UNBLOK - Visual collaboration

In creative techniques such as brainstorming, it works very well to visualize your thoughts. A simple doodle is often enough to make an abstract idea come to life in the minds of the brainstormer and fellow brainstormers. Unfortunately, in our trainings we often encountered that people think they can't draw and therefore don't do it. We came up with UNBLOK to combat drawing paralysis and make creative techniques accessible.

Simple icons.

In the first stage, designers' ideas usually look like nothing. A little doll with rakes as hands, an asterisk here, a crooked table there. Most drawings you make in a creative method are combinations of the same recurring, simple symbols. The solution to drawing paralysis was actually just as simple: give people the icons ahead of time, then all they have to do is combine them.

Unblok digital.

When the corona crisis broke out in 2020, it became a lot harder to physically collaborate. To support UNBLOK users, we built a digital platform in 7 weeks (!). On this online platform, we tried to mimic as closely as possible the physical experience of UNBLOK and other physical tools. It caught on but at the same time the power of the physical tool became even clearer. When you sit around the table together, it's so easy to just move a cube when you have a new insight. Today, it's a regular part of UNBLOK in which facilitators can easily digitize a session.