The world around us of design is changing drastically. For designers ourselves, we are being pushed to no ideas of our practice by not sitting behind the desk but also performing in the boardrooms. It seems that the focus of graphic design has always been and individual behind a desk creating a logo, brochure, poster, etc. The role of the graphic designer is now expanding in ways to interact and view everything from adult illiteracy to global warming — as a design problem. Today, graphic designers are working with professionals from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. Psychologist, Lawyers, Doctors, Architects are all joining the team of collaboration and beginning to think like designers. These practices open the door for designers to become more innovative and fresh on their projects. As designers challenge themselves to take risk and explore, allows for a more successful approach and are more than likely to become more deeply engaged. In turn, designers will become more motivated and more widely productive.

I work for Calvary Christian Center as the art director and only graphic designer. We have a pretty large church but our staff is very limited as far numbers of employees. My goal in my environment is to try to establish more of these principles of collaboration. Being that we are very scarce in employment, it has been to my advantage to seek out individuals to brainstorm with and create innovative ways to communicate our message to our audience. Even on our staff we have pastors that may have business, communication or marketing degrees which also generates a lot of diversity in our collaborative efforts.  It is also interesting to pull in members of the congregation that attend services and events regular to record their input to the conversation. As we continue to push forward with this method I believe it will allow for our organization to produce materials that will be more effective to our congregation and how they are informed.