Stories Off the Cuff
Imagine meeting a new colleague for lunch. You find a table and sit down. They fold back the cuff on their button up shirt and push up their sleeves. The exposed cuff facing has a colorful print of a map.
As the exposed cuff interacts with the cool air of the cafe, colors within the map seem to shift, revealing a different story. "What is that?" you ask your colleague indicating to their shirt sleeve. "Oh! It's a story map of the city I grew up in," they respond. "The printed fabric is temperature responsive. When the fabric is warm, the map shows the neighborhood approximately as it was in 2009. When it is cool the map shows the neighborhood as it was about ten years later in 2018..."
Project Purpose & Process
What: Stories Off The Cuff feature story maps that show changes over time. These are placed in discrete locations such as collars and cuffs, which can be readily exposed during everyday movement and function.
Why: The mission of Stories Off the Cuff is to spark well-informed conversations in casual or passive settings with people we do or do not know. Changes in the geological or urban fabric in which we live or are a part of have both beneficial and costly consequences. Stories Off the Cuff seeks to provide multiple perspectives on the changes that are featured.
How: The maps are direct printed in the shape of the pattern piece. Thermal color changing ink is then screen printed over the printed fabric, providing the instrument of visual storytelling. In addition to the story map embedded in the cuff, each shirt comes with at least two personal perspectives, one of prosperity and one of loss. The multiple perspectives are crucial to informing the conversations that would ideally take place. This may in turn generate deeper interest in issues of inequality and the challenges of designing spaces meant for all living things in the community.
This Story is Designed to Give Back
Stories Off the Cuff is intended to to be not-for-profit. Profit from the sale of each shirt will be allocated to the underserved communities of OTR.
The story of a decade of change in OTR is one with much prosperity and hardship. Blocks which were once filled with vacant and decaying historic buildings were renovated to attract businesses and residents. The vitality of the neighborhood has attained incredible health and community growth.
Despite best intentions, this does not come without the displacement of the low income residents that had inhabited the neighborhood prior to rejuvenation, and rent increase. The low income population of Cincinnati, like many urban poor across America, experience intergenerational poverty. This cycle of poverty is extremely challenging to break as the needs of the intergenerational poor are not well understood, vary from family to family, and are largely underserved.
The work of Colin Woodard for Politico provides coverage of multiple perspectives regarding the past decade of change to take place in Over-The-Rhine, Cincinnati:
American Public Radio's Wealth and Poverty podcast provides coverage on the ways in which local governments, nonprofits and organizations understand and address the needs of people living in poverty:
https://www.marketplace.org/topics/wealth-poverty
3CDC has been a key player in the revitalization of Over-The-Rhine. See the projects completed by 3CDC here: