My I Like

Well, well, well...

2008-06-10T23:02:00.002+01:00

...Will you look at the time.

Our final deadline in approximately 40 hours time and we're working like the clappers! We got the book back early last week and it's looking good. There was a slight hitch when we realised they'd bound two of the first three pages in the wrong way round but that was all fixed pretty sharpish.

Other than that we've been working on getting all our research and rough work into to tip top shape and putting together a research and development file (which is taking slightly more time that expected but will hopefully make the deadline).

We began designing our exhibition layout, officially, a week and a half ago while the book was away getting bound. The design was for a small room (approx 2m x 2m) with floor to ceiling completed tags from all the events, postal packs and workshops from the past six months pinned on all the walls interspersed randomly with framed paint sheet submissions. There's going to be a desk and chair opposite the doorway, on the desk sits the book and a computer displaying the My I Like website. There will also some blank tags dotted around for people to complete during the exhibition and hang up on a few pins that we'll leave empty in front of the desk.

We've been in college every evening since Thursdays night last week painting and pinning our exhibition space - a small tutorial room 1.6m x 2.10m. We've been back in this evening to pin the final sections and mark the exact placement of each postal pack etc. onto the wall so we know what goes where when it comes to the putting everything in place on Thursday.

That's all from us today, we're off to carry on with some more work and organising.

If you're in the neighbourhood we'd love it if you could take the time to call into Leeds College of Art & Design to check out our exhibition from Monday 23rd June til Wednesday 25th June (Visual Communications Dept. 2nd Floor)

Cheers

N & M

We like feedback

2008-06-01T14:07:00.002+01:00

Hi everyone,

Well our long journey is nearly at an end; we're in our final stages of the project and working on compiling a book of some of the best submissions.

We set out with hope that My I Like would help us all to understand the human race a little better - do you think this is true? Have you learned something new? Has it confirmed things you already suspected?

We'd love it if you could take a couple of minutes to drop us an email (myilike@hotmail.co.uk), comment on the website, send us a message via Facebook or post something on our wall and let us know how the project has (or hasn't) changed your perspective on the human race!

All feedback will be considered and used to help write the *perfect* introduction to the book, we may even squeeze in a quote or two.

Cheers

N & M
The My I Like team

What's going on inside (My I Like HQ)

2008-05-25T19:29:00.003+01:00

Inside My I Like headquarters we're hard a work designing a My I Like book for our final exhibition. It's going to be a hardback book, about 120 pages long and perfect bound.

We're planning on making just one or two copies of the book unless we get a high interest in people wanting to buy a copy for themselves. In which case we will consider getting a small run of the book printed and bound with a professional publisher and put up for sale on the website Store.

If you'd be interested in buying the My I Like book let us know by dropping us a e-mail with I like books in the title to myilike@hotmail.co.uk. Also let us know how much you think you'd be willing to pay for a book and if we get enough interest and can get everything at a reasonable price, we'll get publishing! (Please note My I Like is a not-for-profit project so the price charged for the book would cover the production and postage costs only, we won't be pilfering your money!)

We've also been working on a design for the My I Like final exhibition space. We hope to get (or build) an enclosed space that we can turn into an all encompassing My I Like experience containing many of the submissions, some merchandise, the website and the book... We'll let you know how we get on!

What's going on outside (My I Like HQ)

2008-05-25T19:03:00.003+01:00

Things are going well at West Yorkshire Playhouse (WYP). We're getting lots of completed tag, although not as many as we'd hoped because the boards are all grouped into one area, but lots none the less.

We were back at WYP on Thurdays 8th May where we had a stall at the Community Network Open Day. We were in prime position at the top of the stairs meaning our stall was one of the first people would see as they entered the Playhouse. We had a great day and many interesting submissions that we'll be uploading into a gallery shortly.

Other than that we've sent out messages to all those who've ordered Postal Pack to remind them that the deadline for returning their tags (in time for us to upload them onto the website) is coming up. We're looking forward to an influx of tag filled envelopes flying through our letter box soon!

We've also been working on gathering all forms of feedback we can from various sources, such as WYP, Shakespeare Primary School and Opposite cafe - amongst others -to try to confirm, once and for all, just how awesome My I Like really is :) If you'd like to leave us some feedback you can here

In the past three weeks...

2008-05-25T18:33:00.008+01:00

We've completed the website redesign! Yes that's right kids, we've redesigned the WHOOOOOLE website. After many a day and sleepless night we've got it all up and in working order (as far as we know - drop us an e-mail if you find any glitches: myilike@hotmai.co.uk)

What's changed on the My I Like website

We've put a counter on every page to show you just how many submissions we've recevied over the past few months - we'll be updating this weekly.

We've redesigned the Galleries main page to include a categorised section where you'll find all the gallery entries organised into easy to view groups, from rude to thoughtful, friends & family and everything in between.

There's also a brand new and shiny Store where you can order customisable My I Like merchandise via the safety of Paypal!

There is also an easy access link to the Online Tag on every page and hopefully just a whole lot more comfortable, spacious experience!

We hope you enjoy, let us know what you think

A little update

2008-05-03T21:12:00.003+01:00

this week has been pretty busy what with working with the school kids, setting up in WYP and everything in between.

Firstly WYP exhibition; we were up and in college by 9am Thursday morning where we then headed over to the Life Drawing studio to pilfer some nice (cleaner) easels than the ones we've borrowed from the Access Dept. Don't worry, we replaced the one's we've took with the slightly muckier ones so no ones left short handed.

We then gathered everything in the foyer and called a taxi - when he arrived he decided to charge us extra money to fold the back seats down (" the company change me £5 if i have to fold the seats down"... uh huh.) So we had to cough up the extra money and even then Nikki had to get the bus down while Mark went with the stuff in the taxi. This all served to delay us a little but we managed to get down there and set up by about 11.15.

Next we went on to the Shakespeare Primary School to pick up the paintings the kids had done the day before (which were too wet to take on Wednesday).

We went back to WYP on Friday to put up some table stands on all the tables in the cafe area with a leaflet inside explaining what My I Like is and some simple guidelines to the tags.

We will be heading back down to WYP around Tuesday to see how the displays are doing. Other than that we're going to be working on redesigning and updating the website and designing our book and final exhibition display (along with keeping our back up work up to date!)

Busy busy.

Translation...

2008-04-30T23:24:00.002+01:00

Just a quick note to thank Sietse Sterrenburg who has provided us with a more accurate translation of the Dutch blog we've been featured on, click 'comments' or here it is in the flesh:

"There is someone who would really like to know what you do like and and what you don't like. And he collects all these responses on his Internet site My I Like. So, what do and don't you actually like?"

Thanks!

N&M
The My I Like team

Blog Features

2008-04-30T20:40:00.004+01:00

We've now been featured on two large blogs, the first, a few weeks ago called: Dark Roasted Blend which features cool things to do in your tea breaks. This feature saw our site visits counter jump to over 1000 hits a day!

The next is one called Fok! Weblog which is a Dutch speaking blog so we're not totally sure what they've been saying about us but we hope it's all nice! Here's a (probably awful) translation using Bablefish:

"There is someone who complete gladly wants know what you, however, and what you do not find nice. And all these responses collected he then to its Internet site My I Like. Therefore what do you find now actual, however, and not nicely?"

So we at My I Like HQ just wanted to say a BIG thank you to all those who deem us worthy of putting us on their blog and spreading the news of My I Like!

West Yorkshire Playhouse Exhibition

2008-04-30T19:37:00.002+01:00

A little update on the West Yorkshire Playhouse Exhibition - We're heading down there early tomorrow morning to set up the displays in the cafe area (on the left hand side as you enter WYP).

We've been into college today to repaint the tag boards (the same ones we used for the Opposite event).

We also had a bit of a run around getting the easels sorted - we thought we'd have no problem borrowing 3 from the Fine Art Dept. but it seems they don't want to lend any to us for a month as "it's too long" (despite the fact they don't even use them and they're just stuck in storage all the time!)

So this set us off on a long run around - firstly to the Access Dept. who said they didn't have any we could borrow. Then on to the Life Drawing Dept. but no one was there so we asked the Printed Textiles tutor if they knew who ran Life Drawing - they didn't but sent us down the the Critical Studies Dept. to find out. They suggested just 'borrowing' 3 from the stack in Life Drawing... sneaky sneaky - and always an option as a last resort! Eventually they managed to get hold of someone in the Access Dept. who had realised they had plenty to spare... so now we have 3 easels waiting in our wet room in Vis Com with our repainted board.

The postman delivered a lovely parcel from WHSmiths today - a huge pack full of blank luggage tags. It appears we've bought them out of all of them as they've only sent us 5 pack instead of the 6 we've ordered!

Time to get Dymo-ing

Shakespeare Primary School & My I Like

2008-04-30T19:11:00.005+01:00

Today we went to Shakespeare Primary School to work with the Key Stage 1 (KS1) kids. We decided that instead of our usual workshop elements (of paint, plasticine and pens,) we would forgo the potentially disastrous plasticine for (what we hoped would be) a more safe option of cutting and sticking and glitter glue.

The kids were all out in the playground for lunch when we got there so we had time to meet Lyndsey the KS1 teacher and to set up the tables for our activities...

We had 3 tables set up: Drawing (with felts, crayons and pencils), Painting (with poster paints) and Cutting & Sticking (with tissue paper, glue and glitter glue).

We were working with about 16 kids, both male and female and all about 6 years old. We were really nervous and went through our introduction speech many times before the actual lesson - little did we know that it would go straight out the window as soon as we got there!

The kids were amazing - as soon as they came in they all started asking us questions, who were we, would they get to do some painting and then they all started piling on to us giving us hugs, one even shook Marks hand! This all certainly helped to make us feel less nervous.

Once the register was taken (during which some answered 'hello' in French!) it was time for us to begin. We had one classroom assistant working with us who helped us split the class into three groups of 5/6. Then each group with one adult (us) chose a table and set to work.

We found out that they were all really good at writing and had mastered their names and lots of other spellings - sometimes even better than we had! (better keep that one quiet...) Many of the kids got really involved in what we were asking them to do and it started up lots of conversations between the tables about various different likes and dislikes.

Things to reflect on now we're finished?

Never, let me repeat that NEVER, let kids loose with glitter glue pens and uncovered tables! (We have some pictures that are just an entire glitter tube emptied onto a page - and a lot on the table!)

Use only one sided paper (some kids were painting big elaborate pictures on one side then turning them over to use the other side - D'oh)

Make sure to have a well organised plan of attack (some call this a lesson plan; I guess it depends what you're plan on getting done!)

Kids will get really involved in what they're doing especially if it gives them a chance to get messy :)

Enjoy it! We certainly did!

We're planning on going back tomorrow lunch time to pick up the paintings as they were weren't all dry by the time we'd finished and to, hopefully, set up a Postal Pack in the staff room.

All in all a great day, a little daunting at first but everyone was so welcoming and it seemed like they all enjoyed themselves!

Website updating

2008-04-25T16:08:00.005+01:00

We got some postal pack responses through the post the other day and have been working on uploading them into their own personal galleries. We've had one lot from Zoe Gillings a professional snowboarder and member of the British Snowboarding Team. Also one from Jo Wray who got her family and friends to complete the tags.

Check out Zoe's Postal Pack gallery here

Check out Jo's Postal Pack gallery here

If you'd like to take part in My I Like, check out our website where you can find out how and where to submit your likes/dislikes, order your own Postal Pack or fill in a tag online.

West Yorkshire Playhouse - Coming up...

2008-04-25T15:50:00.007+01:00

We had a phone call from a woman called Penny from the WYP who has just told us that we've been given the WHOLE exhibition space in their cafe for a month!

We went down yesterday to check out the space - it's luckily not as large as we first feared but there's loads of room to set up three or so tag boards which is excellent news.

We've also found out that we can now buy the luggage tags, we've been buying from WHSmiths stores, from their online shop for half the price! Awesome. We've bought 30 packs so we've got 600 tags to keep us going for the exhibition - plus another few hundred blank ones already (we went through over 300 tags at Opposite Cafe in 10 days!) We may be back to buy more - we'll have to see how it goes...

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the scary part - the exhibition opens on Thursday 1st May - less than a week away!

We're really excited about it all though and we think it could be a great opportunity for My I Like to get some more publicity. We're hoping to get in touch with the Yorkshire/Yorkshire Evening Post to try and get an interview and possibly an article in the paper about what we're doing and the exhibition in the WYP.

West Yorkshire Playhouse - the aftermath...

2008-04-25T15:33:00.008+01:00

The Heydays event at WYP on Wednesday was really successful, we got there about 12 to set up for a 12.30 start. It was all really professional and well organised - they even had a sign up sheet for the "My I Like lunchtime special workshop"!

We had a group of about 15 people, mostly female but a few guys came along as well. We had a wide age range from about 55 to 80 years old. We met Nicky Taylor (who runs the Heydays event) who helped us set up and introduced us. After our introduction we explained what the project was and what we were up to and then everyone just got stuck in with the painting and model making!

Nicky seemed pretty pleased with what we were doing, she's even asked us to take part in another event - an open day at WYP on Thursday 8th May. There will be a wide range of people attending, from the elderly to the disabled and everyone in between - it's a great opportunity for us to spread the word of My I Like and hopefully have a little fun too!

We're working on the Heydays gallery at the moment, uploading the photos and submissions we received, so that should be up and running on the Galleries page shortly.

We're also hoping to go back to the Heydays event in a couple of weeks to show the people who took part in our workshop just what has happened with all their submissions.

Coming up... My I Like & Shakespeare Primary School

2008-04-21T16:16:00.009+01:00

We've been trying to get in touch with primary schools on and off since before the Easter Holidays to see if we would be able to hold a workshop with a group of school children. We would bring in paint, plasticine and crayons/felts and ask them to draw out their likes and dislikes for us. We want to work with:

Age group 5 - 7 year olds
Both male and female
Don't nessasarily have to be interested in art (but usually at that age most children enjoy painting/drawing etc.)

We appeared to be getting the furthest with Shakespeare Primary School (Leeds), we managed to get in touch with the secretary on a number of occasions (unfortunatly the head teacher was always out or in meetings) until finally , two weeks ago we managed to speak to the head who thought it was a great idea and that it would be fun and interesting for the children (who wouldn't want a break from work to play with paint and plasticine?!)

So after speaking to the head teacher we had to wait for him to talk to the Key Stage 1 & 2 teachers who would then get in touch with us.

This afternoon we had a phone call from one of the KS1/KS2 teachers called Lyndsey. She was really interested in our project and she's asked us to come in and run a workshop on Wednesday 23rd April, arriving to set up at 12.30pm and starting the class at 1pm. We'll be working with two groups of approx 15 pupils aged 5-6 years with 2 classroom assistants.

We're not sure if we're going to bring in the plasticine (it might just end up a big smushy mess, which we don't mind but the cleaners might!), we think we might pick up some felt pens and crayons and printout some more paint-sheets to let them paint/draw on.

We've also been thinking that it would be a good idea to see if we can set up a tag-board display in the staff room as it would be another interesting gathering point of likes/dislikes (similar to the postal packs).

Scary, scary stuff but it should be good fun and interesting to see what the kids come up with - usually they have the most inspiring insights!

Coming up...West Yorkshire Playhouse, Heydays & My I Like

2008-04-21T15:35:00.014+01:00

We've been in touch with the lovely people at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (WYP - Leeds) to see if it would be possible to hold a My I Like event in their building at some point. We scheduled a meeting for Tuesday 8th April at 11am with the front of house manager - Jenny.

We were asking about/for several things:

Set up tag boards in the foyer
To hold and event
If yes to event could we get involved with the 'Heydays' group

Ok so on the basic level we wanted to at least be able to set up tag boards around the foyer, which we hoped people would become interested in while they were waiting for shows or in intervals etc. We also know that the cafe is used a great deal around lunch times by local business people so there would hopefully be quite a constant stream of traffic.

We hoped that we'd get the chance to hold an event in the foyer/cafe area or similar space that would be run the same sort of way as the Opposite event.

We had heard from several people that the WYP worked on a regular basis with elderly people who were interesting in the arts (including drama and music etc.) in a group called 'Heydays' which is for the over 55's. We thought this would be an excellent opportunity to get some likes/dislikes from an older age bracket (than the average approximate age groups we've been getting feed back from of 15-25 year old's.)

In our meetings with Jenny it became apparent that it wouldn't be as straight forward set as it was for the Opposite event; all marketing and advertising must be created by or at least approved by WYP's Marketing Department - a lengthy process we're imagining... but anyway, the meeting was successful; Jenny loved the idea of our project and the presentation portfolio we brought along was really useful to help explain our visual style and what they might expect of the project.

For the Heydays group we had to wait to hear back from the head of Arts Development group Nicky Taylor who runs the group - we received this e-mail from her on 17th April:

Hi Mark and Nikki

I’m attaching our current Heydays programme to give you an idea of the activities our members take part in. We could offer you the lunchtime special session from 12.30pm – 1.15pm on Wednesday 23 April to meet with around 25 of our members. Could you please let me have an idea of what you will be offering during this session?

Many thanks

Nicky

to which we replied:

Hi Nicky,

That sounds great. We were imagining the workshop would run in a similar way as the event we held at Opposite Cafe (gallery - http://www.myilike.co.uk/Gallery/opposite.html). We would offer painting and model making (with plasticine) all themed around 'I Like' or 'I Don't Like'. We could also bring along a luggage tag board for people who didn't want to get too messy, but still wanted to take part.

The session would start with a brief outline of the My I Like project and an introduction of the various ways people can get involved (5-10 minutes). We're hoping to be able to document the workshop by taking digital photos which we would then upload into a specific gallery (similar to the Opposite Cafe gallery). If it would be of some help, we can bring along some examples of people's likes and dislikes in various forms, to offer inspiration. We have had a great response so far with the project; one of the main observations seems to be the conversation it starts between participants.

If you need any more information or have any suggestions - such as other media you think might be more appropriate, or that you think we should include - please don't hesitate to contact us.

Thanks,

Nikki & Mark
The My I Like team

And so it's all organised - we've spent the rest of the week preparing the basic material we need: paint-sheets, tags, tag-boards etc. Luckily we've found that our timetable isn't as painfully hectic as it was during the run up to the Opposite event.

We're still waiting to hear back from Jenny about setting up some tag boards around the foyer - which she sounded quite interested in but had to confirm with other departments and made sure it would fit in with their schedule.

Anyway, we'll let you know how it all went after Wednesday...

Why a blog?

2008-04-16T18:00:00.004+01:00

We're planning on using this blog as a way to put all the information we can't quite fit onto our site, that we think you might find interesting into one place.

It will include, over time:

Links to similar submissions based projects and points of research we've found interesting along the way.
Updates on postal packs that we've sent out or received back again .
Feedback from you guys about things we've been doing such as events, postal packs and more.
Updates on how the project is going and what we're upto or planning on doing in the future.

Basically, we want to give you a bit of a behind the scenes look at what it's taken for us to get this far with the project and how we keep it afloat...

We'd love to receive any and all feedback you'd like to take the time to tell us, you can do this in a number of ways:

E-mail it to us: myilike@hotmail.co.uk
Leave a message on our message board at: http://www.myilike.co.uk/
Post us something to: My I Like, 111 Archery Road, Leeds, LS2 9AU

My I Like

2008-04-16T17:22:00.003+01:00

Hi and welcome to the My I Like blog,

First let us tell you a bit about ourselves and our project:

We're two 3rd year Visual Communications students called Nikki (21) & Mark (26) from Leeds College of Art and Design and we've created 'My I Like' for our Final Major Project.

My I Like is a submissions based project that encourages people to share their likes and dislikes with one another.

We've held several events and have an established website which we update daily; uploading likes and dislikes gathered from the various events we've been a part of, postal packs and submissions we've received.

We hope that 'My I Like' will help us all to understand the human race a little better, and have a little fun in the process.

For more information please visit our website: http://www.myilike.co.uk/

My I Like wouldn't be the succesful project it is today without the help from all those who've contributed - we'd like to say a huge thank you to you all and please keep the submissions and postal pack requests coming in!

Cheers

N&M