WEEK 8 - BUILDING NEW MODELS & TOOLS FOR FUTURE PRACTICE

RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Sketchbooks Research & Analysis Ideas for Week 8.

Existing examples of catalysts that think about work in a completely new way.
 
Jeff Bezos attributes the success of intelligent people to an ability to change their minds a lot. Being open to new points of view, information, ideas, and contradictions challenges our thinking and results in revision and reimagination. 
Apple CEO Steve Jobs could change his mind quickly and often, sometimes taking the polar opposite position to the day before. This is a gift because things change, and the ability and courage to change with them are what creation is all about (Jeff Bezos: People who are 'right a lot' make decisions differently than everyone else—here's how, 2021).  
 
"When it comes to process, mix up the letters and find cesspool."
 
The award-winning New Zealand film and television director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and comedian Taika Waititi believes creative flow is maintained through chaos (How can we stay fresh and innovative? Listen to Taika break it down., 2021). By embracing the concept that a good idea comes from chaos, you don't feel the stress or pressure to find a straightforward way to make things work. Instead, you are on an adventure of exploration, using your skills to refine things as you go (Taika Waititi Fomo, 2021). He is responsible for a vast sum of imaginatively different content in film today. 
 
Stephan Sagmeister closes up shop every few years and takes a year-long sabbatical. The concept of a sabbatical is relevant to the fast-paced world in which we live. He encourages us to take four to six years of retirement in between our life to accomplish our goals (Stefan Sagmeister Takes a Yearlong Sabbatical Every Seven Years (and Thinks You Should, Too) - Time Sensitive, 2021). Taking a step back allows you to change direction, explore, be inspired, observe, try new things, and live a full, rich life. Many ideas sown during his sabbatical in New York, Mexico and Bali were reaped afterwards. Including his Beauty exhibitions, The Happy Film and The Happy Show exhibition (Stefan Sagmeister Takes a Yearlong Sabbatical Every Seven Years (and Thinks You Should, Too). 

Fig. 1: Tattly, 2014.
 
3M follows a 15% culture, whereby employees are encouraged to set aside a portion of their work time to cultivate and pursue innovative ideas that excite them proactively. They are given the space to try something new and different, think creatively and challenge the status quo. Employees are also allowed to rework their schedules to maximize professional and personal productivity. This approach has resulted in Scotch tape and Post-it (3M: Science to applied life, 2021). 
 
Google are usually at the forefront of innovative work practice, process and environments. The Think 10x Culture is based on the principle that true innovation happens when you try to improve something ten times rather than 10%.
 
Google is also reimagining a hybrid workplace to help collaborate effectively across many work environments and give workers more flexibility and choice. From workspaces designed to mimic a campfire to advanced video technology, a hybrid work week and reset days to help employees recharge (Google UK - About Google, Our Culture & Company News, 2021). 
 
JohnsonBanks defines and designs brands that make a difference by thinking about work in a new way. 
·                By investigating, thinking, doing and delivering.
·                By combining the verbal and visual in a way, others don't.
·                By addressing substance, not just surface.
·                By looking beyond the brand to its purpose.
·                By exploring together with the client what they do, how they do it, who they do it for, why they do it and finding solutions.

They don't just help brands change; they help them change the world. 

Fig. 2: Johnson banks' new website is a side-scrolling splendour, 2017.

One such project, Mozilla builds products, technologies, and programs that keep the Internet growing and healthy, with individuals informed and in control of their online lives. An open design process reimagined rebranding by sharing, listening and involving an online audience each step of the way. The design process embodied the brand positioning as champions for a healthy Internet, where everyone is free and safe to explore, discover, create and innovate without barriers or limitations (Shelter | Johnson Banks, 2021).
 
Stepping off the hamster wheel and out of our comfort zones to reimagine and explore new ways of thinking results in inspiring creativity that yields unexpected and exciting results.

Monotony collapses time, and novelty unfolds it – Joshua Foer
 
IMAGINE

Sketchbook Workshop Challenge ideas for Week 8. 

A tool for creative collaboration
 
VALUE PROPOSITION
Doodle Café – Connect, Collaborate, Create
 
The pandemic has accelerated a change in society, where freelance, hybrid and work from home situations are the new normal. The resulting isolation is not conducive to creativity. 
 
The Doodle Café is an inspiring, visually stimulating environment that cultivates a creative ecology. It offers customers the opportunity to break from the isolation of working alone and explore a change of scenery while networking and interacting with a community of like-minded individuals to co-discover, share, problem solve and create in a uniquely playful way. All while sipping on a great cup of coffee!
 
The Café encourages creatives to leave technology behind and explore by doodling, sketching, or writing on table-tops, benches, and other surfaces covered in sketch paper. There are post-it and blackboard walls where ideas, art, photographs and magazine clippings can be pinned. The interior design is comprised of customers doodles in an ever-evolving environment. You can visit the café multiple times, and it will always look different. 
 
Creatives can add to or improve on the doodles of others in a curious, expressive and exploratory manner that inspires new ways of thinking, sparks creativity and collaboration. Creatives are encouraged to mark their work with a name or avatar linked to an accessible archive to facilitate networking.
 
When people with different skills and perspectives come together to create in a place like the Doodle Café, you end up with something greater than the whole. 

Doodle Cafe Identity 
 
RESEARCH
Some of the most successful people in history, from Pablo Picasso to JK Rowling and Bob Dylan, frequented cafes to ponder great ideas and cultivate their creative energy. Whether they’re painters, singer-songwriters, philosophers or writers, people across nations and centuries have tapped into their creativity working away at a table in a café.

The 2020 State of Remote Work report found that 80% of workers would prefer to work from home. A situation the pandemic has turned into a reality for a vast majority of the global population. The isolation of home increases the need for Cafes and coffee shops which trigger our creativity, so offices and houses don’t. The combination of noise, casual crowds, visual variety and the right amount of distraction creates an effective work environment for creativity (Lifehack. 2021).  

Cafés are now a hotbed for modern creatives such as entrepreneurs, graphic designers and even DJ’s. The allure of freshly brewed coffee, a unique atmosphere and ambience complement the creative mind (Creative Cafe for Freelancers — XCHC, 2021). 

Ambient Noise Boosts Creativity
A 2012 study published in the Journal of Consumer Research showed that a low-to-moderate ambient noise level boosts creative output (Why Your Creative Mind Works The Best In The Cafe, 2021). It’s believed this level of moderate ambient noise, roughly 70 decibels is just enough to distract us and allowing us to think outside the box. (Lufkin, 2021). So, music, light conversation, and a barista banging coffee grounds out of the grinder help broaden thinking and lend themselves to discovering new ideas.
 
Dynamic Environments Stimulate Creativity
Creativity dries up if you remain in the same environment or routine for too long. Breaking the cycle by moving from a static environment to a dynamic one floods the mind with new inputs and stimulates creativity. 
 
Cafes are also a great place to meet and interact with new people. The low-level distractions from the bustle of others help fuel creative thoughts. Visiting a cafe is great for firing up inspiration as you watch new faces and interactions happening around you. These brief exchanges of ideas, experiences and perspectives ignite creativity (Lufkin, 2021).
 
Social Facilitation
When you see other people working, it puts you in a mood where you just naturally start working as well. Simply performing a task next to a person who exerts much effort in a task will make you do the same (Why Your Creative Mind Works The Best In The Cafe, 2021).
 
Dim Lighting Fuels Imagination
Dimly lit environments, like that of café’s, make us feel free to explore without the risk of judgment which boosts creativity. 
 
Visual Variety
Convergent creative thinking is where visual stimulation directly affects the creative thinking process—activities around us or micro-stimulations prod our brains to work a bit differently than at home. Cafes have an abundance of visual stimuli (Lufkin, 2021).
 
An Air of Informality
Office-based meetings, formal meetings or even zoom are constrained situations that kill creativity. Open-air offices, universities and coffee shops are informal settings that prompt people to gather and collaborate in a relaxed manner (Why Your Creative Mind Works The Best In The Cafe, 2021). 
 
Cafes are evolving and becoming multifunctional places. The environments are necessary tools for creativity and collaboration.  

Doodle Cafe Interior Moodboards
 
AUDIENCE
Our audience are creatives who spend most of their time working in isolation. For short periods, they need a change of scenery, visual stimulation and inspiration to spark creativity and collaborate with a community of like-minded individuals in a space to share ideas, resources and develop their creative work. 
 
Who needs this?
·       Freelance Creatives
·       Digital Nomads
·       Creatives working remotely 
·       Hybrid working creatives
·       Those working from home during the pandemic
·       Creatives in co-working spaces
 
Why do they need this?
·       Inspiration 
·       Networking
·       A change of scenery to spark creativity 
·       Interaction with like-minded people
·       A break from the isolation of working from home
·       Motivation to work and not procrastinate
·       Visual stimulation to enable a new way of thinking 
·       Access to different perspectives and people to bounce ideas off of
·       Co-discover
·       Community collaboration
·       Share idea’s
·       Share resources
·       A platform to showcase skills
·       Develop creative work and ideas
 
COMPETITION
The competition in establishing a coffee shop or Cafe that aids creativity and collaboration varies in their offerings. My research has revealed that most cafes seek to create an inspiring space through architecture, interior design or collaboration with famous artists and celebrities. Collaboration between customers is rare and only facilitated through workshops or events like It’s Nicer Tuesdays. The inspiring spaces are often expensive and stationary. You won’t see anything new if you visit the same place twice. 
 
Competitors either focus on creating an inspiring space or a collaborative space, but rarely both and none with a friendly, relaxed, approachable, everyday attitude. 
 
Competitors
Bar Luce 
The inspiring artistic café in Milan is designed by Wes Anderson, director of the movies such as The Grand Budapest Hotel and Rushmore. It is designed to make you feel like you are entering Anderson’s film sets, featuring bright patterned wallpapered walls, retro Formica chairs and tables with pastel colours, jukeboxes and some Steve Zissou-themed pinball machines (Bar Luce, 2021).
 
The Grounds of Alexandria
The thriving urban sanctuary created by Artist Ramzey Choker and Jack Hanna brings together some of the most creative and innovative minds in Sidney, Australia, to create lasting memories in a fast-paced world through community, products, innovation and an ever-evolving vision (The Cafe - World-class Food & Coffee | The Grounds of Alexandria, 2021). 

Fig. 3: Alamy Stock Photo, 2021.
 
Alice & Dorothy
Wall Collages comprised of pictures and stories from Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz stories are scattered about this cosy, sketchbook inspired café in Seoul, Korea. They are known for their urban arts, indie music culture and philosophy of significant design matters. 
 
Café Art
The coffee shop in London connects coffee, art, and homeless people by providing artistic workshops for the homeless, whose features are on the shop walls and collaborating galleries. Art lovers can enjoy the different perspectives of creative expressions within Cafe Art as a social endeavour (Widewalls. 2021). 
 
Juddy Roller Cafe
The Melbourne Café, owned by street art enthusiast Shaun Hossack, is known for its good coffee and dynamic art from graffiti, stencil, painting,

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