Research: Customer Contact.

After having a chat with this fish supplier I decided to talk to some of the customers at the fish & chip shop. Customers are after all at the heart of every business so I felt this was important.

I decided to keep the questions short and sweet and ask them while they were waiting for their order. I wanted to find out what their favourite fish was to see if it matched Hugh’s opinion that Brits only like haddock or cod. I also wanted to know what they thought of fish & chips and the fish & chip shop experience, any word that came to mind. I brought with me a black card cut out of a haddock for them to write their answers on and cooked some battered plaice for them to sample. I thought some free food would be a nice thank you for them completing the questions and it would also let me judge some of their responses to a new type of fish.

I found that the majority of the customers I asked preferred haddock, next in line were cod and salmon, only a couple chose different types of fish such as halibut or mackerel. Getting people to try a piece of plaice proved difficult I’m not sure this was because they thought they wouldn’t like it or if they felt to uncomfortable to take a free sample.

I have also drawn up four personas of my regular Wednesday night customers. They all have their rituals and all get the exact same order every week. 

This make me think that it may prove difficult to get people to change their habits and try a new type of fish. So maybe it’s not these customers I should target maybe it will be the more adventurous younger generation who are a bit bored of their local chippy, these may be the customers that will want a shark supper? 

Project Research: Interview with the Fish Supplier.

A few weeks ago now I went to Arbroath to speak to the fish merchant who supplies the fish to my fish & chip shop. I wanted to ask him a few questions about sustainability within fishing and how he feels about fishing quotas. I had a few questions prepared to get the ball rolling but was hoping to have more of a conversation with him and find out some information that would be of relevance that I hadn’t thought of. Luckily it turned out that way!

I started by asking him about the t.v. programme ‘Hugh’s Fish Fight’ and what his opinions were on sustainability. Although he agreed with fishing quotas and the monitoring system in place as it has put a stop to selling ‘Black Fish’, he had a different opinion on what would help sustain the haddock stocks. In his opinion sustainability can be helped if we stopped catching fish when they are spawning. When fish are spawning they become thin and tasteless, the fish should not be caught at this time as they are weak, they need to become strong again before they are caught. Easter is when the haddock that he buys will be spawning therefore Easter is when our shop should stop selling haddock if it were to follow the rule of not catching fish when spawning to help sustainability. This would not go down well with customers as traditionally Easter is a busy time for the fish & chip shop. I wondered if perhaps the chip shop and his fish business could work together and sell a different type of fish to help the cause however he didn’t agree. 95% of the fish he sells is haddock, he said it is very difficult to get people in this area to buy another type of fish. I asked if he could suggest another type of fish we could try to sell instead but he didn’t think this was a good idea. It seems people are set in their ways and it will be a difficult task to change this but I think eventually it could be done. People today are more open to trying new foods, maybe if they knew about the variety of fish and knew what it tasted like they would not be as scared to buy it. Most kids don’t like fish but they will eat it from a fish & chip shop as it’s dressed up differently, maybe adults would be the same if you offered them some halibut served up in a different way they might bite…

In my opinion I feel the key to helping the sustainability issue is to educate and encourage people into buying a variety of fish not just the one type. This meeting was very helpful as it has backed up a few of the areas I have been researching already.

                                                        

Research: ‘Hugh’s Fish Fight’

I have been looking into issues that are connected with fish & chips. The next few blog posts will be about some of the research I have been doing into these areas to see how they might affect my project, design and give me inspiration.

It was suggested that I watch ‘Hugh’s Fish Fight’ to give me some inspiration for my project. I hadn’t watched this series before but I had heard about it. Before watching I didn’t realise how crazy the discarding problem that fisherman face is.

In the U.K. haddock and cod is rare due to overfishing, we eat more than our stocks are able to produce therefore it now needs to be safeguarded. Fishing quotas have been given to fishermen so they are not allowed to land over a certain amount of fish. If they catch more than their quota while at sea they have to throw it back dead! It seems strange to me as this isn’t helping sustainability because if the fish are already dead it’s just getting wasted, as Hugh would say it’s “madness!”

Hugh mentioned that the “Chippy is a real problem at the heart of British fish culture.” Basically the fish & chip shop is the main reason people only eat these two types of fish, haddock and cod. The chip shop made it available, appealing and easily accessible to the customer so it became something they were used to and comfortable with. Maybe if they offered other types of fish people would get used to it too and not be scared of trying something new, but is it too late? Well we need to create this market for under utilised species to save haddock and cod. Since the chip shop seems to be at the heart of the problem maybe this is where we should start. Surely if it was made available to them we could make the public love another type of fish as much as they love cod and haddock. I think people are just scared of the unknown.

In Hugh’s programme he got the chippys selling mackerel baps in an attempt to make it the new cod and chips. I think if we keep trying it could happen!

Posh Chips.

The other week I was on my favourite design website weheart.co.uk and came across their post about ‘Kerbisher & Malt’ a gourmet fish and chip shop in Ealing.  This was exactly the type of inspiration I’d been waiting for.  

Selling freshly prepared fish suppers and chip butties, this quality food should be served up in quality surroundings. Alexander Waterworth interiors have designed the perfect venue. I love the design of Kerbisher & Malt’s restaurant it seems to merge the past and the future together to create a modern, fun and colourful space. I like that it looks modern and clean with out being clinical, the white tiles are offset by the chunky wood tables and the warm lighting from the hanging bulbs. There’s still something old fashioned about the interior that reminds me of a traditional London “caff” maybe that’s what makes it so easy to fall in love with. The wire frames around the lights, the menu written on the wall and the bold colourful text on the clean windows all add to making this a young, fun, modern chippy.

This fish and chip shop design and image would definitely attract a more varied group of people to get eating fish and chips. The new fish and chip shop is coming.

I can’t wait for my next trip to London this is at the top of my list of places to see! 

Design in Action Presentation.

On Monday interiors students of Duncan of Jordanstone got together with jewellery students and textile students for a work in progress discussion. We were all put into mixed groups and each had five minutes to talk about our chosen subject and what we are planning to do this year. It was really interesting seeing what students in other courses were up to and being able to hear some of the ideas from people in my class as we’re all sometimes too busy to chat about our projects.

For this presentation I created a collage of images and text that describe my chosen subject fish & chips.

At the top of the collage is an image of me at work in the take away on a Wednesday night. Connected to this are my "usual suspects" the customers who come in at the same time every week. These images then turn into sketches as these characters will lead me in my research, after all customers are at the heart of a business. I've also included some facts about fish and chips. The map at the bottom right shows all the chip shops in Dundee. The map of the U.K. in the centre shows where it all began. Apparently fish & chip shops were started in London by Jewish immigrant Joseph Malin in 1860 as Italians were passing through they saw the idea and took it up to Scotland where they opened shops. Although there are a few different stories this one connects with me as my family is partly Italian. The map also show different regional variations of chip shop food for example in Northern Ireland 'Pasties' are popular and in Scotland you can buy the famous deep fried Mars bar. 

I  made a model to sum up my subject. I wanted the model to show the celebration of fish & chips. When I thought about celebration I couldn’t seem to get balloons out of my head so this had to be incorporated. I attached these balloons to gold fish & chips. The gold fish & chips were to represent celebration- the fish & chips are the ultimate reward. It also reminded me of the Olympics this year and how everyone gathered together and was proud to be British celebrating our country. I did want to make a plaster model of the fish & chips to spray paint gold but in such a short space of time (I only had a couple of days) I was told this wasn’t possible so I just spray painted some real fish & chips. I might get in touch with someone at the uni to see about making the model more permanent as I might need it at a later date. I also got my lovely sister to model as seen in the picture below. 

What's next...? More research, conducting interviews, sketching and trying to build on my ideas....

4th Year: Getting Back into the Swing!

Third week back at uni and the days are flying by! After a few introductory lectures we got back down to business and have started working on our final year project.

Over the summer we were given the task to decide on what subject we wanted to choose for our final year project. I initially thought I would continue on from my third year projects and do something similar, focusing on children and playful design perhaps re-designing a primary school. Although this did interest me I felt I wasn’t excited enough by it to spend my last chance at uni working on this.

I have finally settled on an idea and although it may change slightly in the coming weeks for now I have decided that I am going to re-design a fish and chip shop. Fish and chips is something I know very well as my parents have a shop that I work in often. During the summer I was working there almost every day and could clearly see the problems that this business faces. Although the British public still love fish and chips they’re not as enthusiastic about it as they once were. As many fast food restaurants have changed with the times fish and chip shops have remained the same and are seen as dull and boring. Also more and more people are becoming concerned about health issues such as heart disease and obesity so wanting to avoid foods they see as unhealthy. I feel that fish and chips are a part of British culture and I think it would be sad for it to die out. So my aim for this year is to figure out how to save fish and chips and find out what its future will be.

I’m still not exactly sure what it is I will create at the end of the year but I do know I want to have a strong message behind it, incorporate branding into it in some way so I can learn more about the subject, and do an interior design…oh and have fun of course! 

p.s. I'm also keeping a board on Pinterest with some interesting stuff I find that is relevant to my project if you want to check it out! https://pinterest.com/soniaangus/fast-food/

Recycling Centre Treasures.

I’m a huge fan of the 60s style furniture and 60s furniture that has been re-vamped. Recently I’ve been looking at images online and designs of different types of old furniture being re-loved and given a modern twist.

I really want to do this particularly with a chair. I’m going to keep visiting the recycling centre until I find the right one to take home.

Here are a few designs I like and will be taking inspiration from:

Zoe Murphy.

Zoe Murphy is a British designer making her mark on used furniture. She’s updating “retro with retro” you can read more about her in an interview on WeHeart.co.uk. I love the way the original is merged with the new and not spoiled. The new and old work well and compliment each other making it seem as though it has always been that way. The detail inside the drawers is also fab!

Charlotte Love.

These chairs are maybe my favourite they look so simple to re-create and are really beautiful. Charlotte Love an interior stylist (amongst other things) has styled this pretty, pastel coloured photo shoot and included these chairs.

101 Woonideeen.

This table and chair was featured in an issue of Dutch magazine '101 Woonideeen'. The table top design has been made using a Spirograph. You can find out how to make it yourself here. I really like the sharp shots of neon on the side of the table leg and rim of the table top, it makes the piece really playful and fun without being over powering.