In the advertising business there’s not often the chance to do something for the betterment of mankind rather than for say the flogging of cornflakes. Luckily for my conscience the good people of Pixel Group held an event last night called Brainy Hacks, inviting creative types to an evening spent working on a brief for a charity client, for free, food and booze thrown in. To add a bit of interest the attendees were divided into teams and a panel of industry big-wigs, including James Hilton (AKQA) and Jonny Watson (DARE), acted as judges of everyone’s efforts.
As I was in a team of people I’d never met before I was a little apprehensive, but with a few drinks we were all soon getting to know each other before the charity client and brief was revealed to us, the Worldwide Association of Girl Guides and their mission to tackle violence against women in communities across the globe. With such a massive task and just two hours to come up with a solution and present it to our peers, this was a much more daunting task than I had anticipated for a Wednesday evening.
But adversity often brings out the best in people and so it proved, with the busy scribbling of pens and noisy debate, fueled by plenty of beer, everyone bent to the task. After arguing for too long over which angle to approach such a complex, global problem, we came up with the idea of setting a date to effectively declare an end to violence against women in all it’s forms and work backwards with a world-wide campaign to encourage people to sign-up. We’d use the Girl Guides grass-roots organisation to spread the word and a website as a central international hub. Not a bad idea, but before we could further flesh out the idea further our time was up and we had to present to the judges.
Well long story short we didn’t win the competition, the judges went with the very impressive @saathcixgrads, but in truth pretty much all the teams came up with practical and smart ideas. What I learnt was not only is the combination of a tight deadline, a good cause and free beer powerful motivators, but that presenting an idea is just as important as coming up with the idea itself. The two top teams on the night not only had a strong creative execution, but they put their ideas to the judges and client in a succinct and engaging way. An idea is as good as wasted if it can’t be communicated properly and this is the essence of graphic design, although in this case witty banter and visual aids won the day.
All in all I had a brilliant night and much thanks is due to the organisers. In a way we were all winners, the Girl Guides Association got a bunch of creative ideas and the rest of us got a brain work-out and a buffet. I call that a great result all round. Sign-up me up for the next Brainy Hacks event!