At school, were half your notes in form of pictorial representations? Remembered faces but never names? Music is essential while you are heads down on a project? Take a note of cool doodles painted on the wall? Dreamer? Passionate? Creative?
(image credits - Outside the box)
While we all use both sides of the brain, each of us have a dominant side. The side that was responsible for the YES or NO to the questions above. An early understanding of the left and right brain can help one to become more productive, efficient, and creative.
This article will cover a basic understanding of what the left and right brains are, and each of their traits. Also, how a left brained can compensate for the other and vice versa.
Left Brain vs Right Brain
Before getting very specific with the left brain and right brain, let’s dwell into what each of these brains are responsible for.
(image credits - shutterstock.com)
- Right brain - The right side of the brain looks at visual reference as a whole, whether it is a landscape, an object, or a piece of artwork, and then works its way into noticing finer details.
Those with dominance in the right brain may be more naturally creative.
Instead of making rational and conscious decisions, this part relies on intuition. The thinking in the right brain is spontaneous and influenced by emotions, such as mood, or external emotion triggers. With this part of the brain, they use their imagination, fantasy, and personal beliefs to make up their mind. They appreciate images and emotional elements, rather than factual information.
- Left brain - The left side on the other hand, first sees the details and puts them together to form the bigger picture. Which obviously goes on to say that it is more analytical and reasoning based.
Those with a dominant left brain are far more common, and far more analytical.
They can relate to experiences of both past and present. They observe structures and patterns; appreciate reality and like to recognize familiar things in the attempt to avoid change. The left part of our brain is responsible for processing numbers, and words, so that’s where they manage for example arithmetic, science, and languages.
Know your dominant side
A designer is always right brained. Do you agree? Most of the times, yes but not necessarily. Like any other individual a designer might be right brained or left brained. Either of them are capable of creating master pieces. The key is to understand your dominant side and then compensate for the other side.
Checkout your dominant side before we proceed - Right brain - Left brain test for designers .
Now that you know which side of the fence you belong to, let’s dwell into understanding how knowing your psychology helps you design better.
Design better - make your dominant side your weapon
For Left brained designers-
- Like patterns and structures? Use them in your designs. You would be the best person on the floor if you leverage your strength.
- Try this thumb rule - create one rule to abide by for an entire design, and then come up with varying ways of altering that rule throughout the design to bring more variety. Trust me, it works wonders.
- Struggling to get creative ideas? You are analytical and fighting your natural instinct does not help. Instead explore platforms that give you color combination suggestions, design inspirations and just go after it!
For Right brained designers-
- Imagine the outcome first, and then detail along the way.
- Try experimenting with different colors, patterns, textures, and whatever else, all while keeping the big picture in mind.
- Instead of fighting disorganization everyday, use tools and resources to make it easier.
Wrapping up -
Know your weapons well and use it wisely. Humans develop traits with experience. All you need to do it understand your strength, capitalize on it and manage the other half. Leonardo Da Vinci, was right brained or left brained? The instant reply might be “right brained”. But, I really doubt that considering the amount of analysis and reasoning aspect behind his creations. The best artist(/designer) is the one who never lets his audience decide if he is left-brained or right brained.
(Feature image credit - shutterstock.com)
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