Collaboration: Review

This project relied greatly upon working well in a group. As I am used to working on my own through projects, I was worried about how collaborating would affect my work. Now that its over I feel that collaborating helped me a great deal and as a group we made a final piece which answered the story telling brief well.

When starting the project each of us had our own initial ideas of how we should go about making the story telling device. As we couldn't all get what we wanted, this brief involved a lot of discussion and compromise. The mix of Illustration and Graphic design members in the group had a big affect on the work that we produced. In one way the mix helped us to all look at new ways of achieving the brief. Each of us had our own ways of working which we brought to the group. We also had workshops which we each wanted to use in the final installation, again affecting the outcome of our work. The changes and compromises we each had to make for this all to work were sometimes difficult to overcome. If the problem was about something one of us thought would have been best for the installation but went against the group, this caused arguments and more changes to the planned work.

I think that one area which could be improved if done again is time management. After planning what would be in our installation piece we worked through each one not knowing how long each would take us to make. Some were quick and easy to find and make. others were held up by lack of materials, equipment or help in areas we weren't confident in. These problems meant that we had to adapt our plans to make each area work in time for the deadline.

Overall I felt that the corridor installation was done well even after all the changes we were forced to make in the end. It told the story in an non-linear and non-traditional way which generated a lot of interest from the students and tutors who saw it. After working through this brief in a group I feel that it helped us to make something which I wouldn't have if I was working on my own and would collaborate again.