Conscious strategic visual design

Abstract

This graduation project is based on the services that Flatland, a visual consultancy company, provides within the strategic visual design market. The discussion within this project is about what the role of the facilitator is and what the balance should be between gathering content for deliverables, and managing the collaboration and interaction of a client team. The latter is something in which Flatland is unconsciously competent, and hence have a lot of tacit knowledge. In order to create consciously skilled strategic visual design practices, tools were designed that allow this knowledge to be systematized, taught and learnt, and improved.

The final deliverables address Flatland's understanding of collaboration in sessions and create a way of structuring these processes. A framework identifies twenty-seven aspects of good collaboration and makes Flatland aware of what to focus on within their sessions. In addition, a new concept called soft moments explains the interactions and expressions to focus on in order to create insights about a certain situation. The poster of collaboration places the framework in context, which can be used to analyze and observe sessions in order to create insights about a client's situation or collaboration. The toolkit for group interventions combines all deliverables and allows them to become more aware of what to focus on within sessions, but also how to respond accordingly with substantiated actions.