Are engineers more creative than designers? Both answers (“Yes they are!” and, “No they are not!”) are naïve. It’s foolish to compare massive groups of people against each other, especially around a sloppy word like creativity.

Assuming you work making products of some kind, we all likely know some engineers who are very creative and some who are not. We also know some designers who are very creative and some who are not. I can’t even imagine trying to average them out into two neat little piles and have the resulting comparison be of much use. But what then? Why can’t we have some fun? OK. Here we go.

Let’s start by ditching the word “creative.” It’s a romantic word and the wrong one. When someone hires an engineer or a designer, she wants a problem to be solved. The creative ability we’re talking about is to develop ideas that solve problems with working solutions. Do good engineers and designers both do this? Yes. They might be different kinds of problems, and they may use different tools, but both show up at work with the intent to problem solve, not “problem create” or “problem multiply” (although such people do seem to exist, unfortunately).

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