Key Facts:

Project summary: A short run of three newspapers celebrating the local community and environment of the area between the City and the Olympic Park

Location: High Street 2012, London, UK

Programme: Newspaper

Initiator: High Street 2012 Initiative

Project Duration: 2 months (late summer 2011)

Lead in Time: 3 months

Site Area: N/A

Client Team: ‘We Made That’ curating assorted urban designers, artists and guest writers

Project Team: We Made That – Editorial and curation, Andrew & Stephen Osman – Graphic Design

Funding Sources: LB Tower Hamlets Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage

Project Costs: Labour, Printing, Distribution

Profitability/Loss: Entirely loss making, newspapers distributed freely.

Permissions / Permits: None specifically, individual rights clearance as part of standard editorial process.

Local Links: Distribution was focused on the immediate locality covered in the newspaper. Writers and artists featured in the paper mostly work or live in the local area.

Publicity/advertising: Website, local advertising, CREATE festival

Project Evaluation:

Site Details & Ownership:
The site was a loose area including the communities along the A12 from Aldgate to Stratford. The High Street 2012 route and the communities it passes through were the focus of the newspaper. The ownership of the paper content remains with the editors (We Made That)

Project Reach / Visitors / Target Audience:
The newspaper was distributed along High Street 2012 from special newspaper stands and had a distribution run of 2000 copies per issue. The target audience was primarily the local communities along High Street 2012 who were affected by the changes brought about by the Games.

Feedback from users / staff:
“Even the explanation of what High Street 2012 actually is: ‘Area-based initiatives… respond to specific spaces… coherent thread’ proves a hard work for those not down with Urbanism-speak. But, maybe that’s ungenerous: perhaps for every 10 of these publications shoved in the bin by baffled punters, one is enjoyed by an interested amateur, acting a little like the local history section of the Tower Hamlets free-sheet, East End Life, albeit a more rarefied version, without the council house adverts and council messages in Urdu”.
James Pallister (Architects Journal)

What next?
The run of three papers as part of the project will be supplemented by a fourth edition which will combine the previous three issues into one larger document that forms a lasting record of the area.

Project Website / Further Info: http://www.wemadethat.co.uk