“It’s dangerous to see the ‘business’ and ‘creative’ work as separate silos”

Creative Career Conundrums is a weekly advice column from If You Could Jobs. Each week their selected panel of professionals from the creative industry answers your burning career questions to help you navigate the creative journey.

This week’s question:

I’m the creative lead of a direct-to-consumer brand in India with a background in design education and professional experience in the creative field. Over time, I’ve realised that my inclination toward strategy and creative thinking has helped me solve larger customer-centric problems through design and create meaningful business impact. At the same time, it has taken me a while to grasp the other side of the equation – the marketing metrics, numbers, and data that drive business decisions. I’m still learning on the job, gradually bridging the gap between creativity and business. This process has made me reflect on the role of design in business and the kind of knowledge designers need to truly influence outcomes beyond aesthetics.

We say design is critical to business, but can a designer truly create business-impactful work without understanding the business side? Where should the balance lie between pure creativity and business knowledge?

Alex Bec, co-founder of It’s Nice That, Creative Lives in Progress and If You Could Jobs:

Hello there, thanks for such a thoughtful question.

In my opinion, the deeper your understanding of any business priorities, data, strategy and KPIs that your creative work is looking to influence, the better chance you’ll have of creating a solution that hits them. Now that seems obvious, but being curious about the full context you’re designing or creating for is a key muscle to strengthen for any creative. Likewise, the best ‘business’ people I’ve ever worked with have also been great creative thinkers and can understand the creative problem too.

With that, I think it's dangerous to see the ‘business’ and ‘creative’ work as separate silos – but instead important collaborators who should always be looking to gain a deeper empathy and understanding for the needs of both.

Business knowledge can – and should – also be creative, and creative work be ingrained in what the business needs. It’s too simplistic to think of these are totally separate disciplines. Of course if the creativity gets bogged down in too many metrics there is always the risk that it loses flair, or bravery – but it shouldn’t be blind to the business needed.

I think the rise of in-house agencies and the creative teams being embedded more deeply directly into businesses shows the importance of this. I have always loved Ivan Pols’ take on how hard he works to make sure his in-house team at what3words are tuned into the business needs. This interview with him is great on the subject and he puts it much more articulately than I have here!

In answering your creative career conundrums we realise that some issues need expert support, so we’ve collated a list of additional resources that can support you across things that might arise at work.

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