Identity Design Action: East New York (IDeA:ENY) was a model for connecting community and business development through design. The project focused on strategy and design to bolster the existing small business community in the face of city rezoning measures and rapidly changing demographics.

AIGA NY was one of the seven recipients of the City’s Neighborhood Challenge 2015, a competitive grant initiative coordinated by NYC Small Business Services (SBS) and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) designed to encourage innovation, support economic development and revitalization projects via Business Improvements Districts (BIDs). Conceived in partnership with the Local Development Corporation of East New York (LDCENY) [02e], IdeA:ENY formed collaborations with small business owners and other local community development organizations, arts advocacy, youth and workforce empowerment groups to ensure that it was appropriately anchored in the neighborhood.

The zoning measures in question were still in planning when the project was executed. In February 2016, the New York City Planning Commission voted 12-1 in favor of a controversial rezoning plan for East New York, and in April, the City Council passed it. The plan is part of Housing New York, Mayor De Blasio’s 10-year plan to foster a more equitable city. [02d] These rezoning measures, combined with changing demographics, will dramatically alter the character of this historically underserved neighborhood that is now front and center in an ongoing national and local debate about gentrification, where more affluent residents moving into a neighborhood trigger a series of effects that displace lower-income residents and the businesses that serve them.

AIGA NY first engaged an innovation consultancy, which determined that the greatest potential impact in East New York would be in making local business visible and connected, bolstering ties in the community and with the rest of the city before the changes really started happening. AIGA NY then selected a design proposal using that information, and helped broadcast the effects of the project.

First steps

After AIGA NY won the SBS Neighborhood Challenge grant in April 2015 [02a], board members, together with Laetitia Wolff, discussed the project in light of lessons learned from DESIGN/RELIEF. From that discussion, AIGA NY broke the projects into two components, selecting one firm for a research phase and another firm for the design phase. The research firm 3x3, a research-focused social innovation consultancy, was brought on board to craft an ethnographic profile of East New York, and provide descriptions of the main communications, identity, and information-sharing conditions that designers could then use for maximum impact. Following a research plan [02b], they executed a detailed research report [02c]. At the same time, three Brooklyn-based design groups were invited to submit proposals using 3x3’s research report: Sarah Nelson and Jonathan Jackson (WSDIA), Nikki Chung and Dungjai Pungauthaikan, and Mary Voorhees Meehan and Andrew Shurtz.

A panel composed of AIGA NY board members David Frisco, Alicia Cheng and Manuel Miranda, LDCENY program manager Gail Davis, and AIGA NY program director Laetitia Wolff selected Sarah Nelson and Jonathan Jackson’s proposal in May 2015. WSDIA’s proposal was chosen because it demonstrated open-mindedness in understanding the complex challenges of the East New York business community. It proposed to prototype a makeshift merchant association that could positively respond to the immediate changes at play. Many small business owners associated those changes with gentrification, property tax, and rental price increase.

The team started by canvassing the area and business owners to gauge how a group of designers coming from the outside could make an impact while being sensitive to a community that was still raw from having big zoning decisions made without their input. Community partners helped to identify potential small business ambassadors, and the team presented concepts to them for initial feedback. Meanwhile, sites throughout East New York, stretching into New Lots and Cypress Hills, were identified for a guerrilla poster campaign.

From there, a series of workshops were held where the concepts were presented to a slightly wider community. AIGA NY asked the small business ambassadors to invite 3–5 people apiece for training in five areas that were identified as necessary for business resilience: business development plans, web and tech courses, youth recruitment, and information about the business impacts of the new zoning. While the workshops were going on, posters were going up around the neighborhood. Spreading the motto and the campaign took time, and ultimately overcame skepticism on the part of partner organizations, who came to adopt the graphics and the message and endorse the campaign.

When members of the community marched on the steps of City Hall to protest the lack of public review of zoning changes, they used some of the “We live here, we work here, we are here” posters that the team had created for the campaign.

A year of engagement from designers, researchers, small business representatives and various community organizations culminated with two graphic installations in East New York. In January 2016, a 200-foot-long banner wrapped around the Industrial Business Zone of East New York. In addition to this presence was a website, a series of postcards, and a poster campaign along 101 Penn Street. The project was also documented in an impact report prepared by 3x3 [02h].

The impact report begins by highlighting the degree to which the process of the project had a greater and longer-lasting impact than the materials produced. The workshops and inclusive design process left both the participants and the designers stronger: they taught each other things they could not have learned from somewhere else. The quality of the design work, and its broad visibility, also had an interesting effect in that it was at the same level as a commercial real estate campaign, but with a completely different message.

Application for SBS Neighborhood Challenge Grant (Draft)

SBS Grant Budget Proposal (Draft)

Full SBS Grant Proposal, December 1, 2014

East NY Neighborhood Challenge press release, January 28, 2015

SBS/NYBAC Grant Agreement, February 1, 2015

Local Development Corporation of ENY Meeting Notes, March 4, 2015

East NY Project Blueprint, March 16, 2015

ENY Working Budget, March 16. 2015

East NY Project Team Roles, April 1, 2015

Poster wheatpasting contract, July 28, 2015