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# COLLABORATE, YOU COLLABOAATE, WE 0013.ASORATE COLLABORATION IS THE ESSENCE Of CREATIVE ACTIVITY. The interrelationship of two or more people in quest of a common goal is about the most fulfilling of human experiences. After all, we are born of collaborators and our continued success in life is measured by the marriages we make with others in the service of creation. But this "Double-Blind" issue of U&Ic is not about collaboration as a cosmic force. Rather, it focuses on the mutuality—and the yin and yang—between two or more individuals in the creation of graphic design. BY STEVEN HELLER Graphic design is a creative discipline where collaboration is a necessity. Just look at the roll call of credits in any design annual. Sure, there are visionaries who create the styles, develop the ideas and promote the concepts that the majority of us apply. But ultimately, even these people are spokes in the wheel of process. No matter how talented, a designer invariably must answer to a client, which might be a design director, creative director, art director or other mediator who plays an integral role in the project. Just as an editor may tweak an otherwise fine text into brilliant prose, an art director might make a similarly invaluable contribution to a graphic work. In graphic design, like film, television and architecture, other creatives and their functionaries are intimately involved with the outcome. Creativity, indeed originality, depends on creative trysts between two or many partners. Some collaborations are imposed, others are divined. Whatever way they are formed, collaborations offset weaknesses and deficiencies and bolster strengths. But collaboration is much more than a simple calculus—MORE meta + COMMON COAL= INCREASED EffICIENCY/GREATER PRODUCTIVITY—it is a fusion of chemistries that results in a unique entity. When everything is working well—when, for instance, ego satisfaction derives totally from pride in the project as a whole—then the collaborators' distinct contributions result in an outcome that one person alone could not have accomplished. While a good collaboration is one of the most intense human relationships, it is also one of the most precarious. For a collaboration to succeed, the collaborators must, like a well-tuned machine, interconnect in every way; each must have a defined role—a function, purpose, job—that does not conflict with the other's abilities or jam up the works. While there are no preordained rules for how collaborations should work, the best efforts are those in which the participants respect each other's turf, while nimbly crossing the boundaries as necessary. One can be controlling or submissive and also be a good collaborator. Balance is the key. But a collaboration cannot be measured or weighed by imposing rigid parameters. Germany wasn't reunited in a day, after all. The best efforts occur organically. A kind of natural selection determines who does what and how tasks commingle. Even if these functions overlap, in successful collaborations the participants accept their own boundaries. In failed ones, territorial imperatives give way to an attack of the superego. The design field is full of collaborative configurations—business partnerships, creative teams and, more and more frequently, mates who form full- or part-time creative liaisons. Charles and Ray Eames and Saul and Elaine Bass were hugely successful married teams whose passions to create particular objects overcame the difficulties created by marriage and the barriers imposed by ego. Other collaborative couples who come to mind, such as Mas- simo and Lelia Vignelli, R Scott and Laurie Haycock Makela, Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller, Rita Marshall and Etienne Delessert, Michael Donovan and Nancye Green, Forrest and Valerie Richardson, Katherine and Michael McCoy, and Louise Fili and myself, balance on the tightrope that tests both physical and emotional endurance. In these collaborations, the need to create something larger than the sum of its parts based on shared passions overcomes the otherwise immense obstacles. Individually, the designers mentioned above have professional personalities apart from their mates and reputa- tions based on individual merit. They function separately and could easily continue to work independently. But something happens when they are drawn together—call it electricity (perhaps the same force that brought them together in the first place)—that transcends the limits of their individual capabilities. In all candor, I am incapable of designing as well as Louise Fili. She, on the other hand, cannot write. What we share is a passion for the beautiful and arcane artifacts of design culture. So together we produce books about graphic style. I have the broad view, she is detail-oriented. I excavate the materials, she organizes them. I write and edit, she designs. Nevertheless, she reedits my editing, and I critique her design. We fiddle and finesse, differ and argue until our joint effort is complete. And then, after the labor pains are over and forgotten, like all good collaborations, we do it again. As the designers profiled in this issue attest, collaboration adds rather than saps strength. It no more diminishes one's talent than sharing the same loves and hates. By broadening the creative experience and adding additional levels of creative power, the process becomes consummately addictive. The result is an entity that would not have otherwise been born. STEVEN Halta's MOST RECENT BOOKS ARE FACES ON THE EDGE: TYPE IN THE DIGITAL AGE (VAN NOS. TR AND REINHOLD) AND DECO TYPE: STYLISH ALPHABETS Of THE '205 AND '305 (CHRONICLE BOOKS). HEADLINE/BYLINE: ITC FLORINDA TEXT/B10: ITC FLORINDA, ITC CONDUIT BOOK, BOLD, BOLD ITALIC 6
The TYPOGRAPHY & ATypI CONFERENCE Sept 12-15 1997 Reading University, England A WIDE VARIETY OF ACTIVITIES INCLUDING FORMAL AND INFORMAL SPEAKER PROGRAMS, DISCUSSION AND MASTER-CLASS SESSIONS, WITH Association Typographique Internationale is the global forum and focal point for the Type community and business. Membership of ATypI includes the world's most influential proponents and users of type and typography. CRAFT AND TECHNOLOGY WORKSHOPS, EXHIBITIONS, SOCIAL FUNCTIONS, LOCAL AND SPECIAL LIBRARY VISITS THAT WILL STIMULATE, EDUCATE, INFORM AND ENTERTAIN EVERYONE INTERESTED IN EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS: INFORMATION DESIGNERS, ART DIRECTORS, LETTERING Call now for further information on all aspects of the conference, early booking discounts, accommodation & travel offers : Sharon Irving, ATypI Conference, 10 Ridgeway Road, Redhill, Surrey RH1 6PH, UK. Tel (+44) (0) 1737 7801150. Fax (+44) (0) 1737 780160. Email: atypigsharonirving.co.uk . ARTISTS, BUSINESS AND LEGAL EXPERTS, EDUCATIONALISTS, FINE PRESS PRINTERS, CALLIGRAPHERS, GRAPHIC DESIGNERS, PUBLISHERS, SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS, TECHNICAL WRITERS AND TRANSLATORS, TYPE DESIGNERS, TYPOGRAPHERS & TECHWEENIES .
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