As design challenges are becoming more and more complex, we aim to solve them by including an increasing variety of perspectives and opinions into the creative problem-solving process. Co-creation aims to achieve this by involving stakeholders throughout the process. Including all these different opinions makes co-creation activities increasingly complex, risking the quality of the outcome (Agueverre et al., 2020).

This thesis aims to unravel the complexity of these activities in designer-client co-creation projects. The designers targeted in this study are the designers of the consultancy Unplugged, based in Amsterdam. Unplugged aims to discover business opportunities together with their client, to take steps towards transformation. The assignment from Unplugged was to perform research into the ideation phase, as this is often experienced as difficult in practice, especially in the context of co-creation.

Through semi-structured interviews with the designers of Unplugged and several extensive literature reviews, three iterations were performed to get to the core of the complexity. The first iteration showed that the design proces, as a designer wants to perform it, is continuously disrupted. Three disrupting factors were identified: 1) the projects are stuck between design and research, 2) the client does not have a sufficient understanding of innovation, and 3) the designers do not have enough influence on the projects.

From these factors, it was concluded, in the second iteration, that there is a lack of autonomy for the designers of Unplugged. Based on this insight, an extensive literature review was conducted to discover the cause of the lack of autonomy. This literature review showed that there exists a tension between autonomy (independence) and conformity (obedience) in the context of social trusteeship (acting in the best interest of the client), or: “Do you give the client what they ask, or what they need?”

Through synthesis it was revealed that this tension is strengthened by the difference in perceived status of the respective members of the co-creation team and a misunderstanding of each other’s expertise. This difference leads to a power imbalance in which the designers have taken on a facilitating role, whereas the client takes the dominant role. Resulting in the client taking over the project and limiting the input of the designers expertise.

In the third iteration, roles are introduced for both the designer and client. These roles aim to ensure that each actors expertise is used in the correct way and at the correct time in the project by eliminating the power hierarchy in the project, through dialogue. Based on these roles, a new approach is introduced to designer-client interactions in which a rich understanding about each other’s expertise is created.

In conclusion, this thesis proposes a new approach to designer-client co-creation projects based on roles. This new approach aims to free designers from their facilitating role by creating a rich understanding between designer and client through dialogue.