PIXELS OF FURY, just add a little Teamspirit

“Design a commercial pattern, in celebration of London Fashion Week. You have 20 minutes. GO! Oh, and did we mention that’s in front of a live audience with cameras in your face?”

That’s the gist of Pixels of Fury, hosted by Shutterstock, and that was the challenge facing me when I was selected.

Having had the opportunity to compete last year, and 100% bottling it, when I received the email asking for nominees for the 2015 event, for my own peace of mind, I HAD to go for it. So I had a moment of bravery and filled in the application form, in the sound and secure knowledge that because I would never be selected anyway, I could sleep easy in the knowledge that at least I’d tried. So you can imagine my surprise when I received the ‘congratulatory’ email informing me I had been selected. Oh dear. That backfired.

So, 20 minutes to produce a response to the loose brief of ‘Design a commercial pattern’. On paper this is a very difficult thing to achieve, but fortunately, I work at Teamspirit. I am surrounded by brilliant creative minds, brilliant writers and brilliant directors every single day of the week. So actually, rather than being terrified about whether or not I could find a good solution to this brief, I was more concerned that I was going to struggle to choose WHICH solution to go with.

I aimed to design a piece that was both topical and humorous. The themes I wanted to explore were the ‘THIS GIRL CAN” campaign, aiming to encourage girls and women into sport, and the news that the Queen had become the longest serving monarch of all time. So I threw together a couple of quick visuals and sent them round to the studio for feedback and thoughts.

As I expected, the responses were, thought provoking, enlightening, exciting and numerous. They enabled me to fully develop my ideas to a stage I was comfortable with and if I’m honest, quietly confident with. After a couple of practice runs, I felt more than prepared to tackle the task at hand.

Now I just need to get over the whole ‘in front of a live audience’ thing. But fortunately, I work at Teamspirit. And at Teamspirit, you look after the people around you. This meant that, come the time to get on stage, I had an entourage of at least 20 people, brandishing handmade signs supporting my efforts. No longer was I worried or nervous, I felt like a celebrity.

Thanks to the support of my work pals, and the creative input of my fellow creative minds, I not only completed the task, but I completed the task in 15 minutes! Leaving me in the awkward situation of having 5 minutes changing colours back and forth and trying to pretend I was still designing.

Unfortunately, on this occasion I missed out on the final by 2 votes (a quiet relief on the night if I’m honest), but the whole experience just went to prove what can be achieved with such a supportive and creative team of experts behind you. Any limitations or stumbling blocks can be overcome. Briefs can not only be answered, but be added to, when you just apply a little Teamspirit.