Developing our future

Here at Giant Peach, we’re all about using what we’re good at – life changing digital – to make a difference. We love creating meaningful and engaging digital experiences – and we’re also passionate about bringing people together to share, learn and inspire each other.

Which is why, once a year, we invite sixth form students from Kingdown School to come to our HQ, The Barn, and get the chance to develop an app which attempts to solve a real, pressing problem. But it’s not just the students who get the chance to learn something and be inspired. Challenging beliefs, teaching and listening all happen both ways. Here’s what happened.

This year’s theme was CleanTech, and the eight students were given their brief at 9am sharp: design an app which is going to help users reduce their carbon footprints. Child’s play, right?! But they didn’t have to do it all on their own. Under the watchful eye of our fearless leader, James, the students set about brainstorming ideas for apps – starting by thinking about the problems that the app might be able to solve.

From a big list of ideas the two teams finally whittled them down to one idea each. The teams set about mapping out the stories of their apps – a must do for any app, brand or product, before planning three wireframes on Giant Peach’s huge whiteboard wall with the help of our Creative Director, Joey.

Then came the hardest part – coming up with a name. Thankfully, any Apprentice-esque cringe-worthy suggestions were avoided, and the teams also had plenty of ideas when it came to the branding, logo and look and feel they wanted and included in their creative brief to the GP design team.

Planning how to spread the word about their apps was next on the agenda, with the teams delving into their target audience and deciding where and how they were going to get their message out. After a hectic morning, a well-earned lunch of pizza was served. We love a good get-together over some grub, and the break gave the students the chance to ask the Peaches about working at a digital agency.

Suitably fuelled up, a final polish of the logo design followed lunch, with the design team of Joey and Euan bringing the students’ ideas to life. Then came the big moment – the pitch to Account Manager Helen and Project Manager Ed. Incredibly impressed by the students’ confidence, ideas, commitment and effort, Helen, Ed and the rest of the Peaches gave the teams plenty of positive feedback and practical advice to see them on their way.

Was the next Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg in the room?

We’ll all have to wait to find out!