Fun Shop.

Two-day workshop hosted by John Watters, a man who I rapidly gained a lot of respect for. Two days as in, on Thursdays for two weeks consecutively. Essentially, I saw this as a sort of 'break', not in the sense of relaxation but in the sense of diverting your mind's attention from the current task to carrying out a task more informal and fun, hence 'Fun Shop'. It was a collaborative ideas-based brief, involving the creation of a concept for an event in Leeds, Summer 2012.

The basic idea that the brief outlined was to create some kind of event that could effectively re-create the same kind of ethos and atmosphere that Woodstock offered; the sense of a tight-knit community-driven festival, for anyone and everyone. You know what I mean.

Also quite important to mention (in my opinion...), I was elected as a team leader. Not the sort of role I would opt for in collaborative situations, but actually I quite enjoyed it. I feel as though I performed fairly well, particularly on the first morning. 

'The Big Day Off' main concept board. Outlines our idea on the most basic level.

 

 

 

Concept boards outlining each of the sub-ideas. Go big or go home. John advised us that at this stage in any situation, it is always worth taking your ideas to the absolute extremes, regardless of budget or anything like that. So yeah, we came up with some fairly wacky ideas, something just a little different to your average. Perhaps maybe it wouldn't go so far as to re-create that Woodstock kind of effect, but it's the sort of thing that would still unite people.

Anyway we presented our ideas successfully and got a good response. The main thing I learnt from these sessions, and in fact from John himself, was that anything can be made possible - if you've got the idea, there will be someone who can make it happen.