CCreative Ideas Generation Resource

For Students and Graduates

by Emma Wilson

AFor the Ideas Generation website to be a •valuable resource for you to use to aid your development and completion of creative projects.To have pooled together various creative •thinking techniques and idea generation tools from a range of resouces.For the website to be a place of inspiration, •insight and motivation, by allowing you to see how different professional studios and creatives generate ideas for different live projects. To create one resourceful place for you that •will save you time in having to find out all of this information from a number of different resources.For the website to be continually able to grow •and develop.

Aims

UCreative Ideas Generation Website

Description

You can interact with the website by creating your own dashboard and selecting a colour to run throughout. Unblock provides many different idea generation techniques submitted by students, graduates and professional creatives.There are also short descriptions on various creative thinking processes, to help inform you about these in a quick and simple way.

Why it is useful?

It is useful as there is not one resource that contains all of this information. So by using this website it will save you time in having to read alot of long winded books. Also you will be able to view what techniques some of the professional creatives use.

How will it help you?

It will help you to begin any project by providing you with a place to start generating ideas that apply to your given brief.

Where?

It is an online resource that will be expanded in the future through a printed publication.

UCreative Ideas Generation Website

UCreative Ideas Generation Website

R“In the design profession, the best way to be recognized is to be unique and to stand out when compared to other designers.”

-Graphic Design Blender, Nicole Foster

“As we are the world's first mobile graduates, we got the chance to create a unique and relevant concept that would help us to settle our internships.”

-The Intern Store, Hyper Island

Research

TTwitter Advice from Professionals

Dave Cuvelot asked professional creatives; “If you could impart 1 piece of advice to this years design grads what would it be?” I thought some of the advice was extremely relevant for the continuation and development of this project.

FThe Fear of Failure

A great case study showcasing a unique way of students promoting their graduation show. Leading figures in the creative world were invited by students from Berghs School of Communication to discuss their ‘fear of failure’.This was a very innovative way for the students to promote their exhibition, instead of the regular forms of promotion. It clearly has resulted in the University receiving alot of attention.

‘Courage is very much associated with fear. We students are constantly flanked by the biggest creativity blocker of them all - the fear of failure.’

-Sourced from Creative Review

FThe Fear of Failure

“Failure is relative. Today’s bloom is tomorrow’s wilt.”

-Design Disasters

“Now after two weeks that the campaign side has been up we have over 30.000 views on our films from over 100 countries. The films have been embeded more than 280.000 times on over 250 sites and blogs.”

-Interview with Johan Rude

GThe Graduates 2009

“The other thing is to speak to everyone you can, even people who you think may not be right for you to work for. Just keep on meeting people.”

-Joe Keirs, The Graduates, Creative Review 09

Tom Lovell was one of the grauates that featured in Creative Review. While at college he collaborated with another student, Shaun Hughes, and they set up a studio in a shop style window. The project was called ‘Keep Us Busy’ as they invited anyone to give them work to do. After the completion of the project they began working on turning it into a travelling college workshop.

HHP - Invent

Tom Wrigglesworth and Matt Robinson, also featured as part of ‘The Graduates’ in Creative Review 09. At the time they had received alot of attention from their film for HP (below). In the CR article it was interesting to read about their proposed ideas for the films continuation. These included; plans to make use of all the paper from the shoot and they had also designed CD packaging that they thought could be marketed with the HP Workstations.

“Although we did not manage to push the paper handouts and CD packaging, through Edelman we were commissioned to create a sequel with the same technique. We were pleased to get commissioned to create the second film, and this formed the continuation that we had been looking for.”

-Interview with Matthew Robinson See the second HP film

PPromotion Examples

Draw it on the street

Large companies have commissioned street

artist Julian Beever, to help in the promotion of their products, as practically any picture released on the web by Julian is reposted on hundreds of blogs.

Project your website address onto a building

FHM received huge publicity when they projected a giant image of Gail porter on to the House of Parliament.

IThe Intern Store

In another innovative case study, graduates from the Mobile Applications course at Hyper Island, Sweden, have created an intern store to promote their skills to potential employers. Their take on the ‘App Store’ showcases the apps that they have been involved in creating.

“Intern Store, has made its way to the headlines of the industry. It didn't take more than two weeks for the Interns to settle their internships by making it as easy to get an intern as getting an app.”

-Hyper Island Blog

SSoupa

Interview with Soupa creator Jo Spencer

“I have always used it as a personal design project as well as a resource for creatives, i want it to be contemporary and design fashion lead so we look at keeping the look and feel along these lines to try and keep interest of young/contemporary creatives.”

“Twitter and Faceboook generate most hits on the site. But recently the site won an award (CSS Design awards) and this definitely brought a new audience to Soupa.”

“It needs constant attention, in terms of the look and feel of the site but also the content. It definitely isn't a self sustainable resource. It requires a lot of care and attention.”

JJotta

Interview with Millie Ross from Jotta

“Jotta has been through a couple of redesigns, it began with a bright yellow background, recently we have opted for less is more, a minimal approach. Clean design makes the myriad of choices on jotta.com easier to make. Information architecture is paramount, ensuring navigation across the site is clear and accessible.”

“We promote through University of the Arts London newsletter and website, but most importantly and effectively through offline events and exhibitions that we have curated and produced since we launch in Feb 2009.”

“Maintaining interest and nurturing the community through social media is one of the most important aspects of my job!”

Analysis of Research

A

Analysis of Research

A

Analysis of Research

ASpectrum of promotional techniques for a website

Effective / Relevant today

Less Effective / Less Relevant Today

Generating Ideas

G

Ideas for Promotion

PSocial Networking; Twitter and Facebook. •To gather interest through two of the most popular forms of social media.

An infornal blog with interesting •information about new developments on the website and with inspiring links and posts.

Contact Creatives to inform them about •the new product and ask them (once some hype has started) if they would be willing to add the URL to their links section or through a blog post or tweet.

Students sharing the resource through •links on their websites and blogs. Or through Twitter and Facebook. This could be a form of sharing through the student community.

Contact different educational •institutions and resources to see if they will share the website with their audience, perhaps by a simple link on their own websites

RRandom Word Generator

Blogging as a form of Promotion

B“Blogging has become quite an essential part of the way we express ourselves, how we present our creative work and a platform to showcase our ideas, hobbies, interests with the world.”

-Why!

“Design blogs have had a pronounced - and growing - impact on design.”

-Adrian Shaughnessy, Graphic Design: A User’s

Manual

“Since the popularity of blogs was rising I decided it would be interesting to include a blog aspect to it where we could share news about SOUPA but also about creative events and competitions which also generated more interest and hits to the site.”

-Interview with Jo Spencer

CA collaboration of related resources will take place with Anna Magombe and Obie Campbell. We will be combining our resources to produce a travelling workshop that will visit educational institutes and most predominantly Universities of a creative discipline. We will engage with students through creative workshops of varying lengths of time which will then involve the use of all of our resources to aid the students in the process. Unblock will help participants to generate ideas for the different tasks, while enlightening them about various creative thinking processes. This will enable all the students involved with a great insight into these valuable resources, the benefits of collaborating and to see how design could potentially make more of a valuable impact within secondary

schools.

Collaboration

IIdeas

Ideas for Development

Technique cards or mini packages, so that the content from the website is in a printed, hand-held form

Extend the website to a wider audience. Perhaps it could include non-creatives

Compile the best/most useful techniques to make them into a publication

A launch party

A pop-up shop

A travelling workshop that visits various educational facilities

CChosen Idea

The Travelling Workshop

In collaboration with Obie and Anna, visiting educational institutions. This will include a launch night to demonstrate what the travelling workshop will involve and to publicise its potential.

1.To Promote through Social Media

Write about interests topics related to Unblock’s theme, upcoming events, where the travelling workshop is any relevant updates.

To create a Printed Publication

To pool the best content from the website into a printed form that will reach the target audience in a more traditional way.

To extend the Website with a Blog

The blog can help bring in a wider audience and increase hits on the website. The blog can share information about the websites events and any information on other relevant exhibitions, events and creatives work.

2.

3.

4.

AAction Plan

Start conducting primary and secondary research 1. into existing travelling workshops and other similar themes.

Begin designing the printed publication.2.

Start planning and organising3. all aspects of the workshop.

Test workshop ideas4. with some of the target audience.

Set up the social media accounts on Twitter and 5. Facebook. Start spreading the word about the new website but also write about other relevant information.

Ongoing preparation for the travelling workshop.6.

Set up a blog.7. Start building up interest by adding posts on creatives work and any relevant events and exhibitions.

Refine ideas for the workshop and test.8.

Contact educational institutes9. to inform them

about the new website and travelling workshop.

Print publication.10.

Send out publication.11.

Start promoting the new travelling workshop 12. through social media.

Contact professional creatives through email 13. and social media about the new website and workshop.

Launch night14. for the travelling workshop

H“However, nothing works as well as the simple expedient of doing great work. If you do great work, if you do effective, original and striking work full of emotional or intellectual resonance, you are unlikely to go unnoticed.”

-How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul, Adrian Shaughnessy

Bibliography

BWebsites

Berghs Exhibition

Blogstorm

Design Advice

Graphic Design Blender

Hyper Island Blog

Intern Store

Jotta

Soupa

The Fear of Failure

The Next Web

Tom Wrigglesworth

Why!

Work for Work

Exhibitions

The Tate Modern

Books

Heller, S. (2008) Design Disasters. Allworth Press, New York

Shaughnessy, A. (2005) How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul. Laurence King Publishing Ltd, United Kingdom

Austin, J. (2002) Graphic Originals. RotoVision SA, United Kingdom

Creative Review (2009) The Graduates.

Primary Research Interviews

Johan Rude from The Fear of Failure Campaign

Jo Spencer from Soupa

Matthew Robinson from Creative Review 2009 ‘The Graduates’

Millie Ross from Jotta