Hi there, fellow supporter of the first hour, backer!

Since Times Square to Art Square managed to get its first 10k in the pocket thanks to your support, it seemed all a bit blurry what was going to happen next. Apart from the fact we shouted-out in Times Square, we still didn’t send out any piece of e-art or even a free ticket for an upcoming preparty (depending on your pledge of course).

Here’s why:

It has also been a period of contemplation, reorganization, regrouping and rethinking. As we are very well aware that after reaching the set goal we truly have a responsibility towards our supporters and backers. We thought it not to be wise to take any hasty decisions and that we should get a strong grasp of the path we need to take to make it the success we want it to be.

Therefore we changed our strategy, we answered questions such as:

• How can we deliver a feasible return on investment for the advertisers and possible partners?;
• How are we going to manage the art-side of the story, who is selecting the art? Are we including museums, or not?;
• How is the NYC gov involved?;
• Are we going to allow companies to become partners for the event, and how will they influence the exposure?;
• How do we make TS2AS a sustainable foundation, which has enough funds to accommodate office space, a full-time team, cover visa costs, and so on?;
• When is it precisely going to happen? What is the event going to look like?

We answered most of these questions. As we spreak, we are stripping down our website to include all of these basic answers. We’re trying to keep it minimal but clear. Here’s a sneak peek of our new logo:

Our new Times Square (to) Art Square logo

(A new website is following pretty soon. You will be the first to know about it)

I hope you understand the situation we’re in. We need you to know that we are very humbled to have you backing this project. You are the blood that pumps through the project’s vains.

Justus, Martin and Nick

PS: I’m (Justus) moving to NYC by the end of August to work closer with Nick Ditmore, our new key-player.

A couple of things we are working on behind the scenes:

• Talking with some possible partners (involving the big square);
• New website;
• New logo;
• Possible events (more follows);

Sorry for being so silent. Hard work needs focus.

We are truly amazed of all the support we have gotten so far. Be it sharing information on Times Square to Art Square with friends or family through e-mail, Twitter, Facebook or word-of-mouth.

We couldn’t have done this without your support!

This info graphic shows the reach of just simply sending an email to your best friends

If you’re following TS2AS a while your are probably wondering how come we have so little pledges. To be perfectly honest we didn’t really do anything to get the pledges going, so here’s our last plan:

1. One team member sends an email to at least 30 of his/her best friends;
2. He/She request kindly to make a pledge about ($10), referring to our Start page;
3. The team member also asks if the recipient wants to personally email at least six of his/her best friends to pledge the same amount of money;
4. This makes that one single person reaches 180 + 30 and have them requested for a pledge;
5. This should make a total pledge of at least $2100, if we do this with all of our team members, we will be able to start our campaign;

Feel free to use the same method, in case your still wondering where the money is needed for, do read this:

Here’s: What are you going to do with the donations?

First it’s important to know what we are not doing with the donations we receive:

• We are not using the donations for our flight costs, dinners, transportation, printing costs;
• We are not using the money to buy out the actual space, as no advertiser and almost no billboard owner will see the money, you donate;
• None of the money will be invested in unsustainable goals; each dollar we get should make more dollars;

What we are planning to use the first donations for:

• Our first round of donations will be used for our campaigning activities: to make more people aware of the idea and get more people knowing about the project;
• We are planning to build an iPhone app that will make it possible to see Art Square as being Times Square, it’s huge and we probably need more money than we initially asked for;
• Next we will use the money for the Art Square drawings, renderings, architectural plans, presentations.

Currently on our website it appears we are completely addicted and only interested in obtaining a large sum of money. This is actually not true. We made the mistake in focusing our complete campaign on our Kickstarter donations, however, for us the focus is in having people spreading the word about TS2AS, and getting them involved.

More questions? Do check our 12 things you always wanted to know about Times Square to Art Square.

Especially for this page we made a new vid. Go check it out.

Featuring Loeki Westerveld and Warre Simons

Oh and by the way: What would happen if we don’t get enough pledges on Kickstarter: So far we think there’s nothing to worry about, since we have some money left from the PRPRTY’s we organized. But we would really appreciate it if you go and spread the word, clicking START.

Times Square to Art Square hopes you all had a wonderful Christmas and are getting ready for the exciting new year ahead, where big things are set to be achieved! This week TS2AS was totally spoiled with Christmas gifts: being reviewed in the likes of GOOD, Huffington Post and New York Daily News. Thank you guys, we are totally flattered.

Check out what the big guys had to say about us:

GOOD

Huffington Post

New York Daily News

All the best for the rest of the year and see you in 2011 for more news!

Have you already had talks with billboard owners, what do they think of the project?

So far we haven’t talked with all of the billboard owners, and all talks so far are still unofficial. The overall response however has been very positive and encouraging. They are very curious how serious we are with this project.
Therefore we have set up several goals that will get people more serious about the plan:

• Our team member Nick Ditmore is working with several creative agencies to launch marketing campaigns for Times Square to Art Square to make sure more people are aware about the idea;
• We are working with a highly sophisticated Architect studio that will actually design Art Square as a blank canvas, ready to be filled with art;
• In March/April we are planning to launch an event together with Artvertiser (an organisation that designed binoculars that actually changes advertisements into art when looking through them) where people can see what Art Square will actually look like. Our own Michael Constantiner will coordinate the development of an iPhone app that will function in the same way;

What are you going to do with the donations?

First it’s important to know what we are not doing with the donations we receive:

• We are not using the donations for our flight costs, dinners, transportation, printing costs;
• We are not using the money to buy out the actual space, as no advertiser and almost no billboard owner will see the money, you donate;
• None of the money will be invested in unsustainable goals; each dollar we get should make more dollars;

What we are planning to use the first donations for:

• Our first round of donations will be used for our campaigning activities: to make more people aware of the idea and get more people knowing about the project;
• We are planning to build an iPhone app that will make it possible to see Art Square as being Times Square, it’s huge and we probably need more money than we initially asked for;
• Next we will use the money for the Art Square drawings, renderings, architectural plans, presentations.

Currently on our website it appears we are completely addicted and only interested in obtaining a large sum of money. This is actually not true. We made the mistake in focusing our complete campaign on our Kickstarter donations, however, for us the focus is in having people spreading the word about TS2AS, and getting them involved.

How long will it take until Times Square actually turns into Art Square?

We’re now on target for two years from now: think of Spring or Fall 2012.

Why is this going to happen, why do you think so?

The idea of how we get this done is very easy:

1. We organise online and offline activities to gather millions of people from around the globe to start believing in this enormous idea;
2. We approach the Times Square advertisers with a structured plan; where millions of people want to see art for one day instead of their logo;
3. They support (financially and mentally) the actual project and by doing that they are rewarded with more credit compared to any normal day on Times Square.

Last week the TS2AS team in Holland held the first Art Square Briefing – bringing together the best talent from architecture and design faculties from Delft University of Technology. We had a small but inspired bunch, armed with questions and ready to get involved, from spreading the Times Square to Art Square message to the entrepreneurial students to etching out the first renderings of Art Square.

We asked YOU what the Top things you wanted to know about TS2AS were. One of the main questions is What are we going to do with the donations? First it’s important to know that we are not using the donations for administrative costs, to ‘buy’ advertising space or invest in unsustainable goals.

What we are planning to use the first donations for:

1. Campaigning activities: to make more people aware of the idea and get more people knowing about the project;
2. We are planning to build an iPhone app that will make it possible to see Art Square as being Times Square, it’s huge and we probably need more money than we initially asked for;
3. Next we will use the money for the Art Square drawings, renderings, architectural plans, presentations.

Our first goal on Kickstarter is $10,000USD and we have 23 days to achieve this. So get donating here.

TS2AS has also been planning how we will celebrate their first birthday party. Yes, that’s right. Exactly one year ago, Times Square to Art Square was born. Happy Birthday TS2AS!

The TS2AS team in Holland has been working hard to set up an Art Square Briefing – a chance for international architecture and design students to come together to get involved on the first renderings of Art Square, to show how serious we really are. If this is you and you’re keen or just plain curious, check out the Facebook event here.

Practical information:

Art Square Briefing
Bouwkunde Zaal B, Delft University of Technology
Tuesday 14 December 12:30 – 13:30

The team in New York headed by Nick Ditmore is making good progress with getting creative agencies on board, with a focus on Social Media firms and celebrities to help us promote TS2AS and KickStarter this month. If you happen to be a creative agency in NYC or some other place, don’t hesitate to contact Nick (email: nick [at] ts2as [dot] org) for further information. He will brief the agencies in mid January in NYC, if you cannot make it, we’ll figure out a way to get you involved.

We asked YOU what the Top Ten things you wanted to know about TS2AS were. These are some of the questions you came up with:

• How much money do you need?
• What are you going to do with the donations?
• Have you already have talks with billboard owners?
• When will Times Square turn into Art Square?
• What art will be displayed?

But we still want more questions! If you have more, please add them to this public document Ten things you wanted to know about TS2AS. These will be answered as soon as possible!

After a successful New York TS2AS PRPRTY we now have a strengthened NY TS2AS team who will help bring our plans to fruition. Please welcome to the team: Nick Ditmore – guerrilla marketing guru will be sending a call to action to creative agencies so they can join the movement and spread the word in NYC in their own creative way; Michael Constantiner – iPhone application developer and whizz; and Joshua Sophrin.

Moving forward, we fine tuned our vision and put things in perspective (you can read more about it here). The main idea is to sustain the idea of Time Square to Art Square, one day, per year, and organise PRPRTYs in more cities around the world, spreading the TS2AS seed.

Our Amsterdam reporting team is also growing with Janice Wong, an Australian New Media student living in Amsterdam with a good feel for marketing strategy. While working on a series of interviews, we asked YOU who you’d like to see. You said: Users, Audience, Artists, Celebs, general people in Times Square, and curator of MAD museum. Thanks for your feedback. Together with Janice Wong and Erik Loots, the blog will come to life. Stay tuned…

To do

• Work with architecture students and artists on the first renderings of Art Square. Want to get involved? Click here.