GDE 730

WEEK 5

The Collaborative Mix: Reflecting on Classic Models for Graphic Design Working 

This week the focus on looking at collboration as part of the creative process that designers undertake to produce an outcome. 

The main question driving the week was:

 What are the essential components of the collaborative mix? 

Lecture – Design to Change the World

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I think you have to get the right team of people together to build on your strengths. Not try and bring in the person who is absolutely right for that project. That might not be a person who’s ever done that before but they’re coming from the right place.

Morag Myerscough

Migrant Magazine: Christoph Miller

I really enjoyed Susannah's talk with Christoph Miller and Morag Myerscough, it was interesting them walking through actual projects they worked on and how the collborative process made those projects possible. At this point in the course, I don't have the time to do extensive notes. So my reflections here are my "notes" and focus on takeaways from the lectures. 

The process that Christoph spoke about for Migrant Magazine really illustrated to me the idea of "design authorship." The most impactful nugget of wisdom that I gleaned from everything he shared was that the theme of migration was important to him and those working with him. He also felt that the portrayals of the issue of migration and everything that it means was not really a part of public conversation. He felt that it was important and that it should be spoken about without agendas. So they decided to do something about it and hence the project came about. I had never thought of it this way. He knew what was important to him and he set about doing something about it. The project wasn't driven by a client need or brief. 

The scope of the project and how it's coming into reality required that the designers themselves dived into research was also interesting to me. They started to talk about the topics, and even took the topic where it went. Branding off into other areas like whale migration, and even money. They needed to create content and they weren't experts so they interviewed and collaborated with writers and experts to make elborate publications. It was also interesting how they decided to incorporate infographic approaches in the magazine to enrich the content and also create point of entries into the written parts of the magazine. 

Their plan from the outset was not let's create something and sell it. Because they took the intitiative and put something out there interest in the project grew and magazines also got interested. They also didn't stop at the publication alone but also created events from the piece itself to engage others into the conversation.

Sheffield Children’s Hospital: Morag Myerscough

With Morag's work for Sheffield Children's Hospital I found it very interesting how her ideas organically manifested as she collborated with and sought buy-in from the hospital staff and nurses and even the patients themselves. It was interesting to see that when you have a ethos you are working by people notice it like the Artfelt group, and even though she had done work in schools and not hospitals someone else saw potential for it to be applied in a hospital and sought her out. 

I really liked that she created mini physical prototypes of the hospital rooms with her designs after the nurses had seen her designs on the screen and somewhat "rejected" them since they thought it would be too much. She didn't get thrown off by that and presented a different way to look and almost had Artfelt and others create the buy-in. She relied on her vision and pushed through. 

For both these projects without people actually being involved these would not have actually taken shape. 

Lectures – Graphics that Engage

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I think here the most important notion is really that in this project the children were the writers, editors, the designers and the artists. We, Hato, are a distant memory to them. They are very much so the artists and the forefront of that creative project. I think it’s really through this notion or this idea that what we strive for to create a co-creative society, one where we are empowering the individuals to make the decisions and make informed thoughts.

Kenjiro Kirton

Kenjiro Kirton: Hato

I loved the ideas that Hato shared and their projects which highlighted two things that stood out to me. The idea of co-creation with people, community and society. The Bus project, the D&AD project both highlighted that Hato themselves were not creating the art per se but that it began to take shape and evolve and that the children or community themselves were the creators. Hato as designer enabled others to create and hence the projects became a participation or co-creation with others. I found that notion very fascinating and not something that I had actually thought of. 

The other thing that really stood out to me about Hato's projects was the underlying notion of 'play' that drove the design process. How their ethos emerges from embracing this notion that the creative process itself is about play and how even with a digital component they tapped into the idea of drawing, and of play at it's core allowing the co-creators and community the experience of play to create these stunning results!

Kellenberger White: Eva Kellenberger and Sebastian White

Eva and Sebastian's work also very interesting to me because of how they use the public as co-creators to accomplish the design outcomes. This was very refreshing to see especially how they hacked into crafts and repurposed the usage of a machine to create type. I've never thought of the design process as being informed and shaped by public participation. This idea is very new to me as a designer and I think both Hato and Kellenberger White have given me a new way to look at how collaboration can be used as the design process itself. I think what Eva and Sebastian have shown me is different from Hato in that they emply the idea of craft and typography.

Lectures – Pearl Fisher London

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Pearl Fisher's two projects for me also highlighting collaboration were refreshing for me because of how they demonstrate this idea of collborating with other artists. It's almost like the brief for both of these projects as they are branding related are taking on a vibrant identity where the designs are not the result of the designer but rather appeal to the audience because they show their voice visually as embracing and becoming the identity taking into consideration what they audience ant from that brand. 

With Havana Club Pearl Fisher tapped into the visual culture of Havana itself by tapping into the artists of the community. Its textures, colours, the hand-painting all take on a sensory experience which is extracted right from the local Cuban culture, which I think would not have been possible with a designer researching it and then creating something which looks like the visual culture which most of us do.

With Jameson, Pearl Fisher collaborated with 3 well-known artists. This brand offering was exclusive and upped that sense of being exclusive and high-end by using artwork to tell stories from actual well-known artists. Again here the brand takes on the visual vocabulary of the artists themselves without the designer being the sole creation of the brand. This was interesting to me because again I usually view the designer as being the sole creator of visuals as opposed to tapping into the unique visual language of others to let it take shape.

Workshop Challenge

CHALLENGE: What are the essential components of the collaborative mix? Find one example of collaboration past or present that has led to an exemplary and historically significant piece of work. Analyse the relationship of the collaborators and the roles they played; Research any documented history of the challenges they faced and the outcome they produced; Explore and analyse any specific approaches they took to their creative process or recording of their ideas that facilitated a successful outcome.
Design as an editorial piece (300 words), along with accompanying imagery. 

For my workshop challenge I looked at the collaboration of two information designers Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec. One lives in the US and the other lives in the UK. Both met at a conference and decided to get to know each other by creating a project, whereby they would send each other weekly postcards and communicate without langauge using data visualization drawings. By engaging in this way over time they got to know each other really well.

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For us, it was a conversation over a beer, where, barely knowing each other, we nervously started dreaming of ways to collaborate. This small interaction was the impetus for a project that consumed the next two years of our lives as well as became the foundation for a working relationship that, while not without its struggles, has developed into a collaboration with unexpected longevity.

Giorgia Lupi & Stefanie Posavec

Giorgia and Stefanie's collaboration was unique in that they for one communicated with each other like penpals without the use of language, the project required a tight brief which they collaborated to create each week. It was a personal project without a defined outcome from the outset. Designers were being designers and engaging in their craft. The analogue nature of the work also illuminated ways to translate datasets into different formats which required them to really collect and analyse data about themselves over the week and do extensive problem-solving in sketchbooks prior to making the final postcards. 

Although the collboration wasn't at a large scale like the lecture examples it showed me a way in practice how a designer can embrace who they are and what they do and just start a project with another that others may not understand in the beginning. It also seemed to follow the same trajectory like other collaborative projects where the process of creation becomes part of the creatives' journey and how the outcomes and oppurtunities arise for the creators organically after the project becomes known, in this case being compiled into a book and being a part of an archive at the MoMA. 

Below you find my analysis and 300 word write-up for the workshop challenge in an editorial spread:

300 Words:

“We didn’t speak English or Italian, we spoke data.”

Data is a beautiful book created by a collaboration between two information designers across two countries. Its a visual story of a friendship over 52 weeks. But that’s not what makes it so unique.

The two friends met at a conference and decided to get to know each other by sending each other postcards. This was unlike you or I becoming penpals though, because the two friends spoke to each other by creating infographics.

Over a span of 52 weeks, each week constrained by a theme per week. Stefanie and Georgia started to collect data about their lives. They each got a postcard and drew out their own versions of the weeks findings along with an elaborate key for the other to ‘read’ and interpret the data represented. No words were used just data represented in various formats.

What is so beautiful about this collaboration is that not only did their friendship grow as they began to learn about each other it also provided a way for their craft to grow while they tackled new ways to represent their lives to each other. They began to track what they did and focusing on the theme began to learn more about their own selves in the process.

Every week the designers chose a subject to collect data about themselves for the week. These prompts ranged from simple things like how often they complained, positive thoughts they had, when they felt envious, sounds they heard, doors they passed through, physical contact with other people. Once the data was collected and drawn out onto a postcard, Georgia dropped hers in an American mailbox and Stefanie dropped hers in a British one. Each postcard travelled and eventually would arrive across continents. It became a type of “slow data” transmission.

Eventually both designers collected this ‘personal documentary’ into a book. It was published both in the US with a cover by Georgia and in Britian with a cover by Stefanie. The project didn’t just remain a book, the 104 postcards were eventually acquired by MoMA and added to its permanent collection.

DearDataSpread
DearDataMockup

Final thoughts and reflection

I enjoyed diving into the week's lectures and examples of collaboration. At this point in the course I have had to stop taking extensive notes as there is just not enough time to do everything. I have spoken to my tutors and we have agreed it is best for me to write my reflections of the lectures and what I find resonates with me to manage time. I learned a lot and applied it to the final challenge. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this. 

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