The C4D team
How the Centre for Competitive Creative Design is organised, how its people share responsibility, and how the team works across projects.
A small team with overlapping work
The Centre for Competitive Creative Design is run by a team that is deliberately compact. Rather than dividing the organisation into departments that rarely speak to each other, the team works in shifting groups built around a live question, whether that is a client brief, a research enquiry or a training programme.
Each group has a lead who holds the brief and answers for its timing, and the rest of the team contributes design, analysis, writing and review as the work requires. The arrangement keeps knowledge in circulation. A designer who has worked on a competitive pitch one month may be reviewing a research method the next.
For a full account of the Centre's purpose and remit, see the overview and core activities page.
The team at work
Team members spend their time in studios, reviewing prototypes and preparing material for clients and partners.
Roles within the group
Roles are described by responsibility rather than job title. The list below sets out the work that every group needs covered, even when one person carries more than one part of it.
- Brief ownership: confirming the question, the audience and the success criteria before work begins.
- Design direction: setting the visual and structural approach and keeping it consistent across outputs.
- Evidence and analysis: testing assumptions against the material gathered from users and competitors.
- Editorial review: checking that writing is clear, accurate and suited to its readers.
- Delivery: managing schedules, files and the handover to clients or partners.
A team is only competitive when its members can disagree in public and still ship the work together.
That principle shapes how reviews are run. Critiques focus on the work rather than the person, and every decision is recorded with the reason it was made.
How the team has developed
The team has grown in stages, each one adding a capability that the previous stage needed.
First stage
Core group formed
A small set of designers and analysts began working together on shared briefs, establishing the review habits that still guide the team.
Second stage
Research and design joined up
Evidence gathering was moved into the same working groups as design, so that findings reached the people making decisions without delay.
Current stage
Wider partnerships
The team now brings in outside specialists for particular briefs, while keeping the core group responsible for direction and quality.
Working with the team
Enquiries about projects, training or research are handled through the contact page, where the relevant lead is identified and the brief is passed on. Readers interested in the wider programme can also review the education and research pages.