Imagine, strategize, and build a pop-up experience manifesting DIY,
Maker, and Designer visions & values.
CLIENT
Urban Outfitters
LOCATION
Los Angeles, CA
PROJECT
Hand-Eye Supply’s Pop-up Institute for Craft and Ingenuity
ROLE
Creative Strategy and Art Direction: Christine Taylor
Challenge
• Conceptualize and build a month-long, educational happening, pop-up shop at Urban Outfitter's Los Angeles location called Space 15 Twenty.
• Space 15 Twenty is a unique retail setting which collaborates with creative brands and includes a performance space, pop-up, gallery, courtyard, book shop and restaurant.
• In addition to the fully stocked retail shop, Hand-Eye Supply engaged the Los Angeles public and Maker communities with special programming that included workshops, demos, a film series, and other fun happenings from a group of contributors.
Insights
1. The community of the Maker Movement is known for priding themselves on being an open source — experimenting and sharing their results amongst friends and associates and not keeping their knowledge locked up within themselves.
2. Makers are more interested in learning and experimenting rather than a perfect outcome.
3. A focus on trusting the process rather than the outcome is essential to the Maker mentality.
4. Community is essential to the Maker Movement’s success. It's a way to meet “the others,” learn, teach and share knowledge while gaining a sense of belonging and ownership of their often crowd-powered projects.
Research on Bohemian Arts Education in America
• Taliesen by Frank Lloyd Wright, WI (1911-1959)
• Cooper Union, NYC (1859-present)
• High Desert Test Sites, Palm Desert (2014-present)
• Yaddo, NY (1900-present)
• Black Mountain College, NC (1933-1957)
• Art Farm, NE (1993-present)
• Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, NE(1981-present)
• New Harmony (1825-1829, IN)
• Oberlin Colony (1833-1843, OH)
• Brook Farm (1841-1847, MA)
• North American Phalanx (1841-1856, NJ)
• Hopedale Community (1842-1868, MA)
• Fruitlands (1843-1844, MA)
• Sodus Bay Phalanx (1844-1846, NY)
• Wisconsin Phalanx (1844-1850, WI)
Research Fround On the Characteristics of Utopias
• Information, independent thought, and freedom are promoted.
• A figurehead or concept brings the citizens of the society together.
• Citizens are truly free to think independently.
• Citizens have no fear of the outside world.
• Citizens live in a harmonious state.
• The natural world is embraced and revered.
• Citizens embrace social and moral ideals.
• Individuality and innovation are welcomed.
• The society evolves with change to make a perfect utopian world.
• Money is abolished. Citizens only do work that they enjoy.
• Society is controlled by citizenry.
• Technology is embraced to enhance the human living experience.
• Humans live harmoniously with nature
• All ideas of God are welcomed.
• People to have a good work ethic
Here's We Did
The Culture Behind the Commerce
It's less about age, and more about lifestyle thus a traditional approach towards marketing does not completely apply to this demographic. Since 2009 Maker Culture has coalesced into a formal movement, taking strands from music movements, traditional DIY cultures, artisans, hacking and open source computing and peer-to-peer education. Makers have woven these into a cohesive, identifiable whole. Following are the key points that every project must uphold in order for it to be a success.
• Inclusivity, never exclusivity
• Imperfection, not perfection
• Love of the process, not only the outcomes
• Build for community, rather than siloed experiences
• Make it matter; functional over non-functional