Creative Business Leadship program is for designers wanting to learn leadership and management skills
Designers need management and leadership skills to prosper: how to lead a discussion, manage clients and handle disputes and negotiations.
None of these tasks are easy; managing ‘up’ to business owners and ‘down’ to the design team needs skills designers often aren't taught.
This is a program for designers (or those in aligned sectors) who don't want to be on the tools forever.
“This online, self-paced program is packed full of practical information about running a creative studio. Overall, its 7 units cover a lot of ground from a variety of points of view. Industry insights, benchmarks and interviews with designers and studio managers add useful points of reference and relatability, which I found particularly valuable. …
…The way each unit is broken down into bite-size activity sheets means that nothing’s too daunting to sink your teeth into – particularly handy if you’re balancing the course with work and life. Highly recommended to anyone wanting to broaden their understanding of the ins and outs of design studio management..”
Loren Holmes Director, To & Fro Studio.
Creative business leadership and management skills can be learnt.
Not everyone wants to stay ‘on-the-tools’ – management is the next step
That said, managing creatives is not for the faint-of-heart. To start with, an ‘ability to manage’ is not necessarily a skill you are born with — most of us learn by doing. Add to that, managing creatives involves talking design plus deadlines and that makes the gig that bit tougher.
Of course, learning ‘on-the-job’ is always an option. Problem is it can prove slow because you can only learn as much as the people surrounding you know and are able to communicate. And it can get hazardous – it’s costly to lose good staff and/or clients from a ‘learning experience’.
That’s why we built the Design Studio Management program for designers who are well versed on design skills, but don’t learn the management skills needed to grow and maintain a small business. Here’s a program teaching the skills, tools and resources designers need to manage, and build a successful, sustainable design team.
We’ve a demo site you can access – contact Greg to learn more.
“When I was at uni I didn’t know studio management or design management was a ‘thing’. It wasn’t long before I realised I’ll never be a great designer, which sucked because I love the design industry. One of my bosses suggested I’d make a better design manager than a designer. That’s all the prompt I needed, a bit of googling and I found this program … it’s been a real an eye-opener. In fact I used what I learnt to land my first studio management role!”
Ex-graphic designer Now Studio Manager, Brisbane Studio.
“Two of us started a studio straight out of uni. Everything was great until we started hiring other designers. Neither of us had worked anywhere else so we had no processes, no procedures and no idea! I’m so grateful I found this program … we’ve implemented a studio management system, we now have proper daily WIP happening and with Carol’s help I’ve written detailed job descriptions so we all know what we’re doing. Highly recommend. 👍”
Anonymous Studio owner, Adelaide.
Learn tips and tactics to manage other creatives and designers
The learnings is this program are relevant and practical – you can start using them tomorrow
Best of all, it’s flexible. Study full or part time, online, in your time, at your own speed. Each unit is self sufficient, you can do all or just some, in whatever order suits you best.
It’s suitable for solo-entrepreneurs planning to grow their design team; for studio owners managing by default and needing to hone their skills; and for studio owners wanting to upskill one of their team from being ‘on-the-tools’ to a management position. It’s also valuable for those with a non-design background planning a career-shift.
Want to see a demo or got some questions? Email Greg.
A program based on Australian design agencies and people
Topics in the Creative Business Leadership Program include:
- defining the Australian design scene and design management
- analysing existing skills in a studio
- understanding about different studio / agency models
- destructing how best to help creatives work
- managing studio workflow
- wrangling clients: how to hold onto the good and lose the bad
- researching competitors and why that’s important
- costing/estimating and budgeting.
The content is based on industry-insights: real, practical activities based on 30 years experience managing an Australian design studio. Carol Mackay and Greg Branson design business advisers bring their experience to this program.
Want to see a demo or got some questions? Email Greg.
Creative Business Leadership is a flexible online program
This is a self-led program delivered on-demand 24/7. The program includes:
Online information: written by Australian design practitioners for Australian designers.
Factsheets: Succinct, downloadable subject-focused deep-dives into specific areas.
Activities: Designed to reinforce the learnings and help you think through how they might be relevant for your studio and your clients.
Videos: Interviews with practitioners; studio managers from different backgrounds
The Business of Design publication: a copy of the only Australian publication written about starting, managing and growing an Australian design business.
Of course, if you’d like to add a mentoring component to the program, Carol and Greg are available for on-demand, issue-based mentoring sessions. Not sure? Email and let’s talk.
“I highly recommend the Design Business Council. They have mentored me over the years and have given invaluable insight into the Australian design industry and in particular salaries, remuneration.
Both Carol and Gregs’ expertise as a design business coach and mentor can help with pathways, whether it’s within your own business or with career paths in industry, both in the private sector and in government positions.
… Their combined experience is invaluable to tap into. They are highly organised, super responsive and are experts at thought leadership and generally great people to align yourself with. They bring out the best in people.”
Lisa Minichiello, Creative Director
Two ways to access the program
Self paced learning program
Complete, ongoing access to our library of downloadable resources for 48 months. It’s up to you how you use it. Some purchase the material as a resource library. As an issue crops up and they log in and read how to resolve it. Others methodologically work through the material unit by unit, activity by activity, from top to bottom. The choice is yours.
Worth remembering mentoring can be purchased at any time if there’s an area needing further clarification or you need help with implementation.
Mentored learning program
Complete, ongoing access to all the library of downloadable resources for 48 months plus 3 x 1 hour mentoring sessions to help with implementation with your studio or your situation.
This option also includes 3 months of ongoing support via a slack channel to keep the conversation going between meetings.
Next step
Contact Greg to start the discussion and a walk-through of a demo site.
Cost depends on what you need
We’ve written a program to share tips, tools and tactics needed to manage a sustainable creative businesses.
Self paced learning program: $1,200 plus GST
Mentored learning program: $2,700 plus GST
Both are unique: we can’t find a program similar to this available, so we wrote it from necessity. It’s relevant and it’s practical but best of all, it’s based from lived experience founding and managing a creative business. It’s information we wished we knew then.
Both are practical: You learn at your own pace but you are not alone – we’re here to help if you get stuck.
And the content is proven: This program is based on our experience, industry insights honed from a decade of workshops and mentoring Greg and Carol have done with Australian studios. We know the result will be a better performing, more capable studio managers.
Next step
Contact Greg to start the discussion and a demo of a sample site.