The many pleasures of paper
How we’re trying to improve collaboration at Upstatement by revisiting paper and wall-mounted design critiques
When a client hires Upstatement, we try to stress that they’re getting the whole Upstatement, not just a particular person. Obviously in the real world, someone is the lead and other people have their own thing going on, but the idea is that the problem solving isn’t just limited to the team that’s assigned to the project. So even though I may be working on a project for NPR and Nathan is building something for Boston.com, we should be able to help each other out and brainstorm together.
Our previous mode of doing this was the kind of “shoulder-surfing” that happens when you have a big cinema display and rolling chairs. But I can only fit like 2–3 chairs around my desk, and as anyone who’s ever been shoulder-surfed knows, you have to be in exactly the right mood for that kind of thing. And then it’s limited to people who feel comfortable swinging by my desk and saying “What’re you working on?” or people in my immediate vicinity.
So one simple thing we’ve started to do is print out our work at regular intervals and start taping it up around the office. Which is kind of backward, the idea of printing digital interfaces, but can be really helpful in opening up the brainstorming process. For one, it helps to step back from your work for a minute and be able to see it all in one place. It’s like having the zoom set to 25%, but you can zoom in with your feet!
It’s also an inherently inviting act. I’m printing these things out because I want to share them. I want feedback. I want to defend my work, be challenged, be inspired and have a conversation about the problems I’m solving. I don’t always feel that way when I’m at my desk, and it can be onerous to take someone page-by-page through a digital design.
It’s great to see the work up around the office, and I’ve been inspired by projects I’m not directly involved in and grabbed some good ideas that might have otherwise been hidden to me. It’s also sparked some extemporaneous conversations and gatherings of people from across different projects, and it’s awesome to see the knowledge transfer happening in such a natural way.
We’re also working on a ton of different projects these days, so it helps spread ownership around. One thing that can happen in an office that’s working on more than one project at a time is that people don’t feel ownership over work that’s not theirs. Like: “That project looks awesome in the glimpses I’ve gotten of it, but I don’t really know anything about it.” By exposing everyone to all the work in even a passive way, people can feel some sense of energy around the office and participate in all the work, at least in some way.
So we’re still figuring it out, but have had initially positive feedback from people in the studio as well as clients we’ve introduced this to. It’s just a fun way to look at the work and get really immersed in the problem. And plus, a wall full of fun design ideas and interesting thinking always looks awesome in instagrams.
