My Go at the ‘Co Crown’ Thing
Okay, so let me tell you about this ‘co crown’ idea we kicked around. It wasn’t some big, fancy project, more like a little experiment we tried out. We needed a simple graphic, kind of like a shared symbol or badge, for a small internal team thing we were working on. Someone jokingly called it our ‘crown’, and the ‘co’ part just meant we were supposed to build it collaboratively.
First off, I just opened up a basic drawing tool on my computer. Nothing special. I sketched out a really simple crown shape. Think kid’s drawing level. Sent that image file over to Sarah on the team.
She got it, opened it up. Her feedback was quick: “A bit too pointy, maybe?” Fair enough. She didn’t change it, just told me. So, I went back. Rounded the points a bit, made the base thicker. Version two. Sent it again.
This time, Mark chimed in. He saw the email thread. He liked the shape but thought it needed some color. But he didn’t have the same simple tool I used. He actually printed it out, colored it roughly with a marker, took a photo with his phone, and sent that back. Seriously. It looked… well, like a printout colored with a marker.
We were kind of stuck. Passing files was slow, and Mark’s marker version wasn’t exactly usable digitally. We needed a better way to do the ‘co’ part.
Trying a Shared Tool
Someone suggested one of those online whiteboard things where multiple people can draw at once. We all logged in. It was chaos for about five minutes. Everyone drawing lines, erasing each other’s stuff. Not productive.
So, we ditched that. Back to basics. I took my rounded digital version. Sarah said she could add some simple colors if I sent her the file again. This time, I made sure it was in a format she could easily edit.
- I saved the file as a layered image.
- Sent it via our shared drive, not email attachments this time.
- Pinged her directly to let her know it was there.
She jumped in pretty quick. Added some flat colors – a yellow for the crown, a blue for some fake gems. Kept it simple, which was good. She saved it as a new version on the drive.
Mark looked at Sarah’s colored version. He just said, “Yeah, that’s better. Ship it.”
And that was pretty much it. We had our ‘co crown’. It wasn’t ground-breaking design, just a simple icon. The process was a bit messy, honestly. Going back and forth, trying different methods. The shared whiteboard was a bust, but just passing the file properly and having clear, small tasks for each person worked okay in the end.
It really showed how even simple ‘collaborative’ stuff can get tangled if you don’t figure out a workflow. We just sort of stumbled through it. Got the crown done, though. Used it as a little icon in our team chat channel header. Job done.
