Left-brainers

I know I'm most likely a left-brainer...so I'm generally better at math and figures then I am at creativity. How did I get into this business then? Well, I don't know the science behind it, but it's possible that you can exercise parts of your mind so you can essentially become better at it over time.

I think they say your brain essentially fuses its system of nervous system what-cha-macallits together in the first few years of your life. (obviously mine didn't fuse well enough in some areas) So I don't think I've suddenly become more right-brain dominant by practice.

But I've noticed right-brain creative thinking has become more easy for me over time, and vice versa, I've become more "stupid" or more uninterested with the logic / number side of things. I'm sure in some parts, this is wishful thinking...there's probably a self-fullfilling thing going on where I somehow have let myself become more stupid with numbers and shit simply because I think I should, rather then any real science behind it.

I couldn't be more uninterested with numbers, computers & programming these days. If I could do what I do without a computer next to me I would. This is so much of a flip from my elementary school days where I thought the computer was the best thing since McDonald's chicken mcnuggets. Codes and programming was everything at the time and I used to program Basic scripts to do my math homework for me. GOD what a geek. I'm ready to bust out a pair of broken glasses and a pair of pocket protectors for my pens already.

Now I'm just less and less interested with that stuff, and quite frankly I've forgotten a lot of the things I should have, after having worked in the tech filed for almost a third of my life.

But I think there is something to it. Even when I've observed my own signature over the years it's definitely evolved over the years as I've felt I've exercised more and more of this creative side. I can write full sentences upside down with ease I found out the other month, I can visualize full designs in my head before I can actually figure out how to do them, and I'm ever more concerned with the getting the results of a project rather then dwelling on HOW it's done. These are all right-brain dominant roles.

Anyway, case in point about brain dominance, my own best friend recently gave me a comment in regards to design the other night when he said "Dude, I'm the last person you should ask for design ideas". This isn't the first time I've heard this from a programmer. These are all very analytical thinkers.

While I understand the reluctance to think creatively, I think to a certain degree that's selling themselves short. To me, there's a whole LOT about art that involves math and left-brain thinking. I think even a full left-brain thinker can distinguish between what looks good to him or her can't they? Or to further clarify, the left-brain thinker probably has an opinion of what looks good to themselves, but they don't trust that the rest of the world agrees with their opinion perhaps?

A lot of art involves math. They may not call it that, but skills such as alignment & composition all involve the artist trying to apply rules of math towards visual objects. When I look at a design, I see rules & lines much as I would looking at a geometry problem.

Look at photography for instance they preach the "rule of thirds" where things generally look better applied within a imaginatry grid on your photo. It's all math.

This all may have made an interesting research subject in college.