Comments on: Left-Brain vs Right-Brain or “Why are designers not good at business?”

By: Julian Stone

Julian Stone — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:13:23 +0000

I think that it’s a bit of an unfair generalization to say designers are not good at business. About 30-40% of our userbase are designers in small-med (and some large) businesses and many are doing great. Many of the creative business CEO’s are also designers and art directors.

I just don’t think the two (design and business) are linked. They’re separate talents but you can have either or both.

I’m the CEO of http://www.proworkflow.com, a web based project management solution. My background is 15+ years as a designer, art director and creative yet I’ve made a success of the business.

By: Cat

Cat — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:28:11 +0000

I see her spinning both ways – it helps to blink hard to get her to change direction. As a creative who has had my own business for over 25 years, I do think creatives are lousy business people, mostly because they aren’t taking business courses in school, they’re either in art class or learning on the job somewhere. Creativity is like a river – it needs a strong channel to focus it, and when left to its own devices it tends to meander this way and that. I was in the film biz for 20 years, and the best people were excellent within the structure – but take them out of the structure and the often were unable to meet deadlines or budgets. A good producer (who is usually left and right brain balanced) keeps the job moving forward and the creatives on task.

Also, my brain has a very hard time with numbers – I have had a bookkeeper for years to help me keep track of everything correctly, because when the numbers don’t make sense my brain shuts down and I feel overwhelmed. But tell me we need a visual presentation by the weekend, and I’m your gal!!

By: MiniS

MiniS — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:42:59 +0000

I agree 100% with Duane. I had a designer & developer work together on a project. They’re both self-employed. The designer did a great design, the developer built a great cms system. The main problems were the same Duane experienced with his guys. They disappeared, didn’t answer emails for 2+ weeks, always under-estimated the time it would take to complete a project, never started on time and the list goes on. So I decided to get someone else to do more work. He was brilliant in the beginning with the whole project-management thing, coming up with ideas etc. He started work, almost completed it and then disappeared. Now what?? I’m still waiting for this guy to tell me what’s going on. We’re now 3 weeks over his deadline (that he set and I gave extra 2 weeks in case) and he just said he’s busy I must wait! WTF??

I say all developers (especially self-employed ones) should get someone to manage them and their clients. Most of them just sucks at business and keeping clients happy.

BTW, she’s spinning clockwise even if I look at her toes:-) Really thought I was left-brained.

By: Deepti

Deepti — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:31:15 +0000

I can see her spinning both ways too

By: Phil Eastabrook

Phil Eastabrook — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:24:48 +0000

I’m not a designer but as film maker working mostly in the corporate environment, I like to give as good a service as humanly possible. Sometimes clients don’t realise just how much work has been put in on the job, and “Company 2″ seem to have created some kind of design perpetual motion machine if they could deliver unlimited changes for a fixed budget. No wonder they disappeared for periods of time – they were probably off to Las Vegas to pull a heist to pay for all the time they were working for you for nothing!

Anti-clockwise. No Hang on, Clockwise. No, its Anti-clockwise.
Can’t consciously flip her though. My Daughter saw both ways too.

By: Gargoyle

Gargoyle — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:37:20 +0000

In a recent post on the KashFlow blog, Duane had a short rant at some of the pitfalls involved in trying to find a good designer. [...]

By: Andy

Andy — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:16:10 +0000

Is it bad to say I can see her nipples? Is she spinning?

By: GaryMcC

GaryMcC — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:55:57 +0000

Yeeehaw! I’ve seen her swing erm spin both ways!

Very bizarre.

Anyway, what were we talking about?

By: elysa

elysa — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:57:55 +0000

either I’m going crazy & my eyes are playing tricks on me or this is a test of how much do you pay attention to detail. I sat and watched that illustration for a bit and it actually stops and changes directions.

I would however consider myself balanced left & right. I am a designer and I know my strengths and weakness and I could lean towards #1 – I’m a big picture thinker so sometimes I get wrapped up in a project and put more into that I’d originally planned. But I have a project manager that handles quotes and those types of details. I think it’s important for people to know where their skillset is and let everyone do what they are good at.

Overall I think the term “designer” is waaaaayyy too broad to try to generalize. A 15 year old with a stolen copy of photoshop may call himself a designer online yet he has no experience. Unfortunately there aren’t requirements to be able to use the term designer. I’d suggest as a client find designers through recommendations from your trusted business associates.

By: Amanda Vlahakis

Amanda Vlahakis — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:14:12 +0000

I can only see her going clockwise and no amount of straining will see it any other way – I’m yes a creative.

I think the implication that creative people are less likely to be business-minded is an absurd one plucked of thin air with very little evidence or substance behind it.

I’ve been referred to many times in my life as a ‘robot’ or ‘borg’ because of my unnatural levels of organisational skills and efficiency. I’m extremely business minded.

The natural creativity I possess doesn’t prevent this. Anyone can learn to be organised and efficient (and care about good service), it’s nothing to do with which side of your brain you use the most.

The reason why there are so many bad designers out there isn’t because they are ‘creative’, it’s because it costs next to nothing to set up a design service/business – startup costs are very very low.

Hence the industry is littered with loads of people who are just ‘having a go’ – who have poor design skills half the time and even worse customer service.

That’s not because they are creative, it’s because they aren’t serious about their ‘business’.

Amanda