Shoreditch Insight Hunters

This week 99Shoreditch went to visit another local company bursting with new ideas and a unique perspective on the world.

BAMM describe themselves as a Global Consumer Insight Agency, who advise clients on brand strategy worldwide. Whilst this sounds very impressive, we didn’t really understand what made them different until they showed us how they go about gaining these insights. And that’s kind of the point - they are Visual Thinkers, people who think in pictures as well as words. People who like to actively show and tell, rather than passively report.

                                                                                   

In the old days of research a big qualitative study of consumer behaviour might have involved lots of focus groups in sterile research facilities, with clients eating curly sandwiches behind a two way mirror. BAMM have disrupted this market by embracing two key elements – creativity and technology.

BAMM properly get under the skin of consumers by adopting an ethnographic approach – spending time with people and observing not just what they say, but what they do (often without them even knowing it). All of this is captured on film and then edited into something simple and engaging to watch. 

It is interesting that it is not just small, forward thinking companies who use BAMM’s insights, they also have plenty of big corporate clients looking for new ways to connect with their customers. HSBC, Unilever, Shell and Nike all recognise that as the world is changing, so must the way we research, analyse and record that world.

The example that Anthony Martin, co-founder, gave us was a worldwide project examining people’s complex relationships with luxury brands. It is a given that these consumer goods function as status symbols, but the way people interact with them around the world has subtle differences. For example, did you know that in France the way you really show discernment is through the lemon curd you buy? Whilst mass manufactured goods can be appropriated by anyone with enough cash, real taste is apparently knowing high end niche producers that are recognisably ’the best’ within certain social groups. 

There are also regional differences that only a more anthropological approach can discover. Respondents in Europe and Asia may be buying into the same Gucci brand, but until you have been through their wardrobe and asked them to pull together an evening outfit, you would not know that the more extrovert Europeans wear their branding discreetly on the inside, whilst the more introverted Asian market wear theirs on the outside with pride. 

And the best thing about these little insights is that they get turned into beautifully made films and gorgeous stills for presentations to show to all stakeholders across the business – from the FD to the factory floor. As Anthony explains ‘you can say a lot in a 3 minute video, plus it is instantly available to markets all over the world at the same time.’

BAMM admit there is still a long way to go and many companies still revert to the default focus groups, but they want to open clients’ eyes to all the amazing possibilities that there are out there – from life logging to motion sensors cameras.

New technologies and creativity are the reasons BAMM chose to work in Shoreditch. “It seemed like a place where things were happening  - like it held promise. It was 2008 and we were a new, small company – we knew we wanted to do things differently and so it suited our ethos and approach, plus the rents were cheap! The creative flair here also means we have a big pool of talent to dip into when we need great freelance videographers or photographers.

BAMM are very aware of how Shoreditch is changing, “It will be interesting to see if the area can reinvent itself and retain its edgy cool with all the big brands and companies moving in. There are different areas that people are starting to talk about – Southwark  has some interesting stuff going on, so I couldn’t say for sure where BAMM will  be in the future”. 

We liked meeting BAMM, one of the hundreds of small to medium sized businesses that still make Shoreditch a hub of creative and independent thinking. Plus, we liked their philosophy of ‘See More’ – we left their offices with our eyes just a little bit wider and a bit more aware of everything going on around us.

Watch their film here or contact them http://bammlondon.com/about/


Photography by @BAMM and @shootbernard

 

Graffiti Guy

We first came across Attai’s @butch_attai graffiti on the streets of Shoreditch and then on the roof of Jealous Gallery. Intrigued to find out more about him, 99Shoreditch tracked him to a coffee shop in the neighbourhood and quizzed him about turf wars, wading waist-deep in dubious waters for your art and never quite learning to draw hands properly.

Growing up in a small town outside Birmingham, he got into graffiti in his late teens. "I was a skateboarder and the two things went together...loads of skaters seemed to be writers too. The best skate spots were usually in rundown areas, and some of the best graffiti happened to be appearing in these kind of places too... This was in the pre-internet days when there were hardly any legal walls, everything had to be painted at night or in some hidden derelict building". Attai talks animatedly of these early days, when fresh work would appear every week along the miles of train lines that led into the heart of the city. There was a huge secret society at work, all with the same teenage urge to rebel and get their slice of fame.

For many of his peers the need to keep painting dissipated over time, but for Attai it continued as strong as ever. After leaving school he decided to channel his passions via art school. It was here that he studied sculpture and started to think about the form of the letters he was painting. Skip forward 20 years, the letters became more and more broken down and increasingly mechanical, with an eye on fragmenting shapes into smaller and smaller forms. Tiny houses incorporated themselves and later became the central focus of his walls. The stilts were a later addition - prompted by the winter floods of 2013 and a handy artistic device to add complexity to his wall compositions.

There is also a political slant to the houses "the people with money are getting further and further away from the rest of us, it’s about the haves and the have nots. The city is changing and there's a real chance London could lose its creative edge". 

The stilt houses have been Attai's 'thing' for the last 2 years, working out new ways to depict this symbol can be testing. Although he is enjoying having a consistent visual identity, he strives to keep his work constantly evolving and changing in response the things he sees around him.

As well as challenging himself to find new ideas for his work, he is also exploring different locations in which to paint. He recently found himself knee deep in a tidal river in the small hours, armed with a headtorch, emulsion and some bitumen spray paint, “I wanted the stilts to get covered by the rising tides, I'm interested in the effects of time and nature on my work, the way things change and decay over time.”

I ask whether he is perhaps interested in developing pieces for the art world, so he can record some for posterity, rather than see it painted over. He explained he has done some work on canvas he is proud of, but sometimes it loses the spontaneity and magic of painting on the street. He has just bought one of his own pieces from a builder on a Shoreditch building site so that he could capture a part of this phase of his artwork.

 

We talked about the differences between street art and graffiti and he explained there has always been a healthy rivalry between the two camps. With his art school education he can identify with both sides, but still sees himself very much as a graffiti artist. “All forms of graffiti are valid and we shouldn’t get too precious about it. You need new recruits who are feeling their way around and doing it how they want, because these are the people who will ultimately be bringing something new to the scene.”

He feels the current trend may be moving away from polished street art pieces, with the pendulum swinging back to classic graffiti writing. There is a sense of things coming full circle as lettering, over imagery, becomes more prevalent again.

He is a big fan of the Shoreditch scene, but is worried the places and spaces to paint are becoming fewer and fewer. The Lennox Street and Willow Street hoardings won’t be there forever and he wonders where people will go after that, “It would be a shame to clean everything up to the point of it being too sanitised. We need raw culture untouched by commercial influences and we need things to stay dirty – it’s part of Shoreditch’s charm.” 

After challenging him to create a great little piece especially for 99shoreditch on Blackall Street, we enquired what the best thing about being a graffiti artist. His reply, “genuinely doing something for yourself and the fact that you are anonymous and can be anyone”. So with that we left him to melt back into the crowd.

@butch_attai
theattaipress.com 

 Photography by shootbernard.com

Opens Tomorrow Morning is open today

Opens Tomorrow Morning is a brilliant, ingenious exhibition which runs until the 1st November at the Howard Griffin Gallery on Shoreditch High Street.

The space has been completely transformed by conceptual artist Pablo Delgado into a fictional gallery within a gallery, or as the blurb puts it, ‘a highly experimental, theatrical space in which the making of an exhibition becomes the exhibition itself’. Confusing to explain, but remarkably accessible and simple in its execution.

An inviting yellow door greets you upon entry, you then grab a torch and enter Delgado’s constructed reality of a gallery on the night before it is due to open. Picture frames are on are on the walls, but the pictures are not always in them. A cup of tea sits on a desk, as if the owner has just popped out to get some final bits and bobs for the big day. As you explore by torchlight you discover tiny hidden elements – a picture with a door, which when you bend down at just the right angle you can see tiny rolling hills, giant foam balls and even an elephant.

In the next room things get darker still – the walls are painted black, skulls and disembodied arms seem to float on shelves, paint pots litter the floor and shards of glass are strewn over surfaces. In this room ideas are still being developed - works in progress are tacked onto walls and open paint pots suggest the presence of the artist very recently at work. At the end is a too-small door reminiscent of something from Alice in Wonderland.

All of this was unexpected and surprisingly engaging. By making the visitor / viewer a part of the work and the experience, it does not have the alienating effect that some pieces of modern or conceptual art do. In fact, little groups of people looking round the exhibition gasped and giggled as they negotiated their way around the space, discovering new and surprising moments.

The show is effective, not only in making you think about the role of everyone involved in the construction of pieces of art, but also asks broader questions about what is real and what is constructed. Its power is in instantly taking you a world away from Shoreditch High Street and completely immersing you in a parallel reality. In forcing you to engage and interact fully with the work, it definitely did what all good art does, which is make you think - plus it was a lot of fun too. Highly recommended from us.

 
howardgriffingallery.com@HG_Galleries

All images by @shootbernard.com

War of the Wines

Passione Vino does was it says on the tin (only in Italian). In their shop on Leonard Street are 4 men with a mission to bring the best of small Italian wine producers to Shoreditch. They have a determined and unshakeable philosophy:

‘to seek out the UNDISCOVERED, RARE and TRADITIONAL wine makers from all over Italy and to promote their expertly crafted and very often NATURAL products, to provide the most resonant examples of every wine, yet best reflecting each individual sub-region’s particular CULTURE and geography and TERROIR whilst delivering uncompromising QUALITY and taste.’

Always in search of people with stories to tell, 99Shoreditch’s interest was first piqued by their shop front. Most wine shops feel the need to reflect the serious business of wine in their décor – grown up, solemn spaces for deliberation and decision. Vino Passione celebrates the joy of wine with a shop that is a riot of colour.  The walls are papered in a selection of vivacious flowery prints and the lights are red and yellow beach balls, reminiscent of European holidays in the sun. The window display is a panoply of super heroes all out to defeat the evil mass-produced supermarket wine – Buzz Lightyear and Mr T, alongside Chewbacca and Superman, flying in to the rescue. Finally… people who recognise wine is fun!
 

The reason for their crusade, they tell us, is that very few people realise many supermarket wines have been made uniform with the addition of chemicals and preservatives. The original grape, with all its subtleties and complexities, is lost to a high-yield, mass-produced approach. There is also the issue of tax on wine, which is a standard levy – meaning most of a £5 bottle is tax, leaving little left to make a decent wine. 
 

What these guys like is wine that is as true as possible and by keeping things small they can keep unnecessary additions and interventions to a minimum. Keen to stress that not all their wine is crazily priced, they do a very good house wine for £9, but do admit that by adding a few more pounds into the £11-£13 mark you can get something really outstanding.

Vino Passione also has a room for tastings and private functions. Again, thought and feeling has been put into the décor. What could have been a dark and dingy space has been transformed into an intimate venue by clever use of dark flowery wallpaper and a light made from copper tubes that grow up the wall and ceiling, representing a vine. 

So, for all their light-hearted approach, these guys are serious about their wine. They have a newspaper dedicated to the stories behind their vineyards - real people producing the best wines from some of the least known regions of Italy. If you’ve never had a wine from the slopes of Mount Etna, you can now.

 

Dario Corradi told us a little of what it is like being in Shoreditch, “We have a lot of local customers who live or work here. They come to us to be guided and find something new and different. It’s a playground where people can ask questions, taste and enjoy themselves in an informal environment. We want people to drink better wine where they can taste the grape, not the chemicals. And so far it seems to be working, people are coming back again and again and the business is doing very well.’
 

Vino Passione is another great Shoreditch success story – entrepreneurs and independent thinkers who are putting their passion at the heart of their business. Good luck guys and cheers!

http://www.passionevino.co.uk

@PassioneVinoUk

 All photos by shootbernard.com

Beards of Brick Lane

For some time now beards have been synonymous with East London - hirsuteness being an integral part of the hipster DNA. But with news that in 2015 the beard was dead - http://mashable.com/2015/06/10/yuccie-beards/#r_gkHxIbgGk0 - 99Shoreditch wondered what was happening facial hair-wise on the most East of East London streets – Brick Lane.
 
What we found was that there were plenty of beards to choose from and can therefore conclude (from our less-than-scientific study one random Thursday afternoon) that the beard is categorically and empathically, not dead.

With a sense of relief and enjoying our new profession as pogonologist (a writer on beards), we set off in search of the answers to the conundrum that is the beard.

Beard history is complicated. As a species we have fallen in and out of love with facial hair over the decades. In the 16th and 17th centuries beards were an indicator of virility. In 1535 Henry VIII introduced a beard tax, which meant the rich could demonstrate their wealth and status by growing, and paying for, longer beards. In the 18th century they fell sharply from favour, but were back with a vengeance in the 19th century – Charles Dickens and Abraham Lincoln showing you could be at the top of your game and still sport a tremendous beard.
 LincolnDickens
 The 20th century is more confusing. The beatniks and hippies appropriated them as a symbol of rejection of societal norms, then some time later the hipsters joined in for the same reasons. After which (and this is where it gets complicated) the beard became so bad it was good – Clooney got one, Princes William and Harry got a couple – even Jeremy Paxman got one. Was the beard a sign of conformity or rejection?
 Hipster pic: EggoPicture: Getty Picture: BBC

 An article in the Royal Society Journal sheds a bit of light on this situation. It seems that beards are seen more positively when they are rare. Conversely, when beards are too common, they are seen as less attractive. So in effect, the beard backlash of the last couple of years is a result of reaching beard saturation point.

http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/4/20130958

A brilliant infographic in the Economic Times tells us all we need to know about beards. They were originally grown for intimidation, protection and warmth and were only cut as a punishment. They are grown for religious reasons and had political Nowadays their survey shows that beards make you less cheerful, less caring and less attractive (not so great), but also more respected, of higher status and powerful (definitely not a bad thing).  

https://verkoren.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/facialhair_5008f938b118c.jpeg

Just in case you sport a beard and were thinking about a career change, there are still some professions where a beard is a no-no. The BBC has traditionally been seen to be pogonophobic, firemen and pilots need to be clean-shaven so they can wear oxygen masks and amateur boxers cannot have a blow softened by the protection of a beard. Post-Lincoln very few politicians have risked them, Thatcher couldn’t bear them and it remains to be seen how the Corbyn beard will affect the political landscape. It is worth noting 98% of the Forbes 100 Rich List are clean shaven.

This leads us nicely back to our unscientific and exceedingly random sample on Brick Lane. We identified a mini-trend of a closer, more structured shave and this seems to fit with the new term for the most recent residents of Shoreditch (and Brooklyn) - the YUCCIE, Young Urban Creative. In David Infante’s seeringly honest description of himself, he shows how the offspring of hipsters and yuppies have produced a new creative class that is ‘infected by the conviction that not only do we deserve to pursue our dreams; we should profit from them’. Facial hair is still in evidence, but as a positive choice, rather than negative rejection.

http://mashable.com/2015/06/09/post-hipster-yuccie/.

Laura, a stylist at the barbers in @BarberParlour really does know what she is talking about. She also validated our hypothesis and told us "the trend is less beardy and towards a tighter shave that shows the shape of the face. At men's fashion week we saw that the hair was longer, but shave cleaner. Men are not ready to get rid of their beards, but they do want a cleaner look."

In summary, beards are complex facial communication tools. They undoubtedly represent a rite of passage from boy to manhood and remain for many a symbol of power, religious beliefs, masculinity, individuality and / or defiance. Whether it makes you more or less attractive is an ongoing debate that shows no sign of waning. So we say, regardless of the swinging pendulum of facial politics, it is our view that we should celebrate the beard in all its multi-faceted forms as it is definitely hair to stay. 

Brick Lane Beard Categorisation 

Thanks to all our willing bearded men on Brick Lane. All photos by @shootbernard

Bearly There

Mid Bear

 

Full Grizzly Bear

Further Beard Reading: