OVERVIEW:
ARC Savannah is a unified group of Savannah artists and art advocates who are committed to expanding, sustaining and supporting the financial and creative viability of arts in Savannah through advocacy, vision and action.
The intention of this study was to provide the founding board of ARC Savannah with insights as to how they might position their organization and actualize their mission within the city and the arts community. During our team's initial meeting with ARC Savannah we learned that although their initial focus was on the visual arts their vision is to eventually become an umbrella organization representing all the art to bridge the gap between Savannah’s arts community and the city.
BUILDING ON PREVIOUS STUDIES:
As the final study of Savannah's arts and culture community and economy, the team delved into the previous work conducted over the past three years including a single case study of a practicing Savannah artist, research on the arts and creative networks in Savannah, and an in-depth study on the arts and culture economy of Savannah.
WHERE TO BEGIN: THE TERRITORY MAP
As a starting place for the study, the team created a territory map in order to visualize the context and complex web of relationships between the arts and culture community's stakeholders and constituents in Savannah. The model helped to frame the parameters of the study and classify the relationships between the major entities.
The team reviewed the territory map with the board members of ARC Savannah several times to make sure that it represented their vision, mission, and values. It also gave them insight on our process of digesting the vast amount of information to visualize relationships within the data.
Meeting with the ARC Savannah explaining version 2 of the territory map.
NEXT STEP: RESEARCH
Research was a big component of the study. The secondary research consisted of examining cities in the surrounding area that have successfully incorporated the arts culture into their economy, and examining successful international, national, and local art organizations to see where possible partnership opportunities lie or best practices ARC Savannah could learn.
SAVANNAH POLICY REGULATIONS
Also part of the research plan was looking at the current policy for the City of Savannah and how to obtain contracts for the arts service initiatives. The team created a flow chart that visually represents process for how proposals flow through the various entities within the city of Savannah from the beginning (propsal) to the end (implementation). This given to ARC Savannah as a deliverable to move forward in their interactions with the City.
PRIMARY RESEARCH
The team conducted over twenty individual interviews of artists and patrons of the arts in Savannah. The data collected illustrate the high-level patterns that emerged about the various types of people that have influence in Savannah's art community.
Determining the type of artists and patrons and what questions to ask each.
BUILDING PERSONAS:
After the primary research, the team created personas that represented the various groups of people that ARC Savannah should focus their offerings toward. The three types of personas developed were: Artists, Collectors, and Gallery Owners. Below are examples:
TEAM TO CLIENT: WORKSHOPS
The team also conducted a workshop with all members of ARC Savannah in order to understand their business plan and the value they wanted to bring to Savannah.
FINAL DELIVERABLES: BUSINESS AND STRATEGY
Below are the final deliverables of ARC Savannah's business model, the value they would bring to various stakeholders, how their offerings will appeal to artists and patrons, and the 3-year implementation plan for the organization to move forward.
INSIGHTS ABOUT THE CITY OF SAVANNAH
The team also developed seven deep insights from a summarization of the analysis of the research. These findings are based on interviews and observation data conducted during the study along with data from the previous studies.
These insights are presented as actionable principles that will help to inform ARC of the various aspects of the Savannah's art community, offering detailed descriptors and direct quotes from interview participants. ARC can use this information to guide their offerings for Savannah’s art community.
Affinitizing the reasearch to create insights
Shareable research insights
CITY OF SAVANNAH OPPORTUNITIES
Design implications were created to tie all the insights together and describe what the team considers to be the main opportunities for ARC Savannah. These opportunities can work together as part of ARC’s overarching strategic mission and be positioned in a multiyear plan.
SERVICE AND BRAND
Finally, the team examined the services and brand presence of ARC. It was the final step in giving ARC a holistic picture of their brand and the value they can give to Savannah's arts community.
The service package which defines ARC's core offerings and how they may facilitate and enhance them to provice the overall benefits for their members.
The branding package is a visual diagram of how ARC wants represents themselves, and which identity, attributes, and archetype they want to acheive.
PRESENTING TO THE COMMUNITY:
To start the conversation between ARC Savannah and the arts community, the team displayed their work in a final show at a community think space. The exhibition was highly successful with over 75 attendants from all over the arts community, both artists and patrons.
To find more about ARC Savannah, please click here: http://www.arcsavannah.org/
THE TEAM:
Christine Miller (Professor), Bhavika Shah, Santiago Castillo, You Wang, Haoting Zhang, Yile Zheng, David Sobin, Frances Manning, Seth Ross.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS:
Design/project manager and team lead, workshop facilitator, classroom facilitator including lesson planning and agenda creation, interviewer for art patrons and gallery owners, client liaison, lead for affinitizing insights, head of all branding and service design concepts, strategy lead, graphics contributor, and voice-over for video.
