Digital design and hyperlocal journalism continue on Bespoke

1st June 2010

It's been some time since Bespoke's last official update, so we thought we'd offer some information on progress and developments that have taken place over the last five months. We'll begin with a very general overview.

A very general overview

All the partners have been cracking on with their individual designs, with the aim of introducing them to Callon and Fishwick over the course of the next few months. The designs we're looking at include the Family Hedge, Community Capture TV, the Blogging Pad and Digital Buskers. To find out more about these, click on the links or go to our project page.

In addition to the digital designs, we've also been working hard in Preston on developing the hyperlocal journalism. As we mentioned in the last update, our Bespoke journalism is being supported by a number of different streams. These include

-        Volunteer journalists from the Callon and Fishwick area

-        Community researchers who have been employed by Contour Housing and are being training by People's Voice Media

-        Local schools who are involved in the Bespoke project    

We're now publishing a newspaper every month that offers a range of stories and listings covering the area and communities we're working with. Examples include recent under 13s and 15s football tournament involving local team the Fishwick Rangers, a film gauging views throughout Preston on unemployment and updates from the park ranger of the local nature reserve. 

Much of the information contained within these pages emanates from organised groups or agencies working in the Callon and Fishwick area, and we're hoping to attract more volunteers from the residents themselves.  

During the next few month we'll also be rolling out our 'hyperlocal' news site. This site, which currently be found here, incorporates not just text and images, but video content too. We're currently involved in the final stage of testing, so 'watch this space' for the final URL once it's been set live.

Finally, we've also been fortunate to have received some press coverage in recent months. The Big Issue North and the Guardian have all run pieces on our work.

Workshops

At the end of June and beginning of July, Bespoke will be embarking on our next series or collaborative design workshops. This is a chance for themes, issues and ideas that have emanated from our journalism to be drawn on for design inspiration. Bespoke hopes to meet with residents, groups, as well as community leaders and representatives.  Our aim in this session is to develop our current designs and also generate new concepts that will be built over the coming months.

The sessions will also allow the project to update more generally on the work that we've being doing, and allow participants to feedback to us.

We're also just over halfway through the project now, so our updates will increase in frequency as we continue to build and report upon the Callon and Fishwick area.