I like working with designers. It’s something I’ve done for most of my career. Designers and writers think a little differently but their ways of thinking can be complementary.
This week I’ve been working with different designers on projects for a property firm, a supermarket and a healthcare company. In each case, it’s been a creative help to think about the visual aspects of the project. In a way, it’s another example of the creative influence of constraints.
What happens is that you don’t just read the words on a page, or hear them in your head, you see them for their potential effect on a creative imagination. Although I write in expectation of this, I’m nearly always filled with admiration for the extra surprises that emerge. It becomes a dialogue in which the designer can contribute words and the writer can suggest design. The words create images that lead to other words that feed into more imagery. Somewhere in the middle of this you are working with a shared idea – if the idea is strong (whether visual or verbal) the work springs into life. Often that idea is a metaphor – and a metaphor is a way of creating vivid pictures in someone else’s mind.
I’ve been thinking of this too because D&AD have just announced that I’m to be Foreman of the 2010 ‘Writing for design’ jury. http://awards.dandad.org/2010/html/Writing_48.html
It’s my fifth time on the jury and second time as Foreman. It’s always good to see the best of what other writers and designers have been doing.
And on 9th December I’m running two workshops with Neil Taylor on ‘Writing for design’. The phrase is pursuing me at the moment. These workshops are for the Design Business Association (DBA) and I’m looking forward to meeting designers from the rising generation. The workshops are part of a two-day event called The Edge http://dbatheedge.com/day1 . It’s all about making the links between risk-taking, creativity and success.
