DESIGN PROCESS 2 - COLLABORATIVE - SESSION 1

CHOOSING A PARTNER

The first task of the collaborative brief is to choose a partner. However, before choosing who to work with I made a list of things to take into consideration when selecting a work partner;

• What skills do they have that will complement my skill set?
• Will they stay organised and on top of the workload?
• Will they be easy to work and communicate with?

Before I approached anyone I was asked by Joe if I wanted to work with him. I accepted on the terms that he has an applicable skill set that allows him to create effective solutions for a range of different design areas such as packaging and editorial design. Furthermore, me and Joe have a good relationship and similar aesthetic taste, therefore communicating about ideas and design decisions will be an easy yet productive process. 

CHOOSING A BRIEF

After defining Joe as my work partner we had to choose a brief from the D&AD or YCN websites. Before we started looking at the various briefs I had to communicate the fact that I did not want to produce work for a large corporation, as an ethically driven designer I do not want to support large corporations as I see them as responsible for many of the problems in the world. Communicating this aspect before choosing a brief allowed us to quickly narrow the choice and helped speed up the process of selection. 

We arranged to spend a few hours at my house reviewing and selecting an appropriate brief that plays to our strengths as designers. Therefore, before outlining our selections we listed our individual strengths as designers.

MY SKILLS;

• Craft - Production process.
• Ideas generation - Thinking of functional concepts.
• Concept development - Developing ideas and outcomes.
• Project management.
• Layout.

JOE SKILLS;

• Typography 
• Ideas generation - Thinking of functional concepts.
• Colour - Strong knowledge of colour theory.
• Craft - Production process.

After outlining our individual skills as designers we chose three briefs relevant to the skills outlined above. Choosing briefs that apply to our strengths will ensure that the work is relevant to our individual design practice and will allow us to create an effective outcome. 


CHOSEN THREE BRIEFS;

• Bear (cereal) - YCN
• Fedrigoni - YCN 
• Monotype - D&AD

BEAR BRIEF -

WHY CHOSEN;

• Ethical - Brief promotes health cereal to kids while provoking them to learn.
• Illustrative - plays to our design strengths. 
• Typographic - Plays to Joe's strengths. 
• Creatively open - Can be creative when forming outcome. 

FEDRIGONI BRIEF -

WHY CHOSEN;

• Creatively open - Can be creative when creating outcome.
• Ethical - promotes recycled paper range.
• Can directly relate to target audience.
• Craft drive - plays to both mine and Joe's strengths as designers.

MONOTYPE BRIEF - D&AD

WHY CHOSEN;

• Typographic - plays to Joe's strengths.
• Typographic - allowed me to further develop me understanding of type. 
• Large workload - plenty of work for both me and Joe.
• Substantial room for development.

FINAL BRIEF CHOICE;

FEDRIGONI

CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP FORM

Finally, after outlining a brief I completed the creative partnership form ready for our next collaborative session with Fred.