BOOST SCHEME

Creativeworks London BOOST was a follow on award that was established to enable those businesses and researchers who had previously benefited from Creativeworks London and London Creative and Digital Fusion support. BOOST Awardees were enabled to develop and/or commercialise their ideas through an additional collaborative research project that benefited both the SME(s) involved and the Arts and Humanities research base in London.

Boost

Heart n Soul and Goldsmiths, University of London

SME Partner

Mark Williams, Heart n Soul

Academic Partner

Dr Mick Grierson, Goldsmiths, University of London

Project

Building on the successful testing and launch of their accessible app (developed through a Creative Voucher in Round 2)  Heart n Soul and Goldsmith’s BOOST project was been a collaboration involving Heart n Soul Digital Associate Hannah Mason, Design Associate Adele Jeffs and Digital Associate Justin Spooner. Working together and with regular meetings with Dr Mick Grierson from Goldsmiths EAVI department the team worked through a number of ideas, concepts and prototypes to try and discover and refine their innovative and rule-breaking idea – the potential development of a giving platform where a) you give and get something as a thank you (in this case a piece of digital art created by a Heart n Soul artist or participant) and b) you do not know the nature of the gift that you will be receiving.

The idea was to create an experience for the user, which is like an online version of the experience of attending a Heart n Soul event – such as the Beautiful Octopus Club held at the Royal Festival Hall. The aim was to surprise, disarm and charm people into the world of Heart n Soul, rather than making them feel guilty, pity, ashamed or sad for the people with learning disabilities whose talents, capabilities and life affirming aesthetics they try to shine a light on and share more widely. The challenge was initially to agree that this methodology was one that was worth further exploring as there are no other examples of a giving website that has this fun, playful and irreverent approach.

The project resulted in a front-end design wireframe and user experience workflow and put together a systems map. They also analysed a range of potential payment processing gateways and settled on using PayPal.  The project is still in development, with the developer at Goldsmiths working on additional design and functionality.

 
Queen Mary - University of London
Arts & Humanities Research Council
European Union
London Fusion

Creativeworks London is one of four Knowledge Exchange Hubs for the Creative Economy funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to develop strategic partnerships with creative businesses and cultural organisations, to strengthen and diversify their collaborative research activities and increase the number of arts and humanities researchers actively engaged in research-based knowledge exchange.