OUGD602 - Creative Convos Branding - Collaboration

6D2.

Collaboration:

Due to the nature of this brief, it was thought that the development of the branding for the Creative Convos event would work better if a team were put together to work collaboratively. Based on my strengths as a designer and what the branding required in its production, I was chosen to join the existing team of two, along with three others. Whilst the brief was rewarding in itself, it did not come without it challenges and valuable experiences. The fact we were all chosen to be a part of the team based on our strengths and what the branding required was a good strategy and something which should be considered in the future when thinking about collaboration, since this allowed different aspects of the branding to be distributed evenly amongst the team with better results in each aspect if being developed by someone with the appropriate skills and interests. This also meant that the team size allowed for everyone to bounce ideas off each other and offer feedback throughout the development process. However, in some cases this was found to work the other way in that everyone had so many ideas it was sometimes hard to work with everyone's ideas, which meant producing a lot of initial developments and some compromises to find out what worked the best.

Throughout the process there were also some communication issues, with team members like myself not being made aware by other team members about changes they decided to initiate, which made the task of completing work to certain deadlines a lot harder. This showed how communication is key to any collaboration and in future I should plan out my time to factor in problems such as this without the risk of not having work completed by a specified deadline. Taking lessons from HAWRAF's google drive, if this were a paid client job, any issues such as this should incur fees since the brief would have to be extended meaning more work and wasted time which could have or needed to have been spent on another client brief.

In conclusion, when collaborating...

- Play to people's strengths and interests in terms of their creative practice.
- Remember to discuss all changes with the team since these changes may also be applicable to other areas of the design development.
- Discuss ideas, ask for feedback.
- Plan time effectively to factor in potential problems which could affect the smooth running of the project (if a paid client brief, create a business plan which incurs fees for such problems).
- Find a good team size, a good balance.