Train-the-Trainer
At a recent train-the-trainer event at our E-METRIXX offices, we ended up running our own team creativity workshop and produced some fantastic results.
Attending the train-the-trainer workshop was Barry Shafe, our partner from bonny Scotland, and our partners from all the way down under, Genesys Australia.
The objective of the workshop was for us all to see how we can use creativity as part of our everyday problem-solving. We were asked to discuss our own current business issues and ways in which we could use creativity to solve these. We chose one issue and had to focus in a little more in order to find an appropriate and original solution. The issue was put forward by Barry Shafe, who at the time was launching a magazine in Scotland called ‘Innovator Scotland’.
Objective of the Workshop:
To create a concept for the front cover of Innovator Scotland.
The Process:
Barry already had a few mocked-up front covers that had been suggested by his team in Scotland. The first point of call was to discuss these covers, looking at what was right with them and what wasn’t quite working. We discussed ways that they could be improved, as well as what components could be taken forward to create something else.
After some incubation time on the covers we had seen, we decided to try and come up with some entirely new concepts to give Barry as much choice as possible. We started brainstorming everything that the magazine wanted to stand for and what it immediately needed to portray to the reader.
Then we began throwing out some initial concepts.
In turn, each person put forward a suggestion which was recorded by one person whilst another drew a rough sketch of what it could possibly look like. No concepts or ideas were evaluated, even if they seemed silly or unrealistic; the evaluation stage was reserved for later in the process.
Gradually, throughout the session, our confidence grew and more and more ideas were produced. One idea from someone would spark off an illuminative moment for someone else and so on and so on. Some ideas were based on conventional thoughts of innovation and some were completely off the wall. The week that the workshop took place was also the week that saw the end of the incandescent light bulb, something that was once so innovative and viewed as a symbol of ideas and innovation, but now obsolete. We involved this current topic in ideas as well as thinking of any other current topics that were appropriate to innovation.
As the session drew to a close, we collated our ideas and allowed our minds to incubate them before coming back for an evaluation stage.
When we did start to evaluate, we looked at consistent themes within our ideas. How many work along a similar topic? How many use the same kind of imagery? Can any of these be put together to form something even better? Were there any ideas that people didn’t like? What did we feel strongest about?
One theme was the use of typography and very bold, contrasting colours. A lot of our ideas used little imagery but instead relied on a strong message delivered in type, boldly displayed across the page in bright colours. Statements included ‘Innovation is the new black’ or ‘The Death of the Light Bulb.’
Our final solution was gradually beginning to formulate as we decided for a final typographical approach with one bold statement: ‘Innovation Inside Out.’
Our workshop was very successful. We produced so much in such a short time and the end result was very workable and original. We used many established methods of idea generation and development as well as making up some new ones along the way.
Barry Shafe continued forward with some of the concepts we came up. Pictured is the final front cover for ‘Innovator Scotland’ along with a link to an article in Design Week praising it’s innovative design.