D&AD: Collaboration

This brief was a collaboration with Seb who i'd never worked with before. I feel this experience was different from my other collaborations as he was also on the course and it was a competition brief. When I worked with Sam on Dr.Me it was more about being creative and getting a chance to experiment with different techniques than the devices we normally use. This brief by D&AD was more industry related and appropriate to our areas of design.

We selected a brief that suited both our strengths with a key focus of the final outcome being appropriate for our portfolios. This brief needed a strong concept as well as a clear and adaptable identity that needed to work across a variety of formats and mediums.

My strengths within this brief were the conceptual idea generation and design application of the concept across the different formats. Sebs was the layout, fine details and pushing the idea further in terms of medium and processes such as augmented reality.

Due to our strengths and weaknesses being so different it meant that we were able to bounce off each other and where one may of struggled the other offered solutions or skills. This is what I think contributed to a consistent brand identity that stuck to the concept of parallel. For example when creating layouts for the spreads and invites I would place the logo initially in different positions on the page such as centre and left corner. Seb however would point out that to create a strong consistency we needed to maintain some guidelines in place of application and layout of certain elements.

We did this brief in a very short turn around of about 2-3 days so considering the deadline and the amount requested of the brief I am really pleased with the results. Our attention to detail and strive for a clear and consistent brand identity driven by the concept kept our design focussed across all the different platforms of application.

However if I was to do this brief again I would defiantly of organised it to happen more in advance of the deadline. This would of meant a lot better mocked up images giving our solution the best possible demonstration of our design ideas. We would of also then been able to formulate clearer and organised boards which again is vital in displaying the idea to its best.

I would work with Seb again on a project as although we are friends, we are very different people and designers. What worked best for us is that we are honest with each other and aren't afraid to voice our opinions on ideas or designs. If one of us didn't like something we were able to speak up about it and as a result of this it meant we came up with something that was better and defiantly more on brief.

We both put in an equal amount of effort and time on this brief and except for the initial ideas and research, worked on it together which aided our short deadline as it would of took longer referring back to one another online etc.