Making Ideas Happen is the new book from Scott Belsky – the founder of Behance, an online platform and community for visual creators, and the 99% conference an annual event that brings together creative thinkers to discuss their effectiveness and productivity. Scott is passionate about helping creative people realise their ideas and has been researching the area since his MBA.
If you need to work on basic sketches (e.g. outlines, floor plans, flow diagrams) with your project team, there are some online tools available that are pretty useful.
Google Docs has added ‘Drawing’ as one of the file types that can be created (drawings can also be inserted into documents, spreadsheets and presentations). It’s very easy to start sketching away, and existing images can also be uploaded. Invite people to view and edit the file in the usual way, and download them as .png, .jpg, .svg or .pdf files.
For something more interactive and advanced, try Dabbleboard or Scribblar. Both offer real-time collaboration with supported chat functions.
In Scribblar, create a ‘room’ which you can invite people to by sending them a link. On sign-up you’re asked for your Skype username in case you want to use audio chat whilst working in the ‘room’ at the same time as other team members. Scribblar is completely free to create as many rooms as you like unless you want to embed them in your website or blog with your own branding.
Dabbleboard prides itself on an easy-to-use interface, which can automatically detect a shape you’re trying to draw when you provide a rough outline. Alternatively you can use freehand drawing or upload and annotate existing images. Again, invite your collaborators to the drawing area by sending them a link. Dabbleboard also offers voice and video chat for a project team (via Tokbox, a tool that supports free video chat for up to 20 people). There are additional services for paid-for accounts.
Bracket’s session at Media Camp London 4 during Social Media Week generated lots of discussion about the best methods and tools for helping groups of creatives to get things done. It looked at how social media could be used to support collaborative working between artists and designers etc that are used to working independently, usually have autonomy over their work, are characteristically busy, and highly skilled in generating ideas. The aim of the session was to develop solutions for how to channel that creativity into tangible outcomes and how social media can be used to support the process along the way.
A visit to the If You Could: Collaborate exhibition leaves visitors buzzing with ideas and excitement about what happens when creative minds get together. Alex Bec and Will Hudson of If You Could invited 33 creatives to collaborate with someone of their choice, giving them 12 months to develop a final piece. The brief was completely open so the curators had no idea what the outcomes might be.
It looks like there’s been a hub of collaborative creative writing activity happening on the web this weekend!
A group of writers have set themselves up with the task to write and publish a book in just 24 hours using online tools to work together. The group has been using Google Docs to write and edit the document, as well as using Skype and face-to-face conversation to communicate, and have been updating us on their progress through their twitter profile.
Music: the most collaborative art form of them all. It often takes a range of people – musicians, vocalists and producers – to make a track happen. Here are two inspiring examples:
Being creative doesn’t just happen between 9am and 5pm – you can’t switch it on and off. Good ideas come at the most unexpected moments, and that spark of inspiration can happen spontaneously. So when you’re working on a project within a team, how can you capture that creative spark and share it almost instantly?
As a talented creative practitioner, your individual work and maintaining a strong identity will always be important.Your own creative talents are why people would want to work with you in the first place!So if you are keen on collaborating, this means considering new ways of working. In addition to developing your own work, you might engage in pop-up projects and even create new ventures with others.
One challenge will be in always ensuring that these collaborative projects also align with your own creative work and values – this will be essential in enhancing and leveraging your individual practice, not detracting from it or diluting it.
