What’s the story with Co-design? I chat to Design Lead, Cat Robertson

Co-design is a term we’re seeing used more and more, but what is it? We try to use a co-design approach as much as possible, and truth be told there are different levels of participation that can mean. To get a better sense of what it looks like in the real world I had chat with our Design Lead, Cat.

So, what is co-design — is it not just, good design?
That’s a big question to unpack, for me it’s many things. In a nutshell, co-design is a process driven by collaboration; with your client, their team, and where possible their stakeholders to help shape a truly meaningful, appropriate and valuable outcome.

Is that quite different than how people often view design?
There is a tendency in the industry to think of designers as the problem solvers, the ‘creators’, the people that have all of the answers. But honestly we don’t, our clients know more about their businesses than we ever will and they don’t have all the answers either. It’s our job to navigate that with them and help identify what’s valuable. It gives the client, their teams, and even their communities more ownership of the outcome.

Tell us about the Artsadmin project!
Firstly, (context is everything) Artsadmin represents artists and produces arts projects under themes of diversity, social justice and climate equality across the UK. We were very fortunate to be able to work with them on their rebrand. With people being at the absolute heart of this brand, there was a responsibility to ensure their needs, voices and perspectives were heard, understood, and reflected in the brand. That’s why we approached it as a co-design process from the outset.

How did this work?
We brought on our excellent design partner Karl Toomey, to work with us on facilitating a series of workshops with the Artsadmin team and their stakeholders, including artists and partners from arts organisations and the local community. Throughout these workshops we hosted conversations, from initial fact finding to uncover what Artsadmin meant to everyone and where we could look to improve, all the way down to design and brand assets and how they delivered for these different stakeholders, in terms of inclusivity and accessibility, as well as usability. What was important here was that this process was carried out throughout the project. We hosted these workshops at every phase of findings, helping us unearth holes in our thinking and understanding, validate work done, and remove individualism and subjectivity.

What did co-design deliver for the project?
It gave Artsadmin the confidence and backing that their new brand was created not just with their audiences in mind, but with their participation. It allowed a range of voices of the team to be heard and helped us build a new brand that was vibrant and appropriate to their needs, but also authentic and deeply resonant to their wider community.

So everything should just be co-designed then?
Perhaps not EVERYTHING. But for projects where multiple stakeholders are involved we find it particularly useful. It can be scary for everyone involved so the process has to be handled carefully and guided to make sure there’s trust built, but involving people in the design process, even a little bit, is really transformative to how they think about meaningful interactions.

But you’d like to do more, right?
Yeah, I love this process. It can be challenging and tiring but It allows me the opportunities to connect with people and pull real insight on projects. At the end of projects it gives me the confidence that the right decisions were made. It’s definitely a process we find ourselves using more and more.

Find out more about the project here