Live brief for Wickes

During the creative convos week, the Elephant Room finished their talk with a live brief for us which was for Wickes. 

Reimagine the customer experience for selecting colour and create a journey to replace the current approach that’s in their stores.

This was a perfect opportunity to not only make further contact with Will and Shannie but to have experience of working on a live brief, as there is potential for this to extend further in the future.

After visiting the Wickes store in Leeds to find out more about how people currently shop there, we developed a few ideas that we thought could work. Putting these into decks helped define our idea in a concise and easy to understand way.

A talk by Abraham from The Pop Up Agency (Creative Convos)

Abraham from the Pop Up Agency came to visit as the final speaker, rounding off the week-long of conversations from industry professionals. He co-founded a unique studio that specialises in travelling the world, solving briefs in an allotted time of 48 hours only. He and his team initially started this out in university as a challenge for them to visit 15 cities, in 15 weeks to complete 15 briefs, a hefty one but they managed it. Although to most this seemed daunting and not doable he said he had to have the stubborn mentality to see it through regardless of who questioned them.

During his talk he gave a few bits of advice for us:

- Always split the cost that you give to your client down into three sections. 33% for salary, 33% for expenses and 33% for savings.
- As a result, never undercharge!
- Finding a mentor for guidance is essential, this will help you develop into a better person and designer.
- To revisit goals regularly and in doing so your achievements will never become outdated.
- Most importantly people in his studio don't have roles - everyone is there to evolve and grow. Not to be stuck in one particular role.
- Democratise creativity - Everyone is creative!

The key takeaway from this talk though was his approach to tackling briefs in such a short period of time. His effective method is to:

1. Empty your mind of ideas; go for quantity not quality.
2. Next within a group, write down an one single idea on a piece of paper individually.
3. Move around the table clockwise and attempt to develop more of each idea atleast 3 times.

A talk by Will and Shannie from The Elephant Room (Creative Convos)

We were welcomed by a warm, friendly greeting by both Will and Shannie from The Elephant Room, a relatively new advertising agency that appear as well established as any other agency in the game. With clients such as Dyson, they're definitely doing something right.

Compared to past experiences of talks by other industry professionals, this one stood out differently with it being more discussion orientated; an insight into professional life, that for once didn't seem as daunting as they typically do. Will and Shannie were real with us, didn't beat around the bush or feed us typical one-liners that we want to hear but instead showed us another side of the advertising industry.

One key take away that really stuck with me was that they said how it's..

"...not about experience but about potential."

Creating a role that's right for you is essential and it's exactly what both Will and Shannie did within their agency. It's not always about being the master of one particular skill set as this isn't for everyone, but instead crafting your career around what you're confident with. Connecting with anyone and everyone is essential as we don't always know who's friends with who, it could come in handy in the future for potential collaboration or job opportunities. Another takeaway from the talk was to never disregard other personal interests, regardless of whether it's relevant to your career or not because ultimately everything makes you stand out as your own unique personality.

With all the recent controversy over H&M racist advert for a product, both Will and Shannie made a solid argument in response to this that people would typically dismiss. As opposed to fighting against brands that do things wrong, make mistakes etc. instead see how you could work with them to fix this otherwise brands will never learn. There is becoming more of a need for brands to have a social responsibility over what it is they produce, advertise and advocate and so with this comes the responsibility to ensure they're all aware of society in its current state.

A talk by Dines from Studio Blup (Creative Convos)

Monday marked the first day of the Creative Convos week curated by Alec and branded by both James and Sammy. This is a week where a range of different professionals come in to give their insight and knowledge on the transition from study to professional work life and their experience of that so far. Mixed in with this is a couple of different day briefs/ tasks to get us more involved with the speaker and those within the studio.

First up: Dines from Studio Blup

Rolling through into the studio with his bouncing enthusiasm and positive attitude was Dines, a guy whose passion for all things design shined through from his first slide. He started with how Studio Blup first came about for him which was during his later years at university, designing bits here and there for a club he used to go to. For him, this was the start of something big, although it only seemed small at the time he had visions for something more expansive than just him in his own bedroom designing. He mentioned that creating his so-called studio at the time, even though it was comprised of just himself, meant that he had a professional facade that made him stand out from other competing designers at the time. Having a regular email such as ....@gmail.com just didn't seem to cut it for most so by having a professional email such as hello@studioblup.com, straight away it created a much more sophisticated visual identity for him, which he claimed is a key to getting work, internships, opportunities etc.

Another thing that I took from his talk was to be multidisciplinary isn't necessarily a bad thing, contradictory to other designers who sometimes argue this point. Having a range of different skills whether analog or digital and being able to apply and adapt these to your ideas and concepts makes for a much more versatile designer, another thing he claimed helped him take on and get more client work in the future. Regardless of whether he had the knowledge of particular programmes, he set it out for himself to learn these during the process of the project as a means of becoming much better equipped for other potential projects in the future.

The second part of the afternoon was made up of a short pitching session, which later went on to become 'Dines Den'. Each of us would pitch a past project or upcoming idea/concept for a project that he would then give feedback on both the work and our presentation skills. Although somewhat daunting, it was interesting and helpful to get this feedback as it's now a means for me to expand and continue working on a project that would have just been left behind in the second year.

All in all a chilled and insightful afternoon.

RSA Engage Leeds

Last night down at the Whitecloth gallery was another one of RSA's Engage events which is a combination of speakers pitching their ideas and the chance to network with like minded individuals. RSA is ultimately all about coming together to create/ share/ talk about ideas for social change. As this is what a lot of my practice revolves around this year, mostly my CoP but also my extended practice, it was a good chance to potentially get involved in some live briefs and to make contact with those with a similar mindset to myself.

Got Your Back

John from Eskimo Soup, a social marketing agency, discussed his idea to create a trusted social platform that people can turn to when they are dealing with issues of mental health. The network is to be for students and co-written by them also, by getting other students involved it creates a more accurate database of information regarding any issues users may encounter. I feel like this idea will work well purely because of how most current, social media networks are a battleground where any goes, public or not, people can often feel subjected to criticisms and judgement from others within the network, friends or not.

Me and John both spoke briefly one to one about his idea and about the potential for me to be involved within it, as this could become one of my live briefs for my extended practice. Not only that but will give me the chance to get experience of a real world brief and to make both friends and contacts for the future.

Fuel for School

Fuel for School was set up by ex headteacher, Nathan Atkinson, who stumbled across a few separate problems during his time there that he thought he could solve through one idea. 

1. Remove hunger as a barrier to learning

2. Highlight the importance of nutrition and the associated benefits linked to learning

3. Highlight the vast amounts of wasted (yet perfectly edible) food across our local and wider communities.

The concept behind this is to feed school kids using food that would have unnecessarily gone to waste otherwise. There are currently 10,000 children signed up who benefit from his programme.

The Soft Road

Melanie and Neil Kirkbridge created The Soft Road in the hope to bring light to the benefits of meditation in everyday life. 

'The Soft Road is a platform for personal and cultural transformation that helps people and groups thrive in creative action. On The Soft Road we set out an Experience of Life that unwinds stress, unlocks creativity, develops intuition, and builds resilience. These inner resources create a foundation of stability and adaptability that deepens over time and brings greater ease to every day.'

They spoke a lot about bringing meditation into the workplace to improve overall well being for each individual which is something that really resonated with me and some of my work from previous years. This links in perfectly also with the RSA student awards brief I intend to do about well being in the workplace.

I spoke to both Melanie and Neil after their talk about our experiences with meditation and I felt like they had a lot to offer, so much so that we discussed them potentially coming to the university to do a small talk/ session about meditation.

Elevator pitch

Today's task was to ultimately learn how to write concisely about our work as this is key for things like our websites/ Instagram/ portfolios etc. We had take a favourite past project of ours and write in one sentence for each what/ how/ why?

I chose my self initiated brief from the end of last year, the Cocoon.

What is the core idea?
How does it work?
Why does it work?

Initial Pitch

To help reduce stress in everyday life. By giving people isolated, quiet time to themselves. Because stress has been proven to be prominent in working environments.

Improved Pitch

Cocoon is a low cost, high quality piece designed for IKEA that helps to reduce stress in academic and professional environments. It creates a private, isolated area where individuals can take a break without leaving the work space. Tackling stress on a daily basis, creates a happier, healthier workplace.

Doing something this has proven helpful for me in understanding the very basic core of what is needed when writing/ talking about a project. Often I find myself writing too much, some of which is not always that relevant or necessary. But by following this structure of what/ how/ why helps me to be as concise as possible which will useful in the future when describing portfolio work to potential clients etc.

You've got (real) mail

The week long task was to create a list of people/studios/ whoever it is that we admire and to choose one or multiple to contact. This did not mean sending over an email to someone, we instead had to physically create something tailored to the person on the receiving end, whatever that might be.

Just to name a few, my list included:

Craig Oldham
Andy Puddicombe
Brian Eno
David Berman
Nancy Bernard

Out of these I was most interested in Andy Puddicombe, he's someone who I admire for a number of reasons. Being the co-founder of Headspace, a meditation app I use on a daily basis, his whole attitude towards life is something I aspire towards being like. Even just a conversation with him would be ideal, which is why I aimed my project towards making contact with him.

He brought meditation to the masses, without the stigmas surrounding it which made it more appealing to a wider audience. In short, whole concept behind the app is to be more mindful in everything you do, which ultimately brings about it's benefits; reduced stress, better sleep, less negative thinking.

The one thing I thought of that could be a way to contact him was to put to life an idea I had as an extension to the app and propose it to him. Currently Headspace is only contained within the app, but he does suggests doing smaller exercises throughout the day which is where my idea came in.

I haven't made this yet simply because I didn't want to just settle for an idea for the sake of ticking a box. As this idea only came about last minute I figured if I was going to do something I wanted to put a solid effort into it. I feel like this could become a bigger project than just this task in itself.

THE IDEA

The idea is to bring the mindfulness exercises that are part of the app into the physical world with a set of small cue cards. In a way like Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies. If you're stuck creatively, these cards are little suggestions on how to spin the problem around, help you out in one way or another.

So I thought that these could be little physical reminders that would assist with day to day life. Phrases that would evoke a physical/mental response.

These are something that could also be embedded within environments so that every time you open your laptop or go to brush your teeth, it'll hopefully make you a bit more mindful in everyday tasks.

My plan from now is to develop this basic design further and actually produce these as a small pack, which will form part of my proposal of the idea to send off to their headquarters in the hope to spark conversation.