Eventually, we manage to wrestle an idea to the ground, and work up a solid proposal document that details exactly what it is we are planning to do.

Mark and Tim lock themselves in a room for a day and work out the essence of the project, its aims & intentions, and how we propose to fulfill them.

Having short listed our ideas down to about 4, we decide to start working them up, investigating how they might work visually, before making a final decision on which idea to go with.

We start with a whole lot of research and some mood board material, stuck on the wall

Which we then discuss with the whole team to make sure we are all on the same page with the look & feel of the thing

The ideas that made it this far are roughly:

“Graffiti Wall”
Primarily about message leaving & mark making…

“Brain Game”
Based on Brain Training games, but with the intention of assessing the mood of the event

“Sparkler”
Purely about celebrating the gesture of drawing & mark making

And finally “Drawscape”
Focusing on the act of drawing or writing, adding to a landscape, a sense of wonder

In the end, we decide that perhaps “Graffiti Wall” and “Drawscape” can be shaped into a single strong idea, without dilution.

We start with a little experiment in the studio, Sanky hands round peices of paper with a red dot on them and asks everyone to draw, write, doodle as they wish, here are a selection of the results:

We all agree that despite providing people with very little to begin with (a simple red circle) the results show that, in most cases, we respond to this initial prompt. Even a minimal starting point influences how or what we draw or write. In the above examples people have made the red circle a button, a record, a cd, a round face, a button, a speech bubble, a camera shutter, and a japanese flag. Context plays a massive role in how people respond.

Mark had ideas flying out of his head!

Sanky tries to explain whats in his head