written by Chris Arnold on June 18, 2010

Bringing together creative individuals in a working environment has always been interesting and inciting to me. Being behind closed doors or cubical walls on a daily basis certainly has had its place ingrained in tradition, but it wasn't how I envisioned collaboration in my working life.

Sharing Space

My now long term office mate and Design Litmus co-author Matt Crest and I had a basic thought: Let's share office space so our ideas can flow freely. Let's generally expand upon and learn from our varied thought processes. Once more, let's take what we know, learn from what one another understands, and all together focus on creative growth. And while we're at it, let's save a few bucks!

I should first lay the groundwork of our business relationship. In September of 2008, both Matt and I had decisions to make. Myself, working out of a downtown Denver-based design studio, and Matt, working from his home office, needed a fresh working environment. We spoke about the possibility and quickly drilled down to a few main 'pros' to the concept. We've since discovered these as truths:

1. Sharing in a collaborative office saves money on rent, utilities, and other expenses.
2. Being in the same space allows for quick question and answer sessions, critiques, and the like.
3. With varied experiences and skill sets, we knew our compliments could come in handy.
4. Taking on larger projects in-house suddenly becomes an instant possibility.

Similarly, the questions of potential 'cons' were addressed and analyzed accordingly:

1. How can I trust that you will pay your bills on time?
2. What is your preferred working environment like?
3. How will we approach miscellaneous expenses, visitors, phone calls, and music?
4. Flat out, what if it doesn't work for either of us in the end?

These questions were quite important to us both. We didn't want to enter into a relationship that could sour due to questions and concerns not previously discussed. Being an open book and readily facing these thoughts became and important caveat in our final (and decidedly positive) decision.

Ultimately, we took these points to the table and figured out, for us, what would work and what wouldn't. In the end we came to an agreement and decided to take the plunge.

Who Are You?

For anyone interested in taking a similar leap of faith, I recommend first analyzing your ideal working environment. Is it a loud, open studio space with music, talking heads, and distractions? Maybe you thrive on that. Is it a quiet pocket with a calm desk space and ambient music playing? Perhaps you work the best without distractions of any kind.

Connect with others who feel the same way. Discuss, dissect, and figure out if it could be a good fit. There's no harm in asking (I asked at least 2 other people in my quest). You should be excited with the people you work around. Otherwise, it's not worth it.

Sharing Clients

A month or two into our first office location we came up with an idea to be called the Collaboratory. Two businesses, one overarching office space, and a 'collaborative' theme. Our goal? Simply to begin brainstorming ways we could take our (separate) small businesses and exchange ideas internally and externally.

Perhaps the biggest challenge to our collaborative idea was our office space size: roughly 450 sq. ft., an elongated rectangle chopped up by two interior doors, a bathroom in the middle, and a large storage space in the back. We simply had no additional creative space to offer.

The location wasn't ideal for visitors, either. West of Denver's bustling downtown landscape, it would take a bit of a drive to reach us near Golden, Colorado. Looking back, bringing a collaborative nature into our office space was an upbeat and positive thought, but simply unattainable at the time.

Internal Collaboration

Our focus shifted to working on projects together: Matt's design, my code. My design, Matt's code. My project, Matt's sidekick involvement. And so on and so forth. We began exploring how collaboration truly works and the processes and considerations one must make.

Design Litmus, the very blog you're now reading, was a result of one of those very same internal collaborative efforts.

We quickly realized that the idea of collaboration is bright and cheery, but ultimately business goals trump fun collaborations more often than not when money is involved, though. New questions arose once again, and we had to consider them in detail.

Perhaps tangential to our initial collaborate-with-other-creatives concept, very real world questions took precedence:

1. How are we splitting this project and what are our personal deliverables?
2. What's a fair rate for my work? Do I get a block of time or a running clock?
3. Should we setup a contract for our commitments or seal it with a hand shake?
4. What are your expectations of my work? What if expectations are not met?

We knew, much like the process to decide on an office space together, that no rock could remain unturned. An unknown for us would lead to an unknown in the project and we didn't want unhappy clients. For-profit collaboration, we found, led to deliberation that we may not have immediately thought about prior.

It likely goes without saying, but it's up to you which person or persons you want to collaborate with. If the work is to be done professionally for a client, boundaries should be drawn, budgets analyzed, and directives agreed upon. Without core fundamentals in place, you could be setting yourself (and the client) up for failure.

This isn't to say unknowns won't pop up during the process. Be prepared for bumps in the road like you would with any project, collaborative or not. In this case, though, hopefully issues can be worked through twice as fast with two minds working on it at once.

Sharing Ideas

Our design studio space has been ever-evolving and most recently abuzz with a new location followed by positive changes. In the last couple of months, we secured a larger space and brought on a third party to share in the environment. KC Dunstan (525creative.com) has taken the open seat in our new office; conveniently located in downtown Edgewater, Colorado.

With a fresh spot to work from, a new creative mind in the mix, and a terrific location, the Collaboratory has been rejuvenated like never before. Instead of internal collaboration, we've taken the basic concept and brought forth an idea we've long had in our minds. This time, though, we've got a chance to test it out: guest Collaborators.

Crafting Vision For An Idea

Before we could launch this idea to our collective community, it needed a face and a story to tell. Mixing early 20th century history of Edgewater with appropriate reference to turn-of-the-century typography and advertisement styles, I came up with a general flavor for our space; including front window signage, website design, and small takeaways like buttons.

Black and white, rustic, and almost 'dusty' fit the bill nicely. Not to leave things stagnant, a spark of color—cool orange—was introduced to mimic our interior space and give it a bit of pizazz. Knowing it was the perfect opportunity to expand on the collaborative mindset, on down the row it went:

1. Matt took the design and coded it to perfection. With a few HTML5 and jQuery goodies to boot, the site came to life with vigor.
2. KC injected functionality through ExpressionEngine and developed a terrific way for us to post guests when collaborator slots fill.

The process of developing our space's identity mirrored the type of idea sharing we hope to get out of our newest experiment—sharing our space with others.

A Call For Guest Collaborators

Once a month, up to two creatives (local folks or out-of-towners), are being offered "laptop space" at our conference table to work. As the website reiterates, our space is:

We know this could mean different things to different creatives, and we like that. We want to open our doors to freelancers, contractors, the self-employed, and any other creative minds in hopes of learning more about their past, present, and future.

It could be one's hopes, failures, strengths and weaknesses. It really doesn't matter. What matters to us is that we come to work in a typical sense, but walk away at night feeling like the day was anything but typical.

We want to hear about your creative lifelines, and we want to share some of ours with you, too.

Maybe one day a month isn't going to be enough time. Maybe the idea will present new ways with which we can share and better our projects, our communities, or our relationships. We're really not sure yet. What we are sure of, however, is that not communicating and opening up our doors to those in the same industry is bunk.

So far June and July are full. August has applicants already. Near or far, our doors are open to you, so feel free to apply and say hello. We look forward to hearing from you.

Feedback

What do you think? We want to hear your thoughts. We've opened up space for your comments below, and we'd really like to get to the core of bettering this idea. Truly a collaborative post.

In Part 2 of this article, likely this Fall, I'll address what we've learned. Good, bad, pretty and ugly. It's a collaborative experiment, so we know there's nothing to do but learn from it.

Sharing is caring.

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