Your personal research tasks are for deeper critical reflection and demonstration of your thinking and working processes.
These are the research tasks for this week, please share your findings on the ideas wall and on your blog:
Definition of Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship generally means starting and managing a business or project where you accept financial and creative risks in hopes of earning rewards. It revolves around innovation, creating value, and taking responsibility for the outcomes of your efforts.
Creative Entrepreneurship
This is about turning creative ideas and intellectual assets into commercial opportunities. Instead of producing physical products, creative entrepreneurs, often designers, invest in talent, originality, and innovation to create both economic and cultural value.
Design Entrepreneurship
Robert Lzicar defines design entrepreneurship as a mindset where designers don’t just wait for assignments, they identify meaningful problems themselves and develop their own solutions. These ventures often focus more on social and ethical goals than simply making a profit. The approach is highly personal and individualistic; traditional business models or formulaic “design thinking” methods don’t usually apply.
Design entrepreneurs combine strong creative skills with business know-how. They identify unique services or products—like branding, web design, or packaging—and build businesses around them. In this role, you effectively become your own client, driving your vision forward independently.
Many designers who start their own ventures shift their focus beyond just aesthetics. They aim for meaningful impact by prioritizing empathy, social good, and sustainable value creation. Balancing personal goals with societal benefit, they often navigate the tension between investor expectations and their design values.
Today’s design entrepreneurs move from simply executing client briefs to orchestrating whole ventures. This means defining the problems to solve, designing products or services, owning intellectual property, crafting marketing and distribution strategies, and using design as a tool to build lasting organisations.