The Catalyst: One Question and a Gut Feeling (does Art Thinking + Business = Impact?)

The answer was not what I hoped for. It was better.

But we don’t know each other yet to tell you upfront, so let’s start here.

I’m a business and marketing strategist for 9 years now. Before that, I worked as a professional Art Restorer for 5 years, with a Bachelor and Master’s Degree in Art Restoration and Conservation. At the same time, I am an artist, heart and soul for more than 25 years. My wicked passion for business and strategy started unraveling 15 years ago.

All this time, I looked after one thread to connect art and business, because I had the gut feeling that together they amplify each other’s impact. What I didn’t know, is how and why.

After careful research and hands on strategy and marketing implementation, turns out How and Why is something older than you and me, and older than the most ancient archeological discovery: human culture.

Michaelangelo and Da Vinci, they knew. Picasso and Gaudi too. I saw it in art and human nature, over and over again.

But the reason why The Beatles are so famous even though they split?

The curious case of Harley Davidson motorcycles: You either love them or hate them?

The rush of adrenaline you get from only thinking of Red Bull?

How did Hayao Miyazaki from Studio Ghibli and J.R.R Tolkien manage to instill the same intensity of loyalty in different times and opposite parts of the world?

How is it that Tim Burton, Terry Pratchett and Guillermo del Toro create in different mediums but all manage to move worlds inside the people who resonate with their storytelling?

All of them change lives. One by one. Masses. With one channel: Business.

Art + Business = Culture. Obsession level up: Why does it grow?

Now, you’ve heard of strategic thinking.

You’ve probably used design thinking.

But few talk and use in business: art thinking, the mindset that shapes culture, emotion, and human meaning since the dawn of The Croods.

*The fun fact is that the impact of Art Thinking in business is starting to be studied more and more (here, here,here, and here).

As a business and marketing strategist, I was already using artistic principles and universally relatable concepts (ahem art thinking) to grow businesses because really, that’s how I think. Scientists call it metacognition – the artist’s problem solving brain process.

Most founders come to me after they had a great start for a few years, but are misaligned, starting to go on a downward spiral or their team of specialists are stuck.

This is where The Artistic Edge System works: a methodology that helps you uncover and connect the real reason behind your business that clicks instantly in you, your team and your clients. This is your Culture.

You then use it to align everything: business-brand-marketing-sales-service/product-customer experience-teams. This is the System at work.

Like I said: Everything!

Our clients go from I don’t know what to do anymore! to I can’t believe this is working!

This Culture + System allows a company to outperfom its competitors, faster and more efficient, because it aligns business-brand-marketing-service/product-customer experience-teams. You start going full on in the right direction!

Before we go further, let’s get deeper with what I mean by Art Thinking in Business.

---

It emphasizes generating new, improbable ideas and exploring core values, rather than refining existing solutions or focusing solely on probable outcomes.

Art Thinking follows a few big principles that, for me as a professional artist and art restorer, I have been using all my life, but which have become essential for the last 9 years, in my work as a business strategist and marketing specialist:

• It starts from personal or collective values and ideological friction, rather than predefined problems or user needs.
• It encourages breaking routines with practices like donating, deviating, destroying, drifting, dialoguing, and displaying—each disrupting conventional logic to unlock new perspectives.
• It aims to create the improbable by embracing uncertainty, vulnerability, and originality, producing outcomes that are both transformative and aligned with core human or societal values.​

In many ways, Art Thinking complements and expands the business frameworks most founders already know, like Design Thinking or Strategic Thinking.

While those methods help you optimize, empathize, and systematize, I use Art Thinking especially because it helps me uncover meaning, challenge assumptions, and express what makes your business truly human.

It doesn’t replace logic. It enriches it with emotional and cultural intelligence.

1. Compared to Design Thinking

Design Thinking	Art Thinking
Starts with the user’s needs	Starts with human truth and inner meaning
Focuses on empathy and functionality	Focuses on expression and authenticity
Asks: “What problem are we solving for them?”	Asks: “What truth are we expressing about ourselves, our world, or our values?”
Leads to better products and experiences	Leads to more soulful, resonant brands
Optimizes for usability	Reveals emotional and symbolic depth

In short:
Design Thinking makes a product useful.
Art Thinking makes it meaningful.

Together, they create something people don’t just use — they feel connected to.

This leads to returning customers, like my latest client who is looking at a 74% growth in returning customers month-over-month.

---

2. Compared to Strategic Thinking

Strategic Thinking	Art Thinking
Anchored in logic, goals, market data	Anchored in emotion, intuition, and meaning
Prioritizes alignment, efficiency, growth	Prioritizes authenticity, coherence, identity
Asks: “How can we win?”	Asks: “Why does it matter that we win?”
Creates clarity and focus	Creates depth and resonance
Often future-oriented	Often timeless and principle-oriented

In short:
Strategic Thinking gives direction.
Art Thinking gives dimension.

Without Art Thinking, strategy risks becoming sterile and clever, but forgettable.
With it, it becomes alive, guided not only by reason but by resonance.

Customers and clients rave about your products and services, and it’s not pure luck or just great client-market fit.

It’s intentional strategy, where business, brand and marketing are aligned, not separate!

This brings exceptional growth, in the first 2-3 months of implementation, stabilizing at doubling revenue and profits in the first 12 months.

Another client is currently looking at his second month with sales growing more than 120% compared with last month, and a 109% increase in profit.

---

3. Where the Artistic Edge Comes In

My Artistic Edge methodology integrates all three forms of thinking into one cohesive system:

Thinking Mode	Role in Artistic Edge Framework
Strategic Thinking	Defines direction: business vision, market focus, growth objectives
Design Thinking	Shapes experience: customer journey, product alignment, empathy
Art Thinking	Defines essence: meaning, authenticity, emotional and value-driven power

Artistic Edge is where strategy becomes story,
and business becomes an act of expression, not just execution.

---

4. How This Helps Business Owners

For a founder or leader, art thinking brings:

• Emotional insight: the ability to feel when something is “off-brand” or “untrue.”
  
• Self-awareness: clarity on what makes your business yours — your essence.
  
• Symbolic intelligence: understanding how meaning, culture, and emotion influence decisions.
  
• Courage to reimagine: art thinking invites curiosity and experimentation, not just optimization.
  

---

To put it simply

Most business frameworks teach you how to think like a designer or a strategist.
But few teach you how to think like an artist.

Design thinking helps you empathize with your customers.

Strategic thinking helps you plan for success.

Art thinking helps you uncover your truth, so your strategy and design express not just what you do, but who you are.

With my Artistic Edge System, I use all three, together with my experience working with founders, entrepreneurs and creatives, to help businesses like yours to thrive in a meaningful way, with strategic alignment and consistent value.

Artistic Edge Agency 2025 Terms of Service & Privacy Policy Newsletter | Instagram | Linkedin |