Talent is not enough: Business secrets for designers – review

I think most people that love their work, not only designers, are not very joyful with the perspective that there is a complex business science behind it and that getting to know it increases the chances of success, where success is, of course, earning money, respect, stability and, last but not least, the power and freedom to do what you want.

I came across with “Talent is not enough: Secret business for designers” by chance and decided to buy it because I read some nice reviews of it, and additionally, is a cheap book.

Whether you are a designer or any other kind of problem-solving professional, as software developpers, photographers or even artists, if you like what you do but you are frustrated with the amount of bureacracy and networking envolved, you must definetely buy this book.

Please be aware that you won’t find a perspective in which all that is irrelevant. On the contrary, Shell Perkins will just tell you how important that is.

However, he will do it on a very pragmatic way. You won’t get the cheap philosophy associated, just the practicals.

Also, the book will start on how to build your first portfolio when you just graduated and will overview all the career you may have, ending ond how to sell your business when you are ready for another challenge, many years later.

It is true, that the portfolio chapter is not of much use for non-designers, and it is also true that the chapters about taxes are very boring (especially if you, like me, don’t live on the United States) but, hey, it would be a miracle to make that sound like fun!

You can certainly skip a good part that may not be relevant to you, but even if you don’t plan to ever run a company of your own, chances are that you will be working on one, or for one, eventually, and it would be good to know how are the company internals are.

On the overall, I found this book is a very good reading for anyone on a creative, problem-solving area.

The only major flaw I think is worth noticing is that the type is extremely small. Not only that is very annoying, but also it is very odd on a book written by a designer to a designer audience.

Nevertheless, the content deserves the extra effort to read it.