OUGD503 - Design Process 2: Collaborative Practice Studio Session 1

Before this session we had been asked to decide on a collaborative partner, fill out the form relating to why we have chosen our partner, and also choose 3 briefs and bring them to the session printed out. Issy and I brought along the following briefs:

• Champneys
• Bear
• Purdeys

During this session Fred first of all told us about this part of the module and how we must document, evaluate and respond to the brief individually and as a collaborative partnership. After Easter we must have 5 A2 boards printed out to tell the story of our collaboration, these will be produced individually.

After this introduction we were then asked to list the pros and cons of each brief and we were given half an hour to do this exercise.

Champneys

Pros

• Could propose digital resolution
• There are no limits on the deliverables
• It is something we are both interested in
• Both like their branding
• Both would want to promote their company
• We could potentially look at product and packaging to create a student range
• This could include a 20% off voucher for example
• We are the target audience
• We could visit Champneys and propose our ideas for feedback

Cons

• Age of audience is challenging

Bear

Pros

• Playful and fun brief 
• We both like the target audience

Cons

• Hard to improve an existing product design
• A lot of mandatory requirements
• If we include a game we have two audiences, the child and parent
• How simple is simple?

Purdeys

Pros

• Both love packaging

Cons

• Only one winner
• Audience - people that want to be happy (this is everyone)
• Limited submission
• Less time
• Both considered it for individual practice and decided against it
• End up losing motivation

We then realised that there is a clear winner, Champneys. We had both thought this would be the case to start with but it became even more apparent after completing this exercise.

We then spent 45 minutes reviewing the forms we had previously filled out so that we could fill out our joint collaborative form. This was a fairly straight forward procedure as we both had written down much the same as each other.

We decided not to fill in the individual responses just yet, as we wanted to have more of an in depth discussion before documenting it. We are going to meet up before the next session to do this.

As a group we then discussed roles and responsibilities and Fred wrote a list for us to note down:

Roles

• Time management (project)
• Resources
• Contacts/Communication

Responsibilities

• Style/Brand guidelines
• Research
• Agreements
• Meet deadlines
• Maintain clear communication

We were then told what we would need for the next session:

• Roles/Responsibilities
• Work plan
• Idea generation
• Pitch idea
• Bring confirmed plan typed up

I am really looking forward to getting started on this brief as I feel as though we will both benefit from it a lot and learn an awful lot in the process. I am hoping that we will be able to visit Champneys as this would really help us to develop an understanding for their brand.