Those that have been following this blog will know that last week was BracketLab – a 2 day project which brought together a group of freelancers to work collaboratively on a website and marketing campaign for Bracket’s new creative agency (which intends to work in the same way).

Did it work?  Even better than expected!

By the end of the two days we had:

-       a new website with a wordpress theme built from scratch, based on a new colour palette

-       a series of illustrations and text visualising the Bracket collaborative process, as well as text throughout the website

-       a range of characters to be used in an animation for an online viral video

-       a series of images to be used in a printed promotional campaign

-       and the beginnings of a film documentary

So how was this achieved?

We spent a long time (the first half of the first day), using Bracket’s developed techniques to generate ideas, set aims, and identify the tasks to be completed   Our essential toolkit for the two days included magic whiteboard, post-it notes, and coloured pens and markers.  By lunchtime, the walls of THECUBE were covered with words, diagrams, scribblings and plans of what was going to happen over the next day and a half.

Being in the same room together meant everything could happen quickly and seamlessly.  Laura (copywriter) worked with Emily (graphic facilitator/illustrator) to iron out the Bracket process which informed the text and illustrations; Naomi (graphic designer) worked with Joel (filmmaker) to develop the colour palette for the website and the characters used in the animation and illustrations; Matt and Andy (web-developers) worked together to set-up the website, and then Matt worked with Naomi to translate her page designs to the web, whilst Andy worked with Laura on the search engine optimisation (SEO) keywords.  It was great to see everyone’s ideas gradually coming to life.

Furthermore, everyone said that they enjoyed the experience – meeting new people, working with others and adding an interesting project to their portfolio.  Through the agency, Bracket intends to run more of these ‘labs’ to deliver commercial projects.  For more information on Bracket’s creative agency and to get involved, visit www.bracketcreative.co.uk