The Undercroft
Creative culture. Since it’s take over in 1973, the undercroft has hosted a stage for thousands of culturally diverse people from around the globe. It’s been a central hub for skateboarding within London and provides a free space, which in the present day is a hard thing to come by. As a user of this space, I feel it would be a disaster to the local community and even the historical background that London is renown for.
Brooklyn Banks / NYC
I began to research similar issues through out the world to increase my knowledge of any existing campaigns / problems regarding skate culture. A key article was the closure of the Brooklyn Banks as many say today, it has caused a gaping hole within the skate scene in New York City. With the Southbank skatepark still open, it keeps the London skate scene thriving and producing new creative outputs.
After some initial research we generated a strategy to target the problem similar organisations were facing. While we targeted the general public, this opened up opportunities of expanding our ideas that would interest the older generation and focus on the creative culture within London.
Southbank / UK
Long Live South Bank. LLSB is an organisation set up to preserve the famous skate spot. They believe its cultural and historical status to be irreplaceable and that its unique architecture and the vitality of the thriving community should be present for future generations. We wanted to create a simialr organisation to help towards this cause Long Live South Bank are fighting for.
Editorial For the editorial, the team consisted of Lauren, Karun and I. We wanted to include work from the whole team as it also provides a wider range of articles and artwork. In ways, it expresses our creative input towards the topic. I chose to create an artistic lettering piece consisting of the phrase ‘Home is where the art is’ this was accompanied by a numerous amount of public suggestions explaining why the space shouldn’t close. We handed these out as a free publication around London.
My double page spread.
I started designing a symbol we were going to use as our organisation’s logo. I wanted to have a minimal mark that would symbolise The Undercroft. I decided to use basic geometric shapes which relate to the architecture surrounding the skatepark. In the end, we decided to use a logo type which consisted of the typeface Gill Sans.
Examples of my designs
Newspaper ID My next task was to create another mark that would be used on the newspaper, I began to investigate historic editorials and identities. The New York Times was my main inspiration behind creating a gothic script style. I wanted to produce an ID that related to the historical aspect of The Undercroft but also convince individuals that this was more than just a publication consisting of skateboarding. I used my skills to generate a simplistic but effective letter. With the gothic style consisting of dramatic stroke widths, it was key to get this right.
Logo type The logo type created a neutral consistency as we didn’t want to alienate our chosen target audience. The design has a sensible aesthetic which works for our target audience. This was then screen printed on to t-shirts which would be later used as our organisations uniform as well as in our video.
Installation We then created an installation to introduce the brand to the public. It incorporated a mounted skateboard where people could stand on as a photo moment. As it’s an urban tourist attraction we thought it would be well suited for the cause. It includes all demographics and worked to our advantage. We then told passers to check out our Facebook page where ‘likes’ have risen 400% in a matter of days. With the recent increase of views we have directed people to Long Live Southbank’s page where they show ways of helping save the space.
Paint project. While we were also at the skatepark taking images we were shooting a video as a way of promoting the brand. All of our team turned up to help shoot and represent the organisation. The video was to consist of close up shots of skateboarders completing a trick with powder paint on their board. When the footage is slowed down it created a visually rich effect which represented the urban sport as an art form. Financially we all put the money in to fund the paint as well as invest our time in cleaning up the area once we had finished.
To wrap up the project, we had our organisation exhibited at green week. This consisted of being filmed by a team that documented our journey and what we stand for, as The Undercroft, while showcasing our creative outputs.
The Undercroft & Long Live Southbank
I thoroughly enjoyed working within my team. We began with a broad idea and managed to condense all of our creative input in to strong outcomes. With many members interested in skateboarding, it gave other members the perfect opportunity to familiarise themselves with the history and current state of the culture. At early stages of the process I felt certain members could of contributed at times but overall, we all proved ourselves nearer the end of the project.
We all brought existing knowledge of external sources to the table. These were all shared through out our Facebook page and blog. We found the Facebook page provided a much easier way of communicating and gathering information. Each of us have a wide array of skill experiences which helped when it came to producing our finals as well as some financial support.
I felt that we were all passionate about the subject and did tackle it in a highly positive manner. We also communicated with a representative from the organisation Long Live Southbank who said “We have hundreds of students try to help but sadly, all of their ideas aren’t strong enough. Yours is brilliant, you’ve done better than us today”
by
JAMES GRIFFIN
( GRI12357967 )