#two.plus.two

TWO PLUS TWO.. First time for everything.

2+2 was an event in Manchester that I was chosen to be a part of. The aim of the game was to create something that would aid or raise awareness of loneliness in young people. My team, ‘Red Dog’, were the Wild Card, a last-minute joiner of the shortlisted groups. Unfortunately we were not 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place, but honestly I didn’t want to be. Let me describe the experience:

Let’s talk about the group.

The group that I was put in with were amazing in terms of ideas; two marketers and one advertising. Although once they found gold in their brainstorming, as they developed further it drifted away from the purpose. It started off as an app dealing cards of different distractions, where if one who felt lonely wished to do something to look away from the feeling, they would take a card and do it. This could be from walking in a park to joining a club. However, as I joined back after designing the logo for the brand, I found that their idea suddenly transformed into a social media app, which I encouraged them to stay away from since no social app will be up there with Facebook and Twitter anymore.

Marketers have a purpose in their career, to push things. To push an idea out, to push merchandise and adverts and just get the ball rolling. When both a marketer and designer are together, it becomes a different game. The marketer pushes, the designer guides them on where to push, how to push it, and who to push it towards. So being in this situation, I noticed that one of the marketers just wanted to push so desperately that they did not listen to how simple it could be. Like an ant pushing a rock uphill.

And did my group care about the design? No.

So let’s picture the scene: Large room filled with 50+ students, designers, mentors.. Judges staring at you, and two minutes on the clock to explain your shortlisted idea. The marketer hands me my microphone, designs in-hand ready to speak about this really sweet logo design and the setup of the app. As soon as it gets to my part, after the confident marketer describes the now ‘social app’, she decides to end the presentation with a minute to spare. The audience claps, and I’m there stood like an idiot.

Not once did I get to speak about the design. We rehearsed it, we spoke about it, I spent five hours creating this damn thing, and nothing. Not a word was said about the design aspect. That’s the most important part!! You can’t make the greatest tasting cake in the world and make it look like someone’s thrown mud on a plate!

The mentors said “The strongest part of your group is the logo. That logo is amazing. Nothing is as good as ‘UP’”. The logo was a joined ‘U’ and ‘P’ in a flowing manner, a one-stroke like to represent the relaxing state. I always believe that if a logo is successful in black and white, it can work with any other colour. Therefore this ‘UP’ is a solid black with a white background. I loved it, at least.

The unfortunate part of the event were the facilitators.

These were mentors throughout the event that would help ‘guide’ you through the brief and give you advice if needed. Sadly these mentors did not mentor at all, rather became those irritating, slow-moving flies that you couldn’t get rid of no matter how many times you wafted your hand.

It wasn’t that they were doing anything wrong, it was more the ‘catch ups’. You’ll explain where your group were up to to one, then another comes along wanting the same answer. It came to the point where there was no progress happening because of the constant interruptions.

According to my father (who has been in a similar position to these mentors), being a facilitator can be difficult, especially if there are more than two hovering. In my case, there were seven along with other random people. He told me to, next time, work with the ‘Sacrifice one, carry on’ system. This meant that if a mentor came along, one member of the group would speak to them while the rest carried on with the work. The next time another came, a different member would speak, basically taking it in turns. I wish I knew that sooner, as I was the only one quietly designing the logo and setup of the app next to the empty chair.

Overall...