Gibson Street book!!!

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My group was given Gibson Street for our design domain project. Unlike some of the places other groups were given Gibson Street is a place I know pretty well. I have passed through it many times and been to a few of the coffee shops. It is a very pleasant street! We organised to go as a group to do some further research, we met in a bar and firstly did some people watching. It was around 3pm, a lazy time, there were groups of young friends eating delicious food and middle class, middle aged people reading newspapers and drinking wine, all very civilised. We went round the corner to Otago lane, a bit of a more ramshackled and eccentric place, there is a a crazy bookshop with books piled to the ceiling, a record shop, a traditional clockmakers and a little hippy tea room with hundreds of teas to chose from! But still like Gibson street this is a very commercial street with a middle class vibe. Then we went back onto Gibson street to eat cake in Artisan Roast, a fancy coffee shop. This place was very busy with people hiding from the cold, there seemed to be a lot of students, reading, writing and chatting with friends. I did some drawing and didn't feel self conscious at all. I had a very nice afternoon! 

We knew that we were going to be meeting with a local community group involved with organising the Gibson street festival. As a group we discussed what we wanted to make to bring to the meeting. We decided to split in two, with one group concentrating on the often unseen or unnoticed qualities of Gibson street and our group (me, meow meow and flo) concentrating on the exciting hustle and bustle and fusion of different cultures on Gibson street. We went back to Gibson street to do some further research. We walked up and down both sides of the street and tried to go into every shop, taking photographs, talking to the shop assistants and collecting things such as menus, receipts, fruit wrappers and pick and mix sweets. The thing we all liked best about Gibson Street was the food! You could get a cheap packaged sandwich from a newsagent or a three course fancy meal from a restaurant. You could get a Turkish falafel, or a Indian curry, or a classical Scottish macaroni pie. The street showed what a multicultural place Glasgow is. I found it was also a very colourful street with lots of neon window displays and signage. We took our ideas back to the studio and decided to make a concertina book to communicate what we saw and what captured our eye and excited us.

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