There’s more to design than just making things look beautiful or eye-catching. Design is about solving problems and helping products to serve a purpose. Design projects and jobs today are becoming increasingly complex, presenting businesses and creatives with problems that cannot always be effectively solved by just one person.  

“Effective collaboration in design is almost like a secret ingredient to success,” explains Rogan Jansen, co-founder and creative director at Cape Town based design studio DashDigital. “Teams that harness the power of teamwork unlock creativity that reaches new heights and empower themselves with the ability to create solutions that not only do the job but address a wider array of needs and preferences too.”  

Benefit from unique perspectives

One set of eyes, life of experience and imagination can only get you so far. The beauty of collaboration within a group of people allows each and every individual to bring with them a fresh set of eyes and affords them the opportunity to share their unique life experiences. This in turn often results in a greater level of inspiration, innovation and most importantly understanding.

“The ability to understand different people’s beliefs, perceptions and thought processes not only builds a foundation for great teamwork but also helps designers to better understand how their end users could view the world,” says Jansen.

And in turn, this greater understanding of more diverse thoughts and experiences empowers designers and creatives to properly lean into crafting content or creative that has a better chance of representing the end user or customer better, and also gives them a proper shot at ensuring the customer resonates with the content too.

An opportunity to learn

Self-study and research can get you a great footing. But when it comes to creating content or a product that users or customers will eventually see or make use of, there is no better place to learn than from your teammates, particularly when it comes to reviewing one’s work.

“Great designers take feedback and critique seriously and use it as a means of improvement,” says Jansen. “The design process thrives on critical evaluation and opinions, and again greatly benefits from different people’s points of view and thought processes. The review of one’s work in a peer-to-peer environment is a powerful tool that helps individuals learn from others, iterate as needed and in turn create more authentic and successful work.”

Working hand in hand with clients

In times past, there was always a clear division between agency-side and client-side, which is highly counterproductive, no matter which way you look at it. Like collaboration in one’s own team, collaborating with clients in the design process has many benefits.

“Understanding the client’s need has and always will be critical to creating successful design, but this isn’t simply achieved by reading a brief,” says Jansen. “Clients and creatives must work together to understand goals, preferences and expectations for the project. It is also crucial that clients and creatives remain on the same page throughout the design process. Meeting once at the beginning of a project and then at the end is a method for disaster.”

Frequent check-ins, Q&A sessions and status updates go a long way to ensuring the final product meets the objectives and expectations.

“Collaboration really is the key to fostering creativity and driving successful projects forward. Teamwork in all facets thrives on variety of thinking and experiences and allows many heads to come together to problem solve and ultimately create powerful content or customer experiences,” concludes Jansen.