Third years given Creative Detox

Last week the third years were given one of their toughest briefs to date. I'll let third year students James and Charley explain:

"Our brief this week was do nothing. Absoloutely nothing!

"In an attempt to avoid creative burn-out the brief from Gyles and Mike was to stop advertising. Drop the whole subject. Completely. Put any creative problems out of our mind as completely as possible. The idea of this week was to turn to whatever stimulates our imagination and emotions and refuel.

"As part of this innovative 'detox' week, we were all booked into the local health spa (in the form of the brand new and very impressive Enterprise@Lincoln building next to the Library) for a 'Creative Detox' workshop run by Punch It Up (funded by Enterprise@Lincoln's Innovation Fund). None of us had a clue of what to expect and entered the workshop with open minds.

"Within minutes we were all walking around the room pointing at different things, calling a chair a dog, the window a cauliflower and the door a whale. Any inhibitions that any of us may have felt were thrown straight out of the window as we were chucked head-on into this liberating and light-hearted half-day session.

"We completed a range of activities hell-bent on removing, demolishing and completely obliterating any creative blocks that we had. And we did some pretty strange stuff as we sat on the floor, walked around the room, made a lot of noise, closed our eyes and stared deep into the carpet. The whole experience was SO beneficial: effectively demonstrating how each and every one of us unconsciously block and limit creativity. And how that impacts on our ideas – particularly when working collaboratively.

"Mandy Wheeler, the fantastically inspiring workshop leader, opened our minds and revitalised the often mechanical and methodical ways of working that we found we had inadvertently slipped into. She encouraged new ways of exploring ideas which took the form of techniques such as saying 'Yes, and...' and 'The infinite imaginary box in the floor' to effectively help push forward and develop our thoughts. The workshop made us very aware of the dangers of 'blocking' ideas and the serious limitations that can result."

Many thanks for that report, James and Charley. Glad it was so worthwhile.

And THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH to the great people at Enterprise@Lincoln for helping us organise this innovative and pioneering event. We're now exploring the possibility of making this an annual fixture.

Now then third years, time to get back to the business of creating great ads...