Client: ?What If!
Venue: The Brewery, London
Dates: August - November 2004
Budget: £57,500

RAW was ?What If!’s biggest event in 2004. Teams from ?What If!'s client companies were invited to spend a day listening to and taking inspiration from a multitude of speakers. On the main stage delegates saw Tim Smit (creater of The Eden Project) and Miles Hilton-Baber (an explorer who has been solo around the world in 80 ways, despite being blind). I took my inspiration from images of raw ingredients and serving food, creating a pile of plates for a stage, complete with cutlery podium, a huge folded napkin hanging above the stage, and giant vegetables around the room.

Each of the six breakout rooms had to accommodate two speakers, speaking in rotation. I paired the list of speakers together, and came up with a common theme around which to base each room. For example, the reformer of school dinners and the founder of Coffee Republic spoke in a room themed with a fast food counter. Other rooms were themed as an English garden and shed, a room of scientific formula, a school art room, and a room of picture frames for a couple of serial entreprenuers, with single images, plasmas and text of their many companies. Finally, each speaker had individual props and / or images to change the room to tell their specific story.

On feedback forms, 87% of responders gave the design 4 or 5 out of 5.