designfeedr

If you browse around the design scene a little, be it online or through your favourite magazines you notice that the more serious designers and illustrators are crazy about collaborating with other creative minds.

Any combination is fair game, Designer - illustrator, designer – photographer, digital illustrator – traditional ink illustrator. It’s like Hip-hop artists doing the featuring trick to get all their homies into the video clip.

The benefits of teaming up

Why is it that collaborating is so popular these days? Apart from the fact that it’s a bunch of fun in most cases there are other more tangible reasons to “collab”.

The most obvious reason is of course to get that extra bit of inspiration. When artists of any type work together you get a different experience then you would if you had tackled the project solo. Different people bring different ways of approach, different styles and different ways of solving a problem to the table.

You can learn from this and you can use this energy to power your own creative engine. If the person you’re working with is totally ecstatic about the project and is bringing his A game along then odds are you’ll dig deep yourself to not be outdone.

What also happens when you collaborate is that your network is growing. If you are or plan to go freelance your network of contacts is one of your most sacred possessions. And even when you’re not freelancing, knowing people that might be going places can never hurt.

For example
Think of this scenario. You’re an illustrator and you’re collaborating with an up coming photographer. He isn’t quite where he’d like to be yet in the food chain, but you know talent when you see it and he’s got it.

He’s given you some cool shots to choose from, and you choose one you like (most likely the hot chick photo;) ). You work your magic and turn it into a lovely piece of mixed media that both parties are excited about.

You put it in your portfolio and he puts it into his. This by itself would be a good reason to collaborate. You’ve had interaction, had some fresh new inspiring photography to work with, exchanged website links and you have an extra piece for your portfolio.

But there is another benefit. Lets say that business is going good for your photographer friend. He’s getting some more jobs and more and more potential clients visit his website. They also see that kick-ass collaboration he’s done with you.

One day one of those clients might ask your photographer friend who illustrated that particular photo. Your photographer friend will refer the client to you. It’s the right thing to do, and even if it wasn’t, he can’t illustrate to save his life and thus has no choice.

While the above scenario is not a common happening, it’s definitely one of the things to keep in mind.

Finding a partner in crime

So where does one find artists to collaborate with? What you’re looking for will decide where you can best look.

Photographers
If you’re looking for a photographer to work with the best places to look are the photography community sites. They’re a sort of Myspace like communities, with the difference of course being that the whole idea is to find people to work with. Two well know sites in this vein are Model mayhem and One model place.

Designers or illustrators
When looking for designers or illustrators one easy trick you can pull is to just check out some portfolio sites which have a lot of friend links. Some will have a huge amount of links which you can then browse around. Don’t feel bad about using these links, you’re not stealing friends in any way, the links are there to give their friends exactly this type of exposure.

Another option are social networking sites like Myspace, Virb, Trig and the like. Usually designers and illustrators will seek each other out and thus build little hubs of creative friends. The easiest thing to do is just find a big name designer or illustrator on a community site and use his friend section as a base.

So happy “collabing” and if something really cool comes from it be sure to give me a peek!