MSA Live 21

Meet our lovely and supportive collaborator - Invisible (Manchester)!

Invisible Manchester is a part of the wider Invisible Cities, is a social enterprise that trains people who have experienced homelessness to become walking tour guides of Manchester.

They offer local and friendly walking tours of Manchester that showcase some of the city's historical landmarks and explore the social projects that make the city what it is.

Their experienced tour guides, all of whom have been affected by homelessness, simply live and breathe the city, and offer their own personal insight into the past, present, and future.

Our group is currently working with great volunteers from the Invisible Manchester team; Alice Spark, Lauren Rosegreen (Sales and Business Development Manager), Amelia Maltby (Community Engagement and Support Manager).

Found out more about the Invisible Manchester team at:

website link: https://invisible-cities.org/cities/manchester
instagram: @invisiblemanchester
twitter: @InvisibleMcr
facebook: @invisiblemanchester

Posted 1 Mar 2021 23:22

Social Impact -
A chance to contribute in presenting the city through the eyes of the people and enhance its sense of belonging.

Colour The City aims to provide an alternative way to introduce Manchester in a more fun and creative approach, from a very personal and sentimental perspective.

Through this live project, we believe that the community could be as a unit that reflects the city despite backgrounds and profiles, thus breaking down community cohesion and inequality especially concerning homelessness. By exploring an alternative way to view Manchester during this unprecedented time, we could establish a new revenue to extend the helping hands in rebuilding lives and also introduce an architectural and artistic approach to improve one's well-being and contentment in remoteness.

Posted 2 Mar 2021 02:46

Kiran K

Skills & Activities

The students will enhance their design and presentation skills through urban sketching, graphic design and the use of some Adobe software's, including InDesign and Photoshop, with organised guest lectures and workshops in conjunction with this. Communication will be key throughout this project as the students will be required to work together to produce the colouring booklet and communicate with the Invisible (Manchester) tour guides. Working with the tour guides is a fundamental element to the project, getting to know them and their story and portraying that through the booklet with sensitivity and creativity. The students will also have the opportunity to carry out some marketing for the colouring booklet.

Posted 2 Mar 2021 10:33

Name - Luo Zhang (Emily)
Atelier - INFRA.SPACE
Undergrad - University of Plymouth

Posted 2 Mar 2021 12:21

Name - Nur Farah Afiqah bt Mohd Rosol Khudus
Atelier - USE
Undergrad - MARA University of Technology, Malaysia
Part 1 - Z&SR Architectural Ventures

Posted 2 Mar 2021 12:21

Name - Nurhassanah binti Kissmi
Atelier: USE
Undergrad: Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
Part 1: Ong&Ong 360 Consultancy Sdn Bhd

Posted 2 Mar 2021 12:22

Name - Muhammad Ifwat bin Zunaidi
Atelier - &rvhitecture
Undergrad - Uitm Shah Alam
Part 1 - Unit One Design & Urban Catalyst Design

Posted 2 Mar 2021 12:22

Name - Kiran Kenny
Atelier - PraXXis
Undergrad - Liverpool John Moores University
Part 1 - LSH Architects

Posted 2 Mar 2021 12:23

Follow this space! - @invisiblemanchester on Instagram

Only a few days to go until the start of MSA Live 2021! We are very excited to get started on this exciting project and meet the rest of the team.

In the meantime, do show your support by following the official page of Invisible Manchester on Instagram.

Posted 8 May 2021 01:54

GRAPHIC WORKSHOP!

We are glad to announce that Dan James from birthdaystudio will be joining us for a cool graphic workshop and presentation regarding the graphic knowledge needed to influence the creation of our final colouring booklet.

This sharing session will be held on Tuesday 11/05, which is our second day from the whole event and will also cover general knowledge about methods, processes, and the appropriate software needed to produce a good digital drawing for our booklet. A Q&A session will then follow the workshop to clarify any queries from the students.

Our group is super excited and looking forward to the cool presentation!

Found out more about birthdaystudio at:
www.birthdaystudio.com

Posted 9 May 2021 20:12

Overview of the final outcome - The colouring booklet.

Comprising of two chapters, the booklet will include hand drawings of different places around Manchester in coordination with the tour guides and their routes.

Four postcard drawings and a drawing of a map will be composed together to represent a chapter. All drawings are detachable in two different sizes, respectively. A3 for the route map and A5 for the postcards.

The two chapters that are composed as large pieces of drawings are to be folded into a smaller size with perforating line at the edge and compiled as an A5 size colouring booklet.

Posted 10 May 2021 00:44

Week one - Key activities

We have highlighted the key activities planned out for each day to give you a heads up on what to expect over this coming week.

For this first week, we will be focusing on doing precedent research and learning the skills and techniques required to produce the colouring booklet. The virtual tour will be the highlight of the week as this is where ideas and images to start off the colouring booklet comes from. Be creative and get ready to explore the city of Manchester!

Posted 10 May 2021 03:56

Colour the City #DAY1 schedule

10.00 a.m.: Introduction to the team & skillshare
10.15 a.m.: Ice breaker activity // Skribbl
11.00 a.m.: Coffee break
11.15 a.m.: Brief introduction into "Colour the City", collaborators, and two-week plan
12.15 p.m.: Precedent Research

1.00 p.m.: Lunch break

2.00 p.m: Drawing and scanning presentation
3.00 p.m.: Coffee break
3.15 p.m.: Precedent Research Discussion
4.15 p.m: Review of #DAY1
4.30 p.m.: Run-through #DAY2 schedule
5.00 p.m: End of #DAY1

See you on #DAY2!!

Posted 10 May 2021 16:36

Finally, we got to meet everyone as a group!
We start our first day with a friendly introduction, and we managed to organize and play an online drawing game just to get everyone into the right mood and boost our communication and obviously to help us have fun together on virtual mode!

Posted 10 May 2021 16:54

Followed by the ice-breaking session was a presentation by MA students introducing the objective of the whole event, our collaborators and a detailed session for our two weeks plan. We then proceeded with the precedent presentation to deliver guidance and provide inspiration for initial ideas of the drawing for our booklet.

Posted 10 May 2021 16:59

All students took a proactive approach by finding and selecting numerous sketches with different styles using online resources and pinned their work up in the Miro together to explain what and why they like about their precedent.

After a run-through of all the images, a collective group discussion and analysis of which images stood out the most and how to apply those images into our own project were made to help us make a group's decision for the next step.

Great effort from all students today!

Posted 10 May 2021 17:24

CONFIRMED!

We are super excited to announce that we will have two virtual tours with the Invisible Manchester tour guides (Danny & Laura!). This virtual tour will help us to have a further understanding of how the tours are usually being conducted and possibly to gain experience from it. By engaging with all the parties involved in Invisible Manchester, all students will have a more personal understanding of each tour guide's experiences, personal and sentimental approach in exploring different places. And from this, students will be able to design the booklet creatively through sensitivity.

Danny, an “adopted Mancunian,” will show people the city’s streets as he has lived them. His tour is a thoughtful and poetic exploration that will transport you to the flip side of Manchester, beyond the mere surface of its tourist attractions.

As a transgender woman, Laura explores the history of inspirational Mancunian women who have influenced her journey of transition. She truly celebrates the rich past of our radical feminine history by linking the history of women or of a particularly notable woman at each selected place.

Found out more about their tours at:
(Danny)
https://invisible-cities.org/our-tours/off-the-cobbles-with-danny

(Laura)
https://invisible-cities.org/our-tours/powerful-women-of-manchester-with-laura

Posted 10 May 2021 19:52

HIGHLIGHTS OF #DAY1

Great work from Colour the City team for #DAY1, getting their minds with creative and brilliant ideas. Here are all the snapshots from today's activities.

#DAY1 done! More fun activities are ready and waiting for you, so join us on #DAY2. Looking forward to seeing all of you!

Posted 10 May 2021 22:22

Colour the City #DAY2 schedule

9.45 a.m.: Morning catch up and briefing
10.00 a.m.: ‘Get-to-know’ Invisible (Manchester)
10.35 a.m.: Virtual tour with the Invisible (Manchester) tour guides, Danny and Laura!
11.45 a.m.: Coffee break
12.00 p.m.: Photograph and text exchange

1.00 p.m.: Lunch break

2.00 p.m: Graphic layout talk by Dan James
3.00 p.m.: Task Allocation
3.30 p.m: Review of #DAY2
3.45 p.m.: Run-through #DAY3 schedule
4.00 p.m: End of #DAY2

We are really excited and looking forward to the sessions!

Posted 11 May 2021 07:11

Welcoming new members of our team!

We are delighted to introduce the BA1 and BA2 students who will be joining us in this exciting project. After the ice breaking session and briefing of the project yesterday, we have allocated the students into two subgroups and will be doing different chapters respectively for the colouring booklet. Teamwork makes the dream work!

Posted 11 May 2021 20:16

We start the day with our very first meeting as a team with the Invisible Manchester team. We've heard lots of short presentations from our collaborators on their really interesting and insightful stories on who they are, what they do and how they’ve adapted over the past year. We were then been assigned to go on the virtual tours, followed by series of discussions and exchanging photographs, locations & text/poems with the tour guides.

Posted 11 May 2021 20:18

"I used to sleep on Market Street, now I am getting a suit fitted on Market Street."

OFF THE COBBLES with Danny - Group 1

The whole team was divided equally for a chance to experience the virtual tours led by Danny and Laura from Invisible Manchester.

Group 1 went for a tour with Danny, focusing on the flip side of the city, which encapsulates memories from his personal experience of homelessness. The whole tour narrates his poetic exploration of the city as each part of the tour is integrated with poems, making it a lot more interesting! It was really a remarkable experience to be on this tour! Here are some feedbacks from the group:

"I really enjoyed our tour with Danny!"

"His poems were also integrated really well throughout the tour and made the tour have a better flow."

Posted 11 May 2021 20:19

"Even if I became a millionaire tomorrow, I would never stop doing my Saturday tours."

POWERFUL WOMEN OF MANCHESTER with Laura - Group 2

The whole team was divided equally for a chance to experience the virtual tours led by Danny and Laura from Invisible Manchester.

Group 2 went for a tour with Laura, exploring the history of inspirational Mancunian women who have influenced her journey of transition as a transgender woman. Laura's enlightening tour introduces visitors to thoughts, struggles, and tales about empowered women, as she delves into stories about Emmeline Pankhurst and the Suffragette movement, Manchester's past, and homelessness. Here are some feedbacks from the group:

"Laura's tour was so inspirational and moving, always honest"

"Such a unique and eye-opening experience!"

Posted 11 May 2021 20:20

For the afternoon session, we had the opportunity to meet with Dan James, a graphic designer from Birthdaystudio and have a great design workshop regarding producing good graphic on paper and examples on how to use appropriate images and text/font for our colouring booklet.

Posted 11 May 2021 20:49

HIGHLIGHTS OF #DAY2

After a great session on #DAY1, today we started with a brief introduction about Invisible (Manchester). We met delightful tour guides - full of useful pieces of information, easily understood and open to our questions at all times, absolutely loved every minute of it!

"I really enjoyed our tour with Danny! You could really tell that he was much more knowledgeable about the city than regular tour guide, and his personal experiences made everything that he was describing much more meaningful. His poems were also integrated really well throughout the tour and made the tour have a better flow (:" -Damla Tunc

In the afternoon session, we had the opportunity to meet a talented graphic designer, Dan James from birthdaystudio. It was a very cool graphic and productive session that enabled the students to understand and learn the graphic knowledge.

#DAY2 done! More fun activities are ready and waiting for you, so join us on #DAY3. Looking forward to seeing all of you!

Posted 12 May 2021 09:27

Colour the City #DAY3 schedule

10.00 a.m.: Morning catch up and briefing
10.15 a.m.: Colouring booklet development
12.45 p.m.: Run-through #DAY4 schedule
1.00 p.m: End of #DAY3

We are really excited and looking forward to the sessions!

Posted 12 May 2021 09:28

After confirming the layout for our booklet, both groups have spent the day drafting some possible designs for the poster using few sketch examples from yesterday's meeting. Looking forward to seeing the progress!

Posted 12 May 2021 15:23

HIGHLIGHTS OF #DAY3

It was a great start from Colour the City team!

Looking forward to seeing more updates on the drawings! See all of you on #DAY4

Posted 13 May 2021 15:35

Colour the City #DAY4 schedule

10.00 a.m.: Morning catch up and briefing
10.15 a.m.: Colouring booklet development

1.00 p.m.: Lunch break

2.00 p.m.: Colouring booklet development
4.00 p.m.: Informal work share on Miro Board
4.30 p.m.: Review of #DAY4
4.45 p.m.: Run-through #DAY5 schedule
1.00 p.m: End of #DAY4

We are really excited and looking forward to the sessions!

Posted 13 May 2021 15:40

We continued our event on the fourth day with series of discussions and sharing sessions showing the progress on the group work they have done so far. This Informal workshare was to encourage teamwork and communication between groups and to keep track of the progress. Great effort from all the groups today! We are very impressed!

Posted 13 May 2021 16:32

These are some amazing sketch developments from the students.
Well done, Group 1!! (Damla, Jennifer, Amir & Ronnie)

Posted 13 May 2021 16:47

These are some amazing sketch developments from the students.
Well done, Group 2!! (Audrey, Vivian, Sara, Hannah)

Posted 13 May 2021 16:52

HIGHLIGHTS OF #DAY4

We spent the whole day with drawing and managed to see huge progress in the development of the drawings on the Miro Board.

Love the efforts! Keep it coming guys!

Posted 14 May 2021 06:35

Colour the City #DAY5 schedule

10.00 a.m.: Morning catch up
10.15 a.m.: Colouring booklet development
11.00 a.m.: Quiz session
12.00 a.m.: Colouring booklet development

1.00 p.m.: Lunch break

2.00 p.m: Colouring booklet development
4.30 p.m.: Review of #DAY5
4.45 p.m.: Run-through #DAY6 schedule
5.00 p.m: End of #DAY5

See all of you today!!

Posted 14 May 2021 06:44

Our last day for Week 1 starts with a super fun quiz session with the Invisible Manchester team! As part of our brief to reduce loneliness and involving the tour guides, the collaborative quiz will allow the students and the Invisible Manchester team to connect and promote an amicable and fun alternative to communicate informatively. We love it and had so much fun! p.s. We might plan to do it again!

Posted 14 May 2021 17:32

We end our day with further discussion and sharing sessions about the progress of our booklet. We have seen a lot of really great sketches from the students. Really excited and can't wait to show our progress to our collaborators next week!

Posted 14 May 2021 17:49

HIGHLIGHTS OF #DAY5

This morning we witnessed that Group 2 won the quiz!! It had been so good to see everybody having a good time with the Invisible (Manchester) tour guides.

After the quiz, Colour the City team continued with their drawings and they came up with some really amazing progress in the presentation.

We look forward to presenting the amazing works to our collaborator at the start of next week! We are super excited!

Posted 16 May 2021 14:56

We are so excited to start our Week 2 programs!

But before that, these are statistics and notes from our collaborators about homelessness in Manchester. Their work is essential in demonstrating that everyone has great potential, as shown by their tour guides, who were once homeless.

Anyway, hope everyone had a great weekend!

Posted 16 May 2021 23:36

Week two - Key activities

We have highlighted the key activities planned out for each day to give you a heads up on what to expect over this coming week.

For this second and final week, we will be concentrating on the production of the colouring booklet. We will start off the week with a presentation and progress update of the drawings to Invisible Manchester. A marketing and Instagram takeover talk by Invisible Manchester will be held beforehand to prepare the students on how to upload their daily work progresses and project related updates at Invisible Manchester's official Instagram page. Students will also be given a brief exposure on how to contact local businesses that will be selling the colouring booklet. It is going to be a long week ahead but we are thrilled to see how this project is going forward!

Posted 17 May 2021 08:25

WEEK 2
Colour the City #DAY6 schedule

10.00 a.m.: Morning catch up and briefing
10.15 a.m.: Instagram takeover & marketing talk with Lauren from Invisible (Manchester)
11.05 a.m.: Coffee break
11.15 a.m.: Presentation of the progress to Invisible (Manchester)
11.45 a.m.: Discussion of feedback
12.05 p.m.: Colouring booklet development and marketing

1.00 p.m.: Lunch break

2.00 p.m: Colouring booklet development and marketing
4.30 p.m: Review of #DAY6
4.45 p.m.: Run-through #DAY7 schedule
5.00 p.m: End of #DAY6

See you on #DAY7!!

Posted 17 May 2021 08:54

Lauren Rosegreen, Sales and Business Development Manager from the Invisible Manchester team, joined us this morning to share with us about her role in the Invisible Manchester and a few presentations on the importance of marketing and how to reach nearby local businesses who will be willing to sell our colouring booklet. Students also had a short introduction about posting our regular work progress and project-related updates to Invisible Manchester's official Instagram profile throughout our Week 2 event.

Check out our group's progress on their Instagram!:
@invisiblemanchester

Posted 18 May 2021 09:39

Following the marketing talk in the morning was an informal work sharing session where all students have presented their sketch developments to the Invisible Manchester team in order to advance the projects forward and get input on their progress. This accurately describes our aim to encourage two-way communication, allowing us to explore how the booklet progresses and collect feedback to ensure the outputs meet the collaborator and our group vision.

Posted 18 May 2021 09:39

HIGHLIGHTS OF #DAY6

It was an hour-plus of insightful sharing from this morning's session with Lauren Rosegreen, Sales and Business Development Manager from the Invisible Manchester team. She gave deeper insights into the importance of marketing for the team.

After the talk with Lauren, we continued to brew for a more insightful discussion with the Invisible (Manchester) team regarding the drawings produced by Colour the City team. So happy to receive positive feedback from them!

"Amazing work!"
"Love the clouds and birds."
"Love the details on the buildings!"

Posted 18 May 2021 15:35

WEEK 2
Colour the City #DAY7 schedule

10.00 a.m.: Morning catch up and briefing
10.15 a.m.: Colouring booklet development and marketing

1.00 p.m.: Lunch break

2.00 p.m: Colouring booklet development and marketing
4.30 p.m: Review of #DAY7
4.45 p.m.: Run-through #DAY8 schedule
5.00 p.m: End of #DAY7

See you on the next day!

Posted 18 May 2021 15:41

Following the positive feedback we received from our collaborators yesterday, it was great to see everyone's new upgraded drawings that will be completed very soon! Can't wait to see all the drawings to be compiled into our final booklet presentation.
Well done, Group 1!! (Damla, Jennifer, Amir & Ronnie)

Posted 18 May 2021 23:30

Posted 18 May 2021 23:31

HIGHLIGHTS OF #DAY7

Group 1 and Group 2 made impressive progress so far and we can't wait to see the compilation of the great drawings in the colouring booklet!

Few more days to go!

Posted 19 May 2021 15:07

WEEK 2
Colour the City #DAY8 schedule

10.00 a.m.: Morning catch up and briefing
10.15 a.m.: Colouring booklet development and marketing
12.45 p.m.: Run-through #DAY9 schedule
1.00 p.m: End of #DAY8

Posted 19 May 2021 15:13

We continue our day with all the students preparing, cleaning up drawings and designing the front and back cover for our booklet. We cant wait to see the progress before our final preparation tomorrow!

Posted 19 May 2021 21:43

HIGHLIGHTS OF #DAY8

Another day, another great job shown by the Colour the City team. We also came up with a colour-in postcard booklet template to showcase the drawings.

Posted 20 May 2021 11:36

WEEK 2
Colour the City #DAY8 schedule

10.00 a.m.: Morning catch up and briefing
10.15 a.m.: Colouring booklet development and marketing

1.00 p.m.: Lunch break

2.00 p.m: Colouring booklet development and marketing
4.00 p.m.: Informal work share
4.30 p.m: Review of #DAY8
4.45 p.m.: Run-through #DAY9 schedule
5.00 p.m: End of #DAY8

On to the last day!

Posted 20 May 2021 11:50

Today was a great session! Both groups discussed their progress so far. The students worked incredibly well and created great sets of drawing for our final booklet. We were pleasantly surprised by the outcome! Next, both groups will focus on final layouts and add some finishing touches for tomorrow's presentation to our partners!

Posted 20 May 2021 21:14

Updated layout and composition - The colouring booklet.

Due to circumstances after confirming with our potential book publisher the other day, we decided to slightly change the layout of the final colouring booklet and standardized all pages in an A5 size including the map drawings. On the bright side, the compact sized colouring booklet will be easier to bring anywhere and everywhere!

Posted 21 May 2021 13:05

HIGHLIGHTS OF #DAY9

We are so happy to see some drawings have made their way into the postcard booklet. They totally smashed it! We also encouraged them to upload the draft of their drawings on the Miro board so we could see the production of these amazing drawings.

Can't wait to see the final outcome!

Posted 21 May 2021 14:53

IT'S THE BIG DAY!!

Colour the City #DAY10 schedule

10.00 a.m.: Morning catch up
10.15 a.m.: Colouring booklet development

1.00 p.m.: Lunch break

2.00 p.m: Presentation
2.30 p.m.: Handover and final presentation of the finished document to Invisible (Manchester)
3.00 p.m.: MSA Live Team Meeting
3.15 p.m.: Hand in final assessed outputs to Invisible (Manchester)

"THANK YOU" for everyone involved in these two weeks!

Posted 21 May 2021 15:05

Colour the City’s project is to design a colour-in postcard booklet for all ages for Invisible (Manchester) to raise funds for their lost revenue over the past year due to COVID19. The colouring booklet includes hand drawings of different places around Manchester in coordination with the tour guides and their routes.

The idea is to see the city through 1,000 different eyes by having colour-in illustrations. We also chose a colour-in element because it helps reduce anxiety and depression in adults and creates mindfulness which helps your brain to rest, it’s also a fun activity for children. The postcard element is designed to reconnect people and to reduce loneliness, which has been a huge concern recently. The students have provided a design solution to Invisible (Manchester)’s funding and loneliness concerns.

Sensitivity was key in this project. The students needed to converse with the tour guides and be mindful of their situations and stories. The groups used their architectural skills to sensitively illustrate places around Manchester that mean so much to the tour guides.

Posted 21 May 2021 16:22

Today's final presentation with our collaborator went really well! It has been a pleasure to have them joining us again in reviewing our hard work for the past two weeks. We are glad to receive some positive feedback from our partner. A great ending for our project as they love our final product very much!

So please keep your eyes open on the Invisible Manchester Instagram page to see our final booklet!
@invisiblemanchester

Posted 21 May 2021 19:37

Final Outcome - Colour The City, Colouring Booklet.

Finally, it is time for the big reveal! After two weeks of hard work and effort in putting together the colouring booklet, we finally finished off a great masterpiece to be handed over to our external partner; Invisible Manchester. We believe that this colouring booklet serves as a design solution to Invisible (Manchester)’s funding and loneliness concerns, and the colour-in postcard element could reconnect people especially during this unprecedented times.

Posted 21 May 2021 19:59

HIGHLIGHTS OF #DAY10

We received good reviews from our lovely collaborator, Invisible (Manchester) after the presentation of the colour-in postcard booklet on the last day of the event. We were extremely happy to hear each of their comments!

"Love the group picture!"
"It's absolutely beautiful!"
"It's amazing. So so impressed! Thank you so much for all your hard work!

Honestly, we can't wait to have the colour-in postcard booklet in our hands!

Posted 21 May 2021 20:49