Student

Graduate

Neither

BA Graphic & Media Design

BA Design for GraphicCommunication

FDA Design for GraphicCommunication

No response

Illustration

Commercial Music

Electrical Equipment

Student/Graduate/Neither?

Which course? Currently working in a creative field?

Yes

No

No response

Intern

Freelance

Other

What kind of work?

Participants in the Creative Collaboration survey

How important has collaboration been during your studies?

Very important

Quite important

Not very important

Unimportant

No response

Why is collaboration during your studies important to you?

It’s nice to work with others and pool ideas.

You can’t do everything by yourself, so you focus on one thing you are best at and find people to help you with other stuff you need.

It has helped me to develop my ideas with feedback from my peers and it prepares you for a working environment.

Its extremely important, everyone has a different creative stand point and that collaboration can really push an individual and make a huge difference to the end product.

To see how you delegate and work with others. Team dynamics, in which skills will be transferable in the creative industries where projects are usually undertaken by several people at a time.

I’m using a collaboration project for one of my projects on my course, very helpful to show the growth of a design team.

I don’t have all the skills required to realise an idea.

Interesting to feed off each others ideas, to come up with something that you wouldn’t think of by yourself.

That will help to build my interest in design industry and Art, design generally.

People introduce different ways of perceiving imagery, along with an awareness of topics or artists or themes that you wouldn’t otherwise stumble upon. People influence people. There is much dexterity in combining creativity.

Idea generation, critiquing work.

Especially at the researching phase you need to collaborate with other people to help ‘join the dots’ in understanding things about the project.

Importance of collaboration during studies

Why is collaboration during your studies not important to you?

A lot of the projects everyone just works on individually. I would have liked to have done more collaboration but sometimes it can be very hard working with others and all finding a time that you are free.

Open briefs, allowing room for personal venture.

We have had few projects that encourage collaboration.

I prefer to work alone and at my own pace, I don’t like the idea of having to follow a set of rules and feel pressured to come with an idea or outcome to please the team. I find it much easier to please myself first before I worry about pleasing others. If the idea is good to me I will find a way to advertise this to others and get them on board, but it’s much harder in a team.

Few projects have required it and time management is something of a short coming within my circle.

I think it is important to a degree, but I personally did not enjoy collaboration during uni, i think when you leave uni and collaborate out of choice, better results can be gained.

I’m smart.

Very important

Quite important

Not very important

Unimportant

No response

How importance has collaboration been at work?

Importance of collaboration whilst working in a creative field Why is collaboration at work important to you?

Well, being a freelancer is all about collaborations. That’s how you get your jobs - you collaborate with other (in my case artists) who need your skills.

When you’re working within this industry, working as a part of a team is vital, knowing how to share ideas is fundamental to this sector.

Going away with an idea is beneficial for personal development but congregating at the end of it highlights and nurtures areas to work on and adjust. Suggestion is key in guiding the outcome to a conclusive successful result.

You need to share ideas and pass work around, so it is important to communicate effectively and work together.

I didn’t have all the skills required to realise an idea.

While working in design industry, collaborating with creative people is quiet vital as it will keep your interest (again), sometimes working in real life scenario can be quiet stressful and you don’t get to do what you really want. Collaborating depending on a project that will suits you is always a refreshment from stressful and busy environment.

To see how you delegate and work with others. Team dynamics, in which skills will be transferable in the creative industries where projects are usually undertaken by several people at a time.

Always liaising with clients / boss to make sure we both agree on design.

Because where I work there is a strong ‘team’ ethic so everything is done through collaboration.

I intend for it to be a large part of my graphic design career in creating full ‘big’ things. On a side not. My team’s ‘knowledge’ of working together will help lull my collaborators into a false sense of security, content in their understanding of my fairly aloof side they won’t suspect when the hammer drops and they are left betrayed and cold.

I’m smart.

Outsourcing various fields is necessary. But most output is done In-House.

Why is collaboration at work not important to you?

Because I’m not working in a creative job.

It’s a project where you’re mostly alone. As a freelance job it’s a lot easier if I was to work alone. We contact through skype phone and emails.

Future collaboration

Would you prefer to:

Yes

No

Maybe

No response

Meet with others

Communicate online

Both

Other

30%

65%

5%

0%

Both help at different points in a project, initially meeting face to face, then designs can be sent online.

Both, any way of communication is a great way to meet people, put pen to paper and just let ideas flow.

Sometimes meeting with others is not very convenient for others and that’s were online become reliable and it always be, as www becomes more innovative. However meeting with people always better as I get to meet other people, clearer communication, and can bring clearer concept outcome as group talk can contribute on time.Meeting and writing notes,

annotating the progress of the meeting. On the other hand online is where you come across a vast arrangement of dates and occasions. But one-to-one's will always generate more than online.

Meet with others as it’s often easier to put what you mean across verbally than through messaging etc.

Meetings, because it involves full interaction, you are not limited to your experience of current project, you can 'feel' what others expect from it and you can instantly solve any possible misunderstanding/issues.

Meeting with others would really be most useful, as it is a clearly way to communicate but communicating online helps with timing and peoples schedules.

It’s so hard to get the full picture online, nothing beats face to face chit chat.

In this day and age both are valuable lessons in liaising. Real time social interaction and participation is of course highly regarded as the best form of communication.

Both, so you could get the most out of it.

Why?

If there was an easy way to collaborate on creative projects outside of work/studies, would you be interested in participating?

Self-initiated

Client-focused

Both

What kind of projects are important for you to work on?

“It's not really. I like my job, so what's quite important now is just to get paid for doing it ;)”

“Inspiration and application comes in various forms.”

“Well, both can help me build my portfolio, also the more experience the better I can grow as a designer.”

“It is useful in the design process.”

“Money/passion”

“As I said sometimes you don't really get to do what you enjoy in some design companies.”

“It is great to be involved in both because one is your source of income and the other is your hobby (passion), the client focused projects will give you the tools and guidance for the self-initiated ones. You can often be given briefs that you don't enjoy or you can't place your personal touch to. Self-initiated projects are from personal interest and the input will be a lot more focused and engaging. It's always a bonus to have the two to refer to.”

“It is the basis of this industry to make con-tacts.”

“Control”

“Both could benefit from more then one person's ideas.”

“More fun and better results.”

“Making the most out of both.”

“It’s aims notinfected by the'money-factor'”

“So that we could create a really good result.”

“As something of a foot hold to gain and allow more credibility within the design community to do more self initiated projects.”

“So that we know that the work we are doing has purpose and usefulness.”

“I’m smart.”

% of people preferring particular timescales for group projects

One day One week One month Longer No set time

“From my experience I've learnt that long-time projects tend to be more difficult to manage if more than two people are involved in it.”

“As I prefer to collabo-rate on self initiated projects rather than 'business' its more practical to have no time limit due to other commitments.”

“You get the best result when everything is planned out meaning more time spent on every little issue to achieve the best result.”

“Less pressure on other commitments you have.”

“I think all of these time periods are great to work with in a group. It is interesting to see what you can produce in a group under different time scales.”

“It really depends on the project, the budget and the input each individual will make.”

“It would be good to have a range of options, as different periods of time would suit differently according to what your up to.”

“To let ideas flow freely and allow research to dictate outcomes.”

“Collaborating does not have to be Big but then it can be depending what the project is about.”

“It keeps you on your toes and makes you meet deadlines with the knowledge that it’s a quick turn out. You can churn out a lot in a week if you have friday as a deadline. Everyone needs discipline; you have a month, you have a month of over thinking and dilly- dallying.”

“I think it's good to see fast results, so one week would be enough to do a good project”

“My ideas are always best at the beginning, after a while I tend to wonder off topic.”

“I think it would keep me motivated, but it would on longer projects too.”

“Short and sweet should you wish to work with them again perhaps something else can be arranged.”

“Perfect balance of time. Not too short to produce something fully realized and not to long to lose interest and spark. Also deadlines get me all sticky and moist.”

“More time, more money.”

“If there was an option for two week projects I would chose it because 1 week is too short and 1 month is too long.”

“I’m smart.”

What do you hope to gain from collborative work?