Right brain vs. left brain—which one are you? 

According to the Centre for Educational Neuroscience, the left brain vs. right brain thinking view outlines that “the left brain is the analytical, logical, verbal half while the right brain is the creative, emotional, visuospatial half; individuals who have one side more active than the other are believed show corresponding cognitive styles and personalities.”

We at Studiolo Secondari believe all this left brain / right brain thinking misses the boat, especially where Design is concerned. Designers harness both sides of the brain to solve problems creatively.

Design is the practice of utilizing artistic techniques to solve problems. As a discipline, Design requires equal parts creative inspiration and analytical process. Designers come in all flavors and run the spectrum from those primarily guided by intuition and imagination, to those who focus on process and methodology. To understand this better, let’s take a look at how I navigate left and right brain function during the Design process.

I use the left side of my brain at the very beginning when I dive into the discovery process. The discovery process involves analyzing the problem, exploring the specifications and constraints like budget, size, manufacturing techniques, market expectations, and defining the project's goal. By doing the left side work first, investigating requirements, competition research, scoping the problem, and opportunities, I begin to develop an approach or instinct which will become the solution. When I feel that tingle of potential in the right side of my brain, I know the design process is transitioning from the left side of the brain to the right side.

I use the right side of my brain to consider the problem from a different perspective by combining my creative impulse (that feeling of knowing that this is the right direction, the correct palette, the perfect font) and my ability to mash up seemingly unrelated ideas, a creative solution emerges.

Then I switch back to the left side of my brain to analyze the Design concept I have developed by comparing it to the goals of the project and the contextual analysis I did at the beginning of the exploration.

To succeed in designing a solution, designers must combine their artistic impulse with their technical skill and business acumen.

For designers whose practice is based in methodology, leaning into the right side of the brain can be unsettling. The need to close your eyes, let go of the steering wheel, and fly the plane using “the Force” is unnerving. Often, ideas that come to us might conflict with what our left brain is thinking, and that tension can sew doubt, but taking the leap of faith (another right-brain strength) and going with your gut will often result in success!

I  recently had to grapple with that left brain / right brain tension while redesigning the Studiolo Secondari website. 

My instinct was to use a display font called Coquette. It's a script typeface and seems created for an Italian gelateria. The left brain said it was too pretty and frivolous for Studiolo's clients. Ultimately the artistic instinct won out, and I believe the font is the perfect way to position Studiolo Secondari with our creative personality at its center.

I also dealt with the left brain right brain split when developing a publication system for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 

The artistic impulse (right brain) was to use an energetic color scheme, although the content was traditional and data-driven. The inspiration was the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli and her audaciously vivid pink. I used the Schiaparelli pink as the core of my palette and chose five more colors to complement it and address the text requirements.

The layout made the most of the arresting palette by using full-bleed spans of color, with text knocking out. One more challenge (a left-brainer) was that the palette had to be compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Proposing such a vibrant palette to our client was a risk, but the right brain instinct knew it was the right choice. And guess what? The client loved it! They appreciated how the color palette helped brighten the content and appealed to their stylish, Parisian spirit (the OECD office’s location is in the 16th arrondissement of Paris.)

Review the Studiolo Secondari OECD Case Study and share your thoughts on the color palette!

Design is a discipline in which designers use the right and left sides of their brains every day to achieve creative and practical success .

According to this article from the Dana Foundation, “There is indeed evidence that a particular region of the right hemisphere is activated in certain kinds of creative breakthrough…But the problem-solving process leading up to the insight, it appears, depends on a more broadly distributed cortical network…It may be that rather than reflecting the dominance of one hemisphere over the other, creativity, in essence, represents a glowing demonstration of [the left and right brain’s] ability to work together.”

What are your thoughts on the right vs. left brain? How do you use each side of your brain in your work?

Image credit: Walnuts by Priyanka Singh unsplash.com/@priyankasingh