As the role of a designer is becoming increasingly complex, a new and powerful tool is added: collaboration for the benefit of the creative designers. Teamwork has proven to be much more effective than the work of a solitary designer. Today, designers are not hesitant to work with multiple other designers; while sharing their own disciplines. Therefore, we have collected some pro tips that will help you master in creative collaboration.
Getting out of your comfort zone:
Designers usually hesitate to work in a diverse group as it can often lead to a disaster, but if they play the cards right, it can also lead to something great. You just need to get out of your bubble and explore the new taste of tools. As Johannes Schiel, owner of Unleashed Design puts it: “Collaboration in the design industry is always exciting because everyone tries to solve the same problems differently. When all these solutions are combined, there is something good going on.” Try to discover different specialisms and enhance your abilities.
Forget competitiveness:
In teamwork, the most important thing to understand is that there is no competition. Everybody is working for the same purpose. The key part of success in collaboration is mutual respect, understanding, tolerance, and unity. Booker T. Washington, a leader in the African-American community says, “If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” With a non-competitive spirit help your teammates if you think they’re lacking behind, as helping someone helps you too.
Make sure everyone’s on the same page:
Creating coordination between different departments is a big challenge, to maintain that you need to make sure that there is no communication barrier between the team. Having the right amount of communication will make everyone stand on the same page. “On a project, we have to work with strategists, clients, creatives, and users to create a digital product that fits the brief. So good collaboration tools and processes are completely essential,” says Arnaud Steckle, who co-founded communications agency Izhak.
Connect your tools:
The Adobe XD team is continuously discovering ways to level out the workflow for multi-team projects. “Collaboration is a key theme for this year’s improvements to XD,” reveals Adobe’s Andre Jay Meissner. “XD is already pretty awesome for designers, so for 2019 we’re focusing on supporting the workflows of large teams.” Adobe’s XD has introduced design teams with a robust tool that enables them to collaborate with other creative designers and stakeholders.
Don’t rely on phone calls:
It’s better to arrange a face-to-face meeting, as it gets the work done in half the time as it takes on the phone. Sharing your ideas in person is a better way of communication.