Astrid Kitchen

Astrid Kitchen

Cultural Strategist (London)

Astrid studied social anthropology at the University Of Manchester (with one year studying abroad in Melbourne) and then had no idea where to go from there… She gave TV a go and worked in R&D at a documentary company for eight months, while also working at the Institute Of Contemporary Arts. After this, she was part of a small team at a women-led tech start-up, before getting her first role in insight, as a research assistant at qual agency One Minute To Midnight. A year later, Astrid moved onto creative strategy agency The Mix, where she spent two years; after which she ended up at Crowd. Other than work, Astrid is keen on running, sometimes yoga, music all the time and trying to read more. She used to hate dogs, but is starting to warm to them.

  • Narrated Galleries

    We love films, but narrated galleries – fusing showreels of still images and audio of participant commentary – creates outputs that allow for high levels of reflection and audience empathy. Ideal for user experience work, in other words

  • Crowd Communities

    We’ve a wealth of experience at setting up and managing communities for clients, with learnings on how best to engage audiences and a full box of tricks for maximising what we get out of the work – including geo tagging, streaming in social media data and a mobile optimised platform

  • Pinterest

    We’ve used Pinterest to really good effect on a number of projects recently, helping us to explore differences and commonalities among different typologies in areas such as fashion and style, home, holidays and entertainment. Engagement levels with participants always rank high, and clients love the vividness and clarity of the findings.

  • Citizen Journalism

    Citizen journalism works on the principle of making reporters of our participants, briefing them to capture what’s happening in the lives of their friends and family via video dispatches and blogging. It gets us places where we can’t otherwise get. It bypasses the bias of having a researcher in attendance. People are often more accurate reporters on those around them than on themselves, so that’s another bias circumnavigated.

  • Network Audits

    If you want to really understand how people interact with those around them, it’s logical to research interconnected groups of friends, family and work colleagues. First developed as part of our award winning word of mouth research for Guardian News & Media, and since then refined and reconfigured across a range of global projects, our network audit approach helps us understand who’s influencing who as authentically as possible.