Responsive- Design Process 2: Collaborative Practise

Preparatory Task:

Before we begin the first Collaborative Studio session, we needed to do some tasks to prepare for the session.

The first thing that needed to be done was acquire a Creative Partner. I was asked by Anna if I would like to be her Creative Partner as she felt that we had a similar temperament and hard-working nature. I felt that this would be quite a good matching as she is very hand-drawn and crafty in her creative responses to briefs and I felt that this would be something that I would like to try and compliment within my practise.

The second thing we needed to do was choose 3 briefs together that we would potentially like to work on which were D&AD and YCN Briefs of 2014. I didn't want to do a D&AD brief as I was already focusing on one, plus, when we had a look there wasn't a brief which excited either of us.

Bear YCN Brief 2014Available from http://www.ycn.org/awards/ycn-student-awards/2013-2014/briefs/bear (Accessed 2nd February 2014)

Anna already had a brief in mind when we started discussing what we would like to do. She liked the look of the Bear YCN brief as it was quite open to illustrative style and is relaxed in regards to be imaginative and creative with the response. I felt that this would be a brief which we could both contribute ideas and put a more hands-on, natural response to it.

Cath Kidston YCN BriefAvailable from http://www.ycn.org/awards/ycn-student-awards/2013-2014/briefs/cath-kidston (Accessed 2nd February 2014)

The Cath Kidston brief we felt would be one that we could work in an illustrative, hand-crafted manner based on the nature of the brand itself. This would be playing to the strengths of Anna whilst allowing me to be able to try something in this style. I felt that, even though it is just a pattern, we would both be able to come up with a lot of ideas and suggestions and visuals which we could bounce off each other.

Boost YCN Brief 2014
Available from http://www.ycn.org/awards/ycn-student-awards/2013-2014/briefs/boost (Accessed 30th January 2014)

We found it difficult to come up with a third brief to choose from but we liked the idea that, within the Boost brief, you were able to take more ownership of the brand itself by making your own flavours and concepts for the flavours. This appealed to us as it made for a more exciting brief with a larger amount of possibilities.

After deciding on the 3 briefs we wanted to look at, we then had to separately answer the questions individually on a sheet in relation to the chosen briefs and the chosen Creative Partner.

Individual Collaborative Sheet

This was to show what we are expecting from the collaboration and what we want to get out of the partnership.

Studio Session:

During the studio session, we got into our pairs and we had to go through each of the briefs we have chosen. We had to make a list of pros and cons for each brief and select one to do based on this discussion:

Bear Brief

Pros:
- Open to your imagination. Creative and idea-based
- Plays to our strengths
- Expand it to a large product range

Cons:
- Quite a lot of work if we did the full alphabet- could do just vowels
- Would have to think outside the box
- How can we approach the brief differently?

Boost Brief

Pros:
- Choosing own flavours gives more ownership over brief
- Never done bottle packaging- try something new
- Brief lends itself to job delegation

Cons:
- Target audience is unspecific and indecisive
- Could spend a lot of time doing flavour ideas that we could loose site of the brief
- Terrible tone of voice

Cath Kidston

Pros:
- Never done pattern design before- try something new
- Plays to the strength of illustration
- Expand the product range

Cons:
- Limited idea/ concept range
- Target audience is too specific
- Not much work for 2 people

From these pros and cons, Anna and myself decided to focus on the Bear brief as we felt it could be very imaginative and free for us to produce a response that is fun. I felt that we would be able to produce a series which could be collectable if we did this brief as a double team.

From deciding the brief, we then had to re-write the Collaborative sheet but we had to do it together.

Collaborative Sheet by the Partnership

This sheet would act as an agreement between the two of us as to who is doing what and what we have agreed upon as a collaborative.

As a class, we had to make a list of roles and responsibilities that we would have to take on during the collaboration creative process.

Roles:
- Project Management
- Time Management
- Resources
- Contacts/ Communications

Responsibilities:
- Style/ Brand Guidelines
- Research
- Fulfiling Your Agreement
- Meet Deadlines
- Maintaining Clear Communications

This was to make it so we started to become more specific in our approach to listing roles and responsibilities.

Study Task:

For the next session, we need to focus our roles and responsibilities so we need to produce a new version of the Collaborative Sheet with more specific roles and responsibilities given to each other. This needs to be typed up and handed in. Also, we need to come up with some initial ideas and concepts.

Alongside this, me and Anna decided to do some Research based on the topic of Bear and divided up some potential areas of research to give us a wider understanding of the market. (See Design Context Blog). We each produced some quick design boards to present our research.

Digital Design Boards of my Research

In regards to initial ideas and concepts, me and Anna met up and had a huge brain storm in regards to where we want the brief to go and possible concepts and ideas.

Initial Brainstorm 

Based on Anna's research, she suggested children of the age of 4-5 as the target audience who are either just about to start school or who have done a year of school. We liked this as this meant we would have more of a scope in regards to how inventive we could be.

Idea Generation

Going onto possible ideas and concepts, seen as we were in a collaboration and it is quite a small brief, we wanted to produce a range of box backs so we had a couple which we could submit as a group. An idea to do specifically with letters was a group of 5 based on the vowels A, E, I, O, U as it would be very words based but we weren't sure how this could link together. Topics that came up in conversation was perhaps having some based on public holidays, like Easter, Christmas, Bonfire Night, ext. which could be special edition boxes released at that time of year. Another concept was professions you want to be when you grow up, highlighting interesting career choices which new school beginners could aspire to through school. They would be based more on interesting and lively careers, like Fireman, Nurses, Teachers and Astronauts, which would capture their imagination and give them something to work to. Mythical creatures and adventures seemed quite a creative topic but there didn't seem to be too much of a concept behind it.

The main idea we came up with was the idea of basing the boxes on the 6 week holidays, having one box out per week of the holidays which would show a list of 7 things that could be done in that scenario, 1 for every day of that week. We felt that they could be based on things kids tend to do when they are on their 6 week holidays, such as being at home or in the garden but also places they could go to, like a farm, seaside, village fete or camping. This would encourage them to explore with nature and get them doing things rather than being sat around not doing anything which seemed fitting with the natural healthy ethos of the brand.

Idea Development

The list of 7 activities, one for each day of the week, would give them something to do and they would be able to continue this list of things to do onto the boxes in the next week, aiming to have achieved all of the activities.  This would mean that the brand would have their audience buying it for a consecutive 6 weeks during the holidays.

Following on from this, we made a list of possible responsibilities and roles which would be needed if we were to fulfil the brief in this manner.

Roles and Responsibilities Brainstorm

We split them into separate and joint roles that would be conducted throughout the brief and made a comprehensive list of responsibilities which ranged from general ones to specific to responsibility to the clients and audience as designers.

From this list, we went back to the Collaborative Sheet that we wrote during the session and developed it by including the more specific roles and responsibilities that we outlined within the brainstorm.

Collaboration Agreement for Hand In

This had to be typed up and handed into Fred for the next session.