t work any more than anything else.
This is a great idea! It makes for some thoughtful self-promo work but also gets others thinking about urban improvement. Design is overlooked so easy for the sake of getting something done quickly.
I’m really pleased this has had so many positive comments. There are some more What if’s on the way. now we have one under our belt we are getting local businesses fare more exited about design.