talent vs ability
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- autoflavour0
breed them.. make a übermench
- hektor9110
I usually follow this little saying
Imagination is more important than knowledge...
"For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."
- monNom0
Do you want good ideas, or someone to hit deadlines?
#1 has a lot more potential, but will require significant investment on your part to develop his skills. You'll need to give guidance on technical approaches to design to bring up their productivity. In the mean time, you're probably going to have to pad out your estimates by a good deal to make up for the inexperience. This person is your typical junior designer and really shouldn't command a premium salary over the other until their productivity can keep up with the more experienced designers.
#2 would be a great production designer. Sounds like they have a good deal of experience, but if they aren't producing creative work it's unlikely that they will change. Not everyone is an artist at heart, some are more technicians. Salary would probably be higher than #1 as this designer should be more productive.
Long term #1 could be a great advantage to your company, but if you're swamped with work now and just need to get it done, #2 is your better pick.
Hiring both and teaming them up could be ideal.
- monospaced0
#1
Then beat him into submission.
- identity0
#1 is an investment and will be worth 10 times the 2nd, eventually.
#2 would be great for you if your management style is more delegation-focused.The known are these two. The unknown is what kind of manager/co-worker are you?
- animatedgif0
^ Wouldn't that piss the art worker off when the first guy comes over and starts wanting things shifted around randomly till it "feels right" when they've worked hard setting up a system.
I'd go with the second as they seem to actually understand what they're doing, the first is floundering.
- dobre0
Hire guy #1 to be ur next AD, guy #2 as your art worker.
- necromation0
Give them acid, tie both of them together and give them one knife and she who's left... Works great here!
- 20020
Talent because you can always teach ability and frame the talent in to rational thoughts.
- animatedgif0
Both sound bad in their own way.
- hellobotto0
Sounds like I'd want to work with both. If I'm available to contribute to a project in a production capacity, yet creatively distracted by other projects, it's great to work with someone who's still putting their head in the clouds of innovation while my feet are glued to the nitty gritty ground.
Conversely, if I'm tasked with coming up with ideas and approaches, yet I'm too bogged down to shoulder implementation, then I would appreciate knowing our concepts are in the hands of a skilled production artist who knows what's what. (This said, I would view the "understands the science of it" in your example as a "strong production artist" and not a designer. It's a like a semantics game, but semantics and perception permeate all aspects of staffing.)
If it had to be just one person though, I'll play the rude card and answer your question with a question...which person is proactively seeking, or warmly receptive, to new avenues which may make them more versatile? Regardless if they're concept or production-focused, a person who doesn't want to stray out of their lane will be a root of frustration when you find yourself wanting something different out of them.
- oey0
answering to your question, ability.
- for now. give the talent guy some freelance stuff if you can.oey
- both work for us now freelancing, but we're needing to bring one on full time, which, for the immediate future will cut the other off.bjladams
- the other off. reality of running a debt free business model.bjladams
- fuck! I wouldn't want to be in your position. the decision you'll make now can mess up the future of the company or save itoey
- oey0
both plus sweat
- ...multiplied by complementary personality.hellobotto
- wrong thread.oey
- I think it applies. Take "both" + sweat (work ethic) X personality (enjoy working with them daily)hellobotto
- vaxorcist0
Depends on the job... talent without discipline can miss deadlines and possibly alienate clients... Ability without innovation can be fine if others have it, and/or you have boring clients... the risk of the latter is your agency stagnates.
- ESKEMA0
Basically it depends on what you want to be nursing. Do you want to teach one more discipline or give Art / Creative Direction to the other? what do you need more at this point, a doer or a thinker? etc..
- I'd go with the first one if I had to choose. Learning the tools is easier than forming ideas.ESKEMA
- qTime0
The first one.
The science bit can be learnt. You learn more from your mistakes. Sounds like the first one will grow in time.
- d_rek0
My experience with the 'capable designer' was rather frustrating. The could never accomplish anything without a measure of handholding, despite their formal training. Stylistically they relied heavily on pre-packaged solutions - no custom typography, illustrations, photography... virtually every solution had some amount of 'stock' in it.
This person in my mind, to reiterate, was not a designer but instead a decorator. They can take all of the correlating elements and compose them in a nice way... but they'd be arsed to create any of the elements from scratch.
- non0
When it comes to design, I'm a "feel" kind of guy, but do understand and use the basics. I would say I'm more of the artistic type with a strong sense of logic. For me, that's the winning combination.