The Designer's Dilemma: Lessons from Walt Disney

How Walt Disney was able to balance the pursuit of world-leading craft with the necessities of founding and running a huge company

I recently finished reading Walt Disney: The Biography by Neal Gabler.

I picked it up because I wanted to gain insights into how Disney managed to balance the pursuit of world-leading craft with the necessities of founding and running a huge company.

This relates to the challenge many designers face regarding how to simultaneously meet the needs of both the user and the company; the Designer’s Dilemma, if you will.

I see five key takeaways from this book that help address this challenge.

And before you read on, I realise that they might sound cliché. But the detail this book goes into really brought these points to life for me in a way that they simply won’t do in isolation. I’ll do my best to summarise this 633-page tour de force, but I encourage you to read it too!

Here we go:

1. His story wasn’t linear and inevitable

Just because the company bears Disney’s name, it does not mean it was his first.

His first true attempt at founding a company, called Laugh-O-Gram, produced groundbreaking cartoons but went bankrupt after a couple of years.

Even as the start-up that would become The Walt Disney Company took form, I was amazed at just how many trials the company suffered, and how hard Disney had to push to keep it afloat.

2. He knew what good looked like

Walt was drawing from a young age. Entering the world of commercial art and then experimenting with fledgling animation technology, he racked up hours and hours of experience mastering the technical and storytelling aspects of animation.

As his team grew, Disney spent less time at the drafting board and more time providing creative direction with incredible, and I mean really incredible, attention to detail.

3. His environment had a perfect creative tension

The book claimed that Disney hated money. For him, it was a means to an end, that end being the march towards a perfect world.

But those efforts towards a perfect world needed funding. Without that, Disney’s plans would never have materialised.

Enter Walt’s brother, Roy Disney, with whom he cofounded the company in 1923. Roy was more risk-averse and kept a firm grip on the financials.

It was the perfect creative tension; Walt could direct the company towards executing on his dreams, and Roy could rein in his ambitions just enough to keep company operations stable.

4. He never stopped looking forward

Disney could have stopped at Mickey Mouse.

Debuting in the landmark Steamboat Willie cartoon in 1928, Mickey spawned hours of cartoons, a fortune in merchandise, and a loyal following to The Mickey Mouse Club. Disney could have easily declared this his grand contribution to the world, closed up shop, and lived a comfortable retirement.

But he was just getting started.

Pioneering the synchronisation of sound and animation with Steamboat Willie simply wasn’t enough. Disney went on to produce the first feature-length animated film with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. He built custom-designed headquarters in Burbank to foster his idealised company culture in 1939. He redefined the concept of an amusement park with Disneyland in 1955, and was in the process of redefining the concept of a city with EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) up to his death in 1966.

Disney was way ahead of his time when he started, and still way ahead when he finished.

5. But it came at a cost

Disney was a perfectionist and worked extremely hard. That took a toll on him and his staff. It delayed projects like Snow White and required immense time from Disney to constantly inspect his staff’s work up close.

His huge ambition and insatiable curiosity meant that he grew bored of the very things he had worked so hard to build once they had moved from risky and unprecedented to business-as-usual. For example, Disney remarkably considered selling his animation studio as projects like Disneyland became his primary focus.

His extreme hard work and heavy smoking impacted his health, and Disney developed what became a characteristic hacking cough and persistent colds. His health deteriorated further and he died at the relatively young age of 65 following a lung cancer diagnosis.

Conclusion

I already miss the experience of reading this book.

Despite the already amazing story the book recounts, I still felt like there was another 50 years of adventures still to be had! Who knows what Disney could have accomplished with even just another 10 years of life, let alone 20 or 30.

Disney’s story isn’t perfect, but by balancing his visionary capacity and pursuit of perfection with his eye for detail and his push-pull working relationship with his brother, he found his own way to solve the designer’s dilemma.