ARTPRENEUR, Do you have what it takes to run a creative industry?

Entrepreneurship wouldn’t start without having ideas and the confidence of putting yourself out there. Furthermore, on your way of becoming successful the path and obstacles suddenly appears in front of you in abundance of numbers. We would be stressing on what is next, or if you are willing to sacrifice things that is inevitable to move forward and the number one reason you hold back, the fear of failure.

There are mass judgement from public that creative industry isn’t profitable in long term and you will end up hating doing it. According to Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce, Undergraduates with major in Arts are among the highest unemployment rates. And according to Forbes, Art majors are dominating top 10 of least valuable majors. It certainly held back a lot of people from pursuing it. Well I did. Is there any human being who isn’t afraid of things not going out of their way? We are all scared. And I’m not going to write this article telling you that ‘oh we are all going to make it, don’t believe the statistics! Just believe in yourself!’ No, I don’t want to place a wrong sense of confidence with that thinking. And I also don’t want to break your dreams if you are already in the work industry. Basically if you are a student who are curious if pursuing art career is worth it or if you are an employer wondering if you would be able to fulfill that dream to build your own company, I suggest you to keep reading.

A lot of you might be agreeing that the motivations of making profit versus making ideas are incompatible. On business standpoint, artist are inefficient and aren’t financially smart. On artist standpoint, businessmen are monotone and lack creativity. It’s a traditional standpoint that many of people still have nowadays. To be able to succeed, creative entrepreneurs need to find the perfect balance on how being an artist and a businessmen works.

It’s not a secret that idea is a currency. Businessmen needs to be knowledgeable on their target’s interest. The public will follow a product that is different, interesting and usable. That is where an artist is the valuable investment. With their strong sense of personality, they can give an identity and make a product stood out. Meanwhile artists are empowered through the freedom to express themselves without boundaries. But at the end of the day the world demand you to pay back that freedom with money and if you are not good enough, you are encouraged to leave it as a hobby and find other career path.

From my two and half months working experience in “O” Web Design agency, I’ve gained insights on how they are operating. What I’ve always imagined the creative agency was absolutely different then what I was seeing. Thanks to the stock photos on the internet when I googled designers, what came up is giggling employers with bright and neat background. So I imagined creative agency had these laid back, casual designers and working in open, stress free environment. And that what I expected to see. What I saw was a very corporate, gloomy faces and strict environment. I soon realized that stock photos websites put smiles in models faces for every professions.

At this point I thought that my co-workers and boss aren’t doing this for passion, it’s just work. But after certain time, I saw glimpses of sparks and passion in them and it becomes clear that they are balancing the needs of being professional and being creative at the same time. On exterior it seems that they are serious and worn out, but when my co-worker created a design she really proud of she would call me to her desk to boast and ask for critic with this gleaming, wide grin on her face. A year later I reconnected with her. And she told me that she is still pursuing art career and she hoped to be able to start publishing design firm soon. If pursuing what everyone else thought as ‘useless career’ not worth it, she would have gave up long time ago. There are sayings about don’t work for things that you love because you will end up hating it. With this experience, I’m happy to know that it isn’t always the case.

I also learned that my boss operates us designer in similar tone with school projects. With each project we are assigned with, attached is the brief on the basic information about our client, preference in design aspect, preferred due date, and general outline of assigned duties of the project. The communication is exchanged via employee portal within company’s personal website. Being the boss himself, he needs to understand how to run his task first hand while keeping in tabs on how his workers are doing. By planning on several stages of deadlines, he can assures if the task isn’t going well and he can try to save it before it’s too late. It’s one of the key of prospering business. Having a great open communications helps greatly for the workflow as well as building trust with employers. He was also the front man for every project meaning that every interaction our company has with our client supervised by him. And with this absolute commitment of management to make sure nothing will goes wrong, he spend 12 or more hours working every day Monday to Saturday sacrificing his free time. This trait has been mentioned a lot from multiple sources regarding being an entrepreneur. Building your own business means putting your absolute focus on your company.