assignment approach

To begin this project I decided it was best to go out about east London to see what was there and what was going on. The areas I focused on were Shoreditch, Hackney, Dalston and all the surrounding areas. As my family don’t live in London and it was Christmas I wasn't in London for the whole project and so an amount of my research had to be done over the internet so I was able to keep up.
I decided to make a small consumer profile from Chinese blogs and myspaces or an 18 - 25 year old girl. She’s quite quirky in her style and is into music, art, fashion and design.
I decided to make my Insiders guide as a website for a few reasons. One being it is a lot more economical than using amounts of paper; it would also be easy for me to do as I have contacts in the web design business that were willing to help me. If it were to become more than just a prototype I would think about maybe making it membership only or to have a subscription to be able to profit from it or even invite companies to advertise their products.
The layout I decided to keep fairly minimal but also quite modern, I also wanted to make it more female friendly. I decided to use a graphic by Kate Moross as the main image as she is huge around London right now and I feel her work sums up what is happening in the city right now.
I divided my research and guide into sections which are important for a traveller. Including travel, shopping and sleeping. Within these sections there are sub sections which break the categories down even further. Within a few I’ve tried not to just do the obvious, for example in the market section I’ve focused on the sellers opposed to the actual markets and under music I thought it would be more fun to put in a play list. I also added in a section called 'eyes peeled' which is based on street and guerrilla art around the East End as I feel this is quite a large part of East London culture.
Looking to the future of London and what is going to be happening I decided to write a few pages to put in my research file and have left my Insiders guide more of things today but that will still be around in the next few years. I did include some events I made up which are in the post below.
From doing this project I have a much better understanding of just how much the Olympics are going to effect the east end.