What Is Design | The Concept of Collaboration

When you think of well known designers, you are aware of their individual projects and their most successful work. You also think of the studios they have worked in. One thing that can easily be overlooked, in design and in design studios, is the benefit and the positive effect of collaboration.

What Is Collaboration?

Collaboration is 'the action of working with someone to produce something'. Whether it be a designer and writer working together, or designers sharing their knowledge and skill with each other, collaborating is the relationship that is built between different minds. 

In design, collaboration can form ideas from multiple perspectives, beliefs, tastes and skill sets. You may have one person who has a more vast knowledge of typography, and another who has a skill for brand building. Whatever an individual is capable of doing, or how experience they are, collaboration can be beneficial with any and all projects.

What Can Collaboration Do For Design?

What do you think collaboration can do for design? This is where you weigh in. Let us know what you think collaboration is, means and can do for design and designers alike.

Just go to www.whatisdesign.co.uk and leave your thoughts and comments there!

What Is Design, and What Is It Worth?

Design is everywhere you look, and to some, design is everything. But, what is design worth?

Robert L Peters is a designer and principal of Circle, a design consultancy he co-founded in 1976 in Canada. He gave worth to design with just one quote "Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future." If this is true, and design really does determine the future, then the work designers do goes beyond their knowledge of Adobe, kerning and colour palettes. A designer's job, if this is the case, is to create work that has a positive effect on the future, and that's a lot of responsibility to carry as an individual. The design itself, also has a responsibility to translate its meaning as clearly as possible, which surely increases the importance and worth of design?

If design is everything, then wouldn't everyone be a designer? Emily Pilloton thought so when she said, "I believe that design is problem solving with grace and foresight. I believe that there is always a better way. I believe that design is a human instinct, that people are inherently optimistic, that every man is a designer, and that every problem can either be defined as a design problem or solved with a design solution." Are you a designer? Do you believe everyone is in their own way? If everyone was a designer, would it lower the value of designers? Can everything be defined as a design problem, or solved with a design solution?

What are your thoughts? Why not share them in our Linkedin Group, on Twitter, on our What Is Design website. or by tagging us in a picture or video on Instagram?

We'd love to know what you think!

Design Is | An Insight To Paul Rand

Paul Rand was an American art director and graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM and UPS.

You could say he lived the real Graphic Designer's life. Starting from the bottom with a part-time job creating stock images that were supplied to magazines and newspapers.

Simplicity, or Modernist Design, was at the core of everything Rand did. He said logos "cannot survive unless it is designed with the utmost simplicity and restraint." Simplicity takes restraint from the designer, and that's what makes it so complicated.

Design brings everything together, and creates an understanding for the person who sees it. Rand said "Copy, art, and typography should be seen as a living entity; each element integrally related, in harmony with the whole, and essential to the execution of an idea."

If your job is outside of design, it can easily pass you by - or at least you think it does. Design is everything, and it is everywhere. Whether you notice it or not, it is always doing its intended job.

I haven't changed my mind about modernism from the first day I ever did it... It means integrity; it means honesty; it means the absence of sentimentality and the absence of nostalgia; it means simplicity; it means clarity. That's what modernism means to me. - Paul Rand

Share your thoughts, either on our Linkedin Group, Twitter or our What Is Design website.

Design Is | An Insight To Saul Bass

Design can mean something different from one person to the next. Whether you are a designer, or you work with designers, you can understand it in completely different ways.

Saul Bass, an American graphic designer, said "design is thinking made visual". Best known for his design of film posters and title sequences, you can see why he thought this. With film, a poster or title sequence must explain not only the story in one image, but the themes and genre that run through it.

Design isn't just how it looks, it's an explanation of what the design is for and is about. 'Symbolize & Summarize' is how Saul Bass put it. This is what he did throughout his film work, most evidently in his work for Hitchcock.

Even when design has a purpose, which most of the time it does, there's always an element of artistry and care that goes into a designer's work. Saul Bass said "I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares." and I think deep down that's what we all want. Whether it's for a client, or for ourselves, there's a feeling that what you're creating is a form of art and like everything in life, you can't please everybody so it's better to go with what you think, or even know, is right.

What do you think of design? Do you agree with Saul Bass?

Let us know on our Linkedin discussion group or tweet us!

You can also send us your thoughts in word or design form on our What Is Design? site!

We help Kleeneze break free!

One of the country’s longest established and most successful shop-from-home companies has introduced a new suite of business development tools with our help.

Kleeneze, based in Accrington, is famous for its home, health & beauty, cookery and seasonal ranges.  The company has built its business around distributors circulating catalogues and collecting orders from consumers in their community.

With Kleeneze ambitious to grow across 2011, it commissioned Design Force to create a suite of business development tools that would enable existing Kleeneze distributors to recruit additional support to expand their sales area.

Simon says “Break Free” highlighted both the commercial strength of the Kleeneze business model and the quality and diversity of the company’s product ranges.  “In many ways, we have positioned Kleeneze’s products at the centre of the story.  Millions of consumers every year recognise that much of the Kleeneze range is unique – and this is an important element of attracting new people to help sell the range.”

Kleeneze’s Head of Marketing Chris Hinds said we had captured the essence of what the company’s proposition and personality was all about.  “Ultimately, our business is built around our distributors and their dedication to providing a great service to customers, teamed with their enthusiasm for sharing the business opportunity with others. Design Force understood the importance of this, and have helped us articulate this message simply, powerfully and effectively.”