Interested in Virtual Team Building Events?
9 mins 
1. How Can Team Building Activities Help Designers?
1.1. Enhances Creativity
As a designer, creative exercises for designers open your mind to new perspectives and viewpoints that awaken new design ideas. They are specially designed to challenge teams to think differently and apply creative solutions to design problems. Also, by encouraging team participation, they allow members to think collaboratively, learn from each other’s ideas, and birth unique design innovations.
1.2. Reduces Stress
The work cycle for designers can be stressful and mentally taxing. A team building activity might just be what you need to break the work-stress cycle. It provides an avenue for you to laugh and communicate with other team members. This rejuvenates your thought process and enhances the creative thinking ability of your design team.
1.3. Improves Productivity
A team that works together is often more productive than a team that doesn't. Team building activities enhance your team's ability to work hand-in-hand to provide solutions to design problems. They help to build a better workflow within the workplace, which overall impacts the efficiency and output rate of your design team.
1.4. Strengthens Problem-Solving Skills
Team building activities challenge your team with games and situations that make them think critically. This enhances your team’s problem-solving skills and provides them with new approaches to solving design problems.
1.5. Boosts Morale and Motivation
Team building activities for designers are a great way to boost the motivation and morale of your team. They boost team spirit and create a supportive atmosphere. This helps members contribute more effectively to the group’s vision and feel like an integral part of the team. Team building activities also enhance the level of job satisfaction of your design team and make them more committed to the team's goals.
2. 10 Team Building Activities for Designers
2.1. Design Challenge Workshop
Many designers find design challenge workshops to be one of the most interesting creative exercises for designers. So, chances are your team also will. You get to have fun creating design prototypes, wireframes, and sketches with your team members. It's a totally enjoyable activity where you learn from each other’s design ideas and incorporate what you learn into your skill set.
Design challenge workshops are all about problem-solving and collaboration. You work in groups to find a solution to a particular design problem within a time frame. It's one of the most fun UX activities you can engage in to develop diverse user-centric solutions to a design problem.
2.2. Sketching Session
Sketching sessions are another topper on our list of team building activities for designers. This activity gives you the freedom to explore your creative instincts without fear of criticism. During sketching sessions, you and your team work collaboratively to try new design concepts and take creative risks. Everyone contributes by making comments and suggestions on which feature to add or remove from a sketch. This fosters team communication and opens the minds of participants to new design perspectives.
In addition to these, sketching sessions often require participants to convey thoughts through visuals. This skill can be invaluable in providing UX solutions.
2.3. Escape Room Challenges
Escape room challenges also rank highly on our list of team building activities for designers and the reason is simple. They dare participants to engage in critical thinking and provide spontaneous solutions to changing situations.
Your team will face a series of puzzles that provoke creative problem-solving instincts and help participants prioritize time management when dispensing with their projects. It also builds your team’s ability to be attentive to details, as the game often entails hidden clues that are important to solving the puzzle. In addition to these, escape room challenges can serve as a simulation to get your team used to the stress and time constraints of working on design projects. For those who have distributed teams, consider virtual escape rooms as one of the best virtual team building activities for designers.
2.4. Team Retreats
If what you need is a stress-free day that revives your creative senses, then a retreat is the ideal option for you. Retreats are great for outdoor recreational activities that can be hosted at a beach, a community park, or on field trips where you sightsee with your teammates at different locations.
This kind of activity exposes you to serene environments where you and your team can relax your minds, engage in sporting activities, and bond with each other over music and delicious delicacies Also, you can integrate other specific team building activities for designers like sketching sessions, painting, and book reading.
2.5. UX Design
Let's incorporate one of the core responsibilities in team building activities for designers, which is mainly user experience design. Team members can collaborate together on enhancing the user experience of a specific product or service by creating wireframes, developing user personas or even conducting mock tests through fun UX team activities. This helps them gain an in-depth understanding of user needs and customize designs for better usability and satisfaction.
Rather than just another boring task, this interactive experience turns UX design into a team activity that leaves your design team inspired and motivated. Ultimately, this shared experience not only strengthens their critical thinking and problem solving skills, but also fosters a sense of accomplishment and unity.
2.6. Pictionary Designer Edition
Pictionary makes it to our list as one of the more creative design thinking team building activities. Giving the classic game a twist, participants need to create pictures and drawings that are related to a specific field of design and teams need to guess the correct term.
The game doubles up as a fun interactive icebreaker that allows participants to learn through play. It challenges designers to express themselves visually and fosters an understanding of design concepts and terminologies. They also foster quick thinking and communication among team members. In this activity, you and your team can bond and laugh while making design-related guesses.
2.7. Codenames
If you want to enjoy a fun and collaborative game right away, or just want your creative team to have an entertaining morning, this 'Codenames' exercise is a great option. It’s a fast-paced word game that can enhance the creativity and communication within the team while keeping the whole team entertained for hours.
Here is the scoop: Two spymasters know the identity of 25 undercover agents, but they can only communicate using codenames. Your mission? Make contact with your agents before the other team discovers theirs. Oh, and keep an eye out for the assassin to save your team. It's a top-notch game that turns any gathering into a memorable adventure.
2.8. Thirty Circles Exercise
In every creative team, it is essential to have a lot of out-of-the-box thinking. The team building exercise of Thirty circles does just that and it can be played in larger groups or small ones. It's a perfect chance to see how your team unleashes their creativity skills and visual perception in a fun and enlightening way.
In this game, participants have to present a sheet with thirty empty circles and they are expected to turn as many of them as possible into recognizable objects, icons or symbols within a specified time limit. This activity helps enhance quick ideation, visual problem solving and the ability to see familiar shapes in abstract form.
2.9. Jigsaw Puzzles
Want to test the patience and concentration of your design team? The classic Jigsaw puzzles would be the perfect fit. The concept is simple - assemble the scattered pieces to recreate the original picture. The appeal of this activity lies in the collective approach of the players to identify the patterns, shapes, colors or fonts to fit the pieces correctly.
Additionally, Jigsaw puzzles improve focus, patience, attention to details which are vital skills required for designers. When team members join to solve the game, they strengthen team cohesion, problem solving abilities, and ultimately gain a profound satisfaction of creating something beautiful and functional.
2.10. Blind Drawing
Let your team laugh at heart by looking at their hilarious art after the blind drawing game. This humorous and insightful exercise can break the ice and encourage designers to think differently. In fact, this is a great opportunity to showcase the importance of effective communication and the possible misunderstandings that can arise when we fail to present our ideas clearly.
In this activity, one team member describes a concept or an object to another, who must then draw it without seeing what they are actually drawing. The real challenge lies in the ability to convey correct instructions and interpret them correctly. This activity boosts communication skills that helps team members to convey design ideas more effectively.
3. FAQs
3.1. How do you build an effective design team?
One of the best ways you can build an effective design team is by engaging in team building activities. Team building activities enhance communication skills, an understanding of team vision, and team spirit, and open your design team to new creative ideas.
3.2. What are the best team building activities?
The best team building activities are design challenge workshops, sketching sessions, escape room challenges, field day, and modeling clay. Apart from giving you a break from the usual work routine, they also offer you an interesting learning experience.
