Working with co-designers
Working with a co-designer can be a very different experience from designing alone. Get it right and the experience could be brilliantly productive and exciting. But, when you clash it can be extremely frustrating and borderline painful. So what can we do to try to make sure our co-design relationships have the very best chance of succeeding?
Make sure you get along. I know this sounds blindingly obvious, but it’s actually quite easy to end up in a co-design with someone you wouldn’t really want to hang out with. Yes, it’s possible to have a good working relationship with a person you wouldn’t want to socialise with, but it’s much more fun when you enjoy each others company.
Value trust and respect. This is a very creative space. You need to be free to make and play with ideas. If you’re afraid that your ideas (however silly they may be) will be laughed at or shouted down … that doesn’t bode well for the relationship. And that’s just the start. You’ll need to trust your co-designer at every stage of the process.
With co-designer Fagner Silva in Essen
Talk about the money. Before you launch into designing, make sure you agree on the financials. If you intend to pitch the game to publishers, discuss the royalty split. A 50/50 split is common, but there are situations where it might be different. If you’re planning to self-publish, it will be more complicated. You may need to have much broader discussions around division of labour before you can embark upon the project.
With Mandela F-G and our co-design Hire Me
Discuss timescale and touchpoints. One of the most frustrating things about working with co-designers can be when they are operating on a different timescale to you. You might work quickly and have the capacity to test regularly. But if your co-designer has much less time to give, the relationship can quickly start to feel one-sided. So talk about this up front. Work out what a realistic process might look like, and then agree on regular touchpoints.
Talk about process. Tell your (potential) co-designer how you normally like to work. Explain your process and find out about theirs. If one designer likes to concentrate on the visuals first to gain a real sense of what the game will look like on the table and the other is into scrappy prototypes with rapid iteration, someone’s going to be tearing their hair out.
Find the most productive way of working. Every co-design relationship looks different. Some designers spend intensive periods of time in a room together, thrashing out the design together. Some have regular discussions and then go away separately and try to work on the problems. Others may communicate mainly through shared documents. There is no right or wrong way to do it, but whatever you do needs to work for both parties.
Lean into your complementary skills. You don’t both need to do everything equally. One of you might be better placed to create and manage the prototype. The other might lead on pitching. Of course, you’ll want to make sure that each person is contributing in a pretty equal way (if there’s an equal royalty split), but that doesn’t mean identical contributions.
In fact, many co-design relationships exist between a more experienced and less experienced designer. Here the newer designer may actually spend more hours on the project, but the experience (and possibly the connections) of the other may hold great value.
The Jane Austen Game, co-designed with Mandela F-G
With Mandela F-G at Nuremberg Toy Fair
Don’t ignore problems. If something happens that you’re uncomfortable about, talk about it. Explain what the issue is and see if you can find a solution. Unresolved problems tend to have a way of snowballing and becoming worse for everyone.
It’s better to walk away from a co-design early on than to battle on ignoring it. Remember, it’s about trust and respect. Lose these at your peril.
Finding a great co-designing relationship is a wonderful thing. You have someone to bounce ideas off, to hold you accountable, to give you alternative perspectives, to share the work and to play with. But not every co-design will lead to another. You may have to kiss a few frogs before you find a good one.
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