For the team at Animal, collaboration is in their DNA.

Take the celebrated independent creative agency’s inception, for example, coinciding with the launch of Species, a world-wide collaborative project where over 100 artists from different creative backgrounds were invited to reinterpret the Animal logotype in their own style. “It’s intuitive to our process and keeps us in the loop,” says founder, creative director and self-taught designer Kunel Gaur.

Collaboration is especially beneficial to attracting and nurturing talent, adds Gaur. “It helps in discovery of talent and ensures we have different perspectives in the mix.”

Here, founder and director Kunel Gaur shares how to collaborate well to grow your brand or agency.

1. Curate

The key to success for any collaboration is to curate well, says Gaur.

With any project you might be working with people with varied experience, or approaches. “Brands want to collaborate with the creative community, but tend to be either very laid back in their approach or extremely cautious,” explains Gaur.

A curation team or producer can ensure quality is maintained and the outcome matches the brief, but it’s important to also embrace risk, he adds. “The whole idea of collaboration stems from the willingness and drive to take risks. Brands need to let go and stop being overprotective of their own brand identity,” says Gaur.

2. Find fresh talent

As an innovative and genre-defying company it can be difficult to find the right talent – making it all the more important to continue to put fresh ideas into the world to enhance discovery.

“It’s a constantly moving industry, so you have to attract good people and also retain good people,” says Gaur. “It’s a matter of discovery and sharing what we are looking for.”

In addition to creating new projects to attract fresh talent, Animal creative directors regularly follow new projects and reach out to people on Behance and could equally consider Adobe Talent, included in the Creative Cloud for Teams.

Finding fresh talent to collaborate with often requires patience and nurturing skills. “Often people who reach out are still experimenting, so there is a learning curve that comes with working with new talent. There is a zest but still takes some time until they have the skills, so it’s finding a balance between those factors”

3. Pursue your own projects

One way to both collaborate and attract talent is to pursue self-initiated projects.

One of Animal’s most successful collaborations has been Indianama, an attempt to answer the age-old question about ‘What is Indian design?’

The non-profit platform has been designed to aggregate the new Indian aesthetic, with the intent to showcase and create a space for dialogue on Indian design.

Launched in 2016, Indianama has traveled to various international festivals including London Design Festival and more recently Jerusalem Design Week.

The first year was timed with India celebrating 69 years of independence. The first edition was a documentation of the stories told and untold that made India – through design.

“We invited 69 artists to be part of this journey. Every artist was asked to pick a year from 1947 to 2016, and create art inspired by these stories and events.

The following year, the team collaborated with 70 artists to create and animate 70 travel and tourism posters for India.

4. Collaborate on a grass roots level

As part of Indianama, in 2018 the team paired 71 graphic designers with 71 vibrant street-side shops to work together on creating new identity systems for their business.

“Design education has to go to grass roots – small businesses contribute to 25% of India’s total GDP, so unless they are on board, then there is no good design happening.”

Such grassroots collaborations can help designers step outside the design-industry bubble. “We can look at great design pieces and go to workshops and do all of those thing, but unless the person on the street has education about design, nothing on the landscape is going to change.”

The collaboration was widely covered by the media and it’s in discussion to be replicated in other cities.

5. Collaborate with the client

One of the challenges many designers or agencies may face is convincing a client to take risks and put good design at the centre of a project.

For effective client collaboration, a client has to be on board. “A lot of the time it has to come from the brand side, not just the agencies. The clients have to be open,” says Gaur.

Each and every project has gone through that process of persuading the client, explains Gaur. “It’s about education and the client knowing it is important, not just trend”

This is where Animal has an advantage as a full-service agency. “We can show clients what is possible and what can be done because we have got people in house who are able to execute ideas,” says Gaur.

Be it a client or a self-initiated project, collaboration comes back to education in order to push boundaries.

“From round one we show them what is possible and that is where they enjoy the process… they also give ideas, so it is collaborative right from the start,” concludes Gaur.

Find out how Animal collaborates within their agency by using Creative Cloud for teams

Writing by Madeleine Dore

Photography by Bhavya Ahuja