Some old ideas for design briefs and talk formats came to my mind again yesterday. I would love to set these for students or colleagues someday.

Writing them up here to make them feel more committed, and to see if it helps them to manifest – as Matt Webb has convinced me that maybe there’s more to the idea of manifesting than I currently give credit.

Brief: 50/50

A fairly standard brief will do, to design a notes app, or signage for a building or whatever. The students have to submit two responses. One, has to be the most conventional and conservative response to the brief they can think of. The other, the most unconventional and unexpected response they can muster, while still technically answering the requirements of the brief. Each response will be marked for its merit and earn 50% of the total grade.

Brief: The client changed their mind

Set a fairly normal design brief, like a branding project or book design (with content provided). Give them 4 weeks, or so. Two days before the deadline you hold a big crit and everyone shares and shows their work. You then tell them that their imaginary clients have changed their mind, or that they don’t like the work they’ve just seen. Give the students a new brand name, new content, a new prescribed set of colours, and a typeface. Tell them they have (now less than) two days to submit another solution that fits these new requirements, alongside their previous 4 weeks of work.

Brief: Exquisite corpse

Works with any project lasting 4 weeks. Give the brief normally (don’t call it an exquisite corpse brief). After week 1, you get the students to randomly swap all work they have done so far, making each person carry on the thread of the work that they’ve inherited. Do the same after weeks 2 and 3.

Talk/Interview format: Browser history roulette

You hand your computer to the host, they connect it to the screen, and randomly pick interesting things from your browser history. You have to give context and explain how you got too, and what you got from each page.

Talk format: Random image roulette

Following a 20×20 presentation format (20 images, displayed for 20 seconds each), but someone else makes the deck. You have to try and talk to the images and create some sort of logical narrative / association, while acting confident and sincere.

Talk format: Explain to me. I am 5.

Following the format now popularised on Reddit, except you have a 5 year old on stage with you. You must explain to the child what you do, and why it’s important, in a way they fully understand. Slightly confident children needed to ensure they’re happy enough to say when they don’t really understand / that you’re not making sense to them.