'Mr Toshiba dies in an freak yachting accident', and other events.

This week I was fortunate enough to participate in a workshop with designer and director Johnny Hardstaff. He has created many innovative moving image works, and has represented many leading brands including Toshiba, Sony and Orange.

Our brief was to develop a new identity for the brand Toshiba. We had 24 hours to develop our strongest idea, with the focus not on a final, crafted piece, but the generation of our concept. As Johnny explained "original ideas are the only valuable currency now. Great ideas are everything".

It was an intense couple of days: with frantic brainstorming, energetic group crits with Johnny and constant updates to the brief - which included the budget of the campaign being frequently reduced and the owner of Toshiba dying in a "freak yachting accident". Johnny would introduce more and more (somewhat ridiculous) changes, for instance we were told not to use the colour blue in our work, and that "Mr Toshiba" hated Alsatian dogs and lions, and therefore did not want these to be included in our ideas. Although it seemed ridiculous, he explained that we will face similar restrictions and changes when entering the industry, and this is something we will need to be able to work around. Clients will know what they want, and how they want it. It also made the whole process really exciting and fun.

My concept developed around the idea of creating a Utopic experience for the customers, with Toshiba as the means in which to achieve this through the use of their products. I was one of the individuals picked to pitch my idea in front of the group, and it was agreed that this was quite a strong concept. I chose the phrase "THIS IS NOT A DYSTOPIA" as something to draw my audience in, and this seemed to be quite a successful ploy. However, Johnny felt that my application of my concept (of getting the public to create their own idea of a utopia, through interactive and visual effects) was somewhat not defined enough. I completely agreed with him and the rest of the group; I liked my idea but really struggled with producing something that I felt worked well at presenting it.

It was a really valuable - if tiring - couple of days, and Johnny was brilliant at motivating us and making us aware of different sides to design. I really enjoyed it, and feel that the exercise will benefit the way I approach my work, and employment, in the future. It's definitely good not to be scared: "it's really good for your brain / self reliance / confidence".