Everything But Design

On Collaboration, Communication, and the Invisible Forces That Shape Creative Work

The Space Between

I've spent the better part of my twenties collaborating on various projects and while the conversations, people, and creations have been exciting, there have been ideas that have skirted the periphery of my awareness. A recent change in perspective has finally brought them into sharp focus and has helped me understand why they fascinated me so much. There's tension in words unsaid, sideways glances, pauses that invite something deeper and the release when things click.

I'm writing this to explore the in-between space, to document my thoughts and of course to share a collection of long held in ideas and realizations. Realizations on the profundity of human connection that brings creative work to life. The unspoken structures, accidents that become breakthroughs, the flow of energy and the context around design that shapes what it becomes.

01 The Tao of Collaboration

The concept of mirroring suggests that we see ourselves in others. I've come to realize the power of holding space and curiosity when staring into that mirror.

Your creative partner's hesitation on a concept might mirror your own doubts. Their excitement about an unexpected direction might reflect possibilities you couldn't see alone. A designer pushing for bold choices might be reflecting the client's suppressed desire to take risks. A questioning of every decision from one person might reflect the need for deeper thinking. In a lot of ways we don't just create together, we reveal each other. 

Just like staring into a pond, a stilling is necessary. A turbulent mirror only reflects distortions, distortions that lead to misunderstanding and friction that takes away from the joy of creation. Here Taoist practice offers a great solution, Wu Wei, or effortless action. A reminder to move in harmony with natural forces rather than against them.

I have learnt that some ideas need to be fought for and others need time to emerge naturally. The best ideas and solutions have come from directions that were totally unplanned for. Moments of silence, where progress seems to be nonexistent. An emptiness that offers fertile ground for the growth of design decisions and ideas that almost felt inevitable. So sleep on it, give it space, and it might come to you.
I wish I'd given myself the permission to hold space for myself earlier so I could do so for others, after all you can't offer what you've not given yourself.

02 The Language Beyond Words

Words might seem like the tools we use to discuss design and creative work but it is design. The way you deliver an idea shapes the idea itself. A hurried email creates different possibilities than a long walk. A formal presentation yields different insights than sketching collaboratively. In a lot of ways the medium is the message. With this in mind, I've had to think about the norms that influence how I communicate.

Thinking that brings up questions like:
Is the video call really the best way to discuss things?
Do I need to formalize the discussion or would a more casual setting offer more breakthroughs?
Would meeting in person offer the momentum and energy I might need? Or would rather preserve my energy and reap the the deeper reflection of communicating asynchronously?

Every collaboration develops its own rhythm. Like a beat, the surges of exchange and alignment are the strikes on the drum, with the moments of reflection and friction as the silence in between. The intensity of the surge and the tension of the silence are all valuable. Some partnerships have thrived on constant dialogue and others needed long stretches of individual work punctuated with focused collaboration. Some collaborations sporadically shifted between both. The magic seems to come when I tune in, honoring my own collaborative tempo as well as everyone else's, not forcing a one that doesn’t fit. 

03 The Context of Existence 

I looked at the circumstances I was in as a background, something to get over as opposed to an active participant in how I work and collaborate with others. An interesting mix of access and a lack of resources shaped my approach to problem solving, and while I can't deny the barriers extraneous circumstances brought, they've often forced ingenuity. However, context can lock you into patterns that you have to be conscious of so they don't entrench you in ways of thought and action that hold you back. This requires examination, awareness, and more often than not, help to notice and break out of. With awareness comes agency, both in working within limitations or finding ways to break out. There's also a massive importance in being aware of your collaborator's context, as well as your joint context.

For instance the space you work in changes how you think, messiness encourages experimentation while sterile environments might promote precision but discourage risk taking. Having a deadline creates different solutions compared to an open ended exploration. Loose but controlled is a thing I've taken to heart recently as well. Too much control and rigidity kills possibility, too little and things descend into chaos. The art is in holding the form loosely enough for emergence.

The culture and unspoken rules shape your interactions as well. They set the bounds of what's acceptable, what's appropriate... This offers borders to color inside, to deconstruct and to color outside of when necessary. 

With all that in mind it's important to view the environment as a co-designer that shapes the work you create.

04 The Alchemy of Perception

There's an excitement in presenting something I've worked on hoping whoever I'm presenting it to sees what I see in it. There's also an inevitable deflation when a design choice I made, an easter egg or subtext is missed.

Every piece of design/creative work leads multiple lives. A life that exists in the creator's mind, shaped by the choices, lived experience, iteration, and compromises made. Another life that exists in the final files/work stripped of its history. And the life that emerges in each viewer's perception, filtered through their own experience and context. This isn't a loss of meaning, if anything it's a multiplication of meaning. Work becomes richer as it encounters different perspectives, even when those perspectives seem to misunderstand the original intent. Living through the collaborative process carries invisible context. Echoes of abandoned directions, memories of the breakthrough moment when everything clicked, the weight of decisions that seemed obvious but weren't. This inside knowledge can be both a gift and a burden. It might make you defensive when others don't immediately grasp the work's brilliance. Or it might make you undervalue work that feels too familiar, forgetting that others encounter it fresh. That's the curse of the insider.

A set of fresh eyes usually catches things that I missed. A friend or partner without the blind spots of being too close might notice visual relationships that got overlooked. That's the blessing of the outsider.

The most resilient design work I've noticed, functions on multiple levels, rewarding both the informed insider and the curious outsider. It invites deeper engagement while remaining accessible to casual encounters. Good design should transcend context. A recent lesson on this was designing merchandise around anime's I loved and the designs that sparked the most interest were ones that could pull you in without the context of the design work or the context of the show.

Relationships Are the Real Work

I lose count of the moments of getting tripped up by focusing only on deliverables and final products. Slowing down helped me notice I missed the real product of collaborative design, the relationships that get built in the process, the understanding that develops, the capacity for future collaboration and the growth that only being mirrored offers. That's the part that lasts and offers transcendent meaning. Good design is truly the friends we made along the way😂

The products, objects, posters, paintings, websites and all the spawns of creativity are the visible traces of the process. Like footprints in the sand, they're evidence of the movement but not movement itself. Invisible but not intangible, because the change ripples outwards, each flutter creating shifts that we can't always track.

The technical skills can be learned, the tools can be mastered, the trends can be followed. However, the capacity to collaborate, to be mirrored and to mirror, to communicate through conflict, to work with context and synchronicity and to jointly tap into the creative ether is transcendent.

This zine was created through ideas that had me, conversations with beautiful souls and with the mysterious forces that guide creative work. If you've got push back, want to have a discussion or have burning thoughts, please reach out. I'd love to hear it. Thanks for taking the time

S.M 😁