Love is in Savannah
Love Industry in Savannah, GA
Savannah, Georgia, has been recognized as the most romantic city of the South and the fourth most romantic city in the United States. Its historical atmosphere, small-city charm, and closeness to the river lure visitors and locals alike. Throughout this research project, we wanted to understand the complicated culture of sustaining love in the specific setting offered in Savannah. We made observations, interviews, and cultural probes to better understand how relationships develop in the city. With all the data we gathered, we arrived at the insights and came up with different opportunities. After some user testing, we developed a comprehensive guide for everyone's heart in Savannah, based on activities involving key city areas that could influence people's feelings. These activities were also planned as business opportunities for the local industry around love.
Focus: understanding and leveraging the culture of love in Savannah, the most romantic city of the South of the USA. Discovering business opportunities for the Love Industry in the city.
Services: research, user testing, prototyping, experience design, interaction design.
Process
Our research's first step was to develop topics and themes through secondary research methods (brainstorming, popular media scan, convergence maps, culture maps, and activity offerings map).
The information gathered through secondary research served as the base for the next step: primary research. This direct interaction provided us with the most important data for our investigation and covered all the different areas or topics of interest. Our primary research comprised a cultural probe, a field trip, a survey, observations, and interviews. Gathering data from primary sources allowed us to get information that reflected exactly our context and users.
One of our most important insights reflected the deep contrasts around the city. We discovered how the sense of safety determined the use of certain areas of the city and how that sensation was associated with the absence of light or people. A place can be the most romantic area because of the city's charm and ability to make people slow down, but at the same time, it can turn into the scariest place.
Results
In trying to turn our insights into opportunities and offerings, we identified four major areas to be addressed: art, local and external tourism, slowing down, and city contrasts.
As part of a creative, fast exercise, we came up with 50 possible offerings that responded to the research and opportunities outlined to the date. We cataloged each of them in relation to how many of the opportunities it considered. Then, we assessed them for their feasibility.
Finally, we decided to prototype a guide for hearts in Savannah that could include many of the different ideas proposed while making use of the data from our research. It includes activities, maps, and lists of places to visit or stay away from, depending on your heart's desires.
Final Offering: Light Walking Tour
Description: Candles and walking are the best friends to light up romanticism. A walking love tour around downtown Savannah with candles at night wIll lead people through fantastic romantic love stories. It will start at Johnson Square and end at Columbia Square, where everyone will get together and share a picnic.
Experience: The night when the tour took place, there was heavy rain and a storm close to the city. When we knew it was safe, we decided to proceed with our tour. Curtis Corthell was our tour guide and led us from Johnson Square through different stories until we finished at Historic Reynolds Square. There, and still, under the rain, we presented our project and our "Guide to your Heart". As a final detail, we offered a picnic bag to everyone to take, although ideally, we would have had it together in the square.
Love Is Here App
After we finished the course, we had the opportunity to share our research with a Graphic Design MFA student at SCAD. She used our research, findings, and prototypes as inspiration for her final project. She developed a logo, visual identity, and interface for an app inspired by our Guidebook. The following is her work: