Creative Director Mark Bowers on the power of team bonding to generate great ideas.

A team of creatives and account handlers recently took advantage of one of the many benefits of being a D&AD member and dedicated a whole day to coming up with new ideas.

Based on the popular Ideas, Ideas, Ideas training day the D&AD offers, we spent the day at Ziferblat, one of the most inspiring venues in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, well known in the region and beyond for its creative and inspiring energy.

Nick Eagleton, Creative Director at The Partners in London tailored the course specifically just for us. It was a very active day full of listening, learning, and fun. Working from two fictional briefs, everybody got stuck into a day dedicated to the process of generating new ideas.

We were split into teams, and then swapped around to improve other people’s existing ideas, all with the aim to create even bigger and better ones. It was a truly democratic creative environment where everybody involved has a stake in the outcome, produces stronger and more varied creative solutions and the creative team benefits as much as our clients. This kind of investment in our staff and clients shows our ongoing commitment and belief in creative quality both in pure design and conceptual delivery.

Everyone in the team had a great inspiring day, and we all agreed it was really exciting to come out of our comfort zone and dedicate ourselves to an industry-recognised course that not only lets us a bit “loose” with our creative process, but that was also excellent for team bonding and further improving the quality output of the agency.

Nick Eagleton was as satisfied as we were with the outcome:

“Going into a room with a bunch of people you’ve never met and building a whole load of new ideas from nothing always seems like a crazily risky endeavour, but it never fails to astonish me quite how much can get done in so short a space of time, and how much fun it can be to do.

A day with the Parker Design team was a brilliant example of what makes it work: a spirited and lively group who threw themselves completely into it, had playful minds, took risks, and pushed each other to come up with memorable stuff. Days like this are what makes the training all worthwhile.” 

Nick Eagleton – Creative Director at The Partners