Asking the Wrong Questions Part 1: "Is This a Good Photo?"

How to Ask Better Questions About Creative Output for Business

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had this conversation in my career, but if I had a dollar for every time I had it, I could eat out at a Michelin rated restaurant with at least 2 other people.

Scene: A client—or potential client—shows me an image, video, graphic, tagline, or bit of copy or potential hire’s portfolio and asks, “Is this good?”

It’s a straightforward question on the surface, but the answer is anything but.

I can tell you if it's technically bad immediately; taken by a person with who is TECHNICALLY unskilled.

But "good?"

That's a different metric entirely when it comes to business.

It’s Not About Pretty Pictures

Here’s the thing: while I’ve spent much of my career working alongside creatives and even count several medium of art as a personal passion, I’m not an art critic, a gallery curator, or a museum professional.

I’m a digital business development professional, and my lens for evaluating creative work isn’t only aesthetics—it’s business and how much the creatives earn back in sales (actual money) and evaluating what the purpose of the creative output is.

If the creative output in question is intended for marketing or branding, the question isn’t whether the image, video, or design is “good” in the artistic sense. It’s whether it works.

Whether it’s EFFECTIVE

• Does it achieve its intended purpose?
• Does it help sell the product or communicate the brand’s unique value?
• Did the ad make the client money?
• Did the photo help sell the product?
• Did the image answer the viewer’s questions?
• Did it do its specific job (branding / instruction / information) while appropriately representing the brand?

The Difference Between "Art" and "Business Creatives"

Art is about subjective beauty, personal expression, and emotional resonance.

Marketing creativity, on the other hand, is about results. It’s not just about being visually appealing; it’s about being effective as a marketing tool. U.G.C., for example, (User generated content) can be patently UNPROFESSIONAL in its quality and be highly effective. That doesn't mean a BRAND can produce content at that same unprofessional level and post it on its social media outlets, there are endless rules for what is and isn't ok in professional and business imagery and content that you need to understand before choosing or hiring or using imagery for business and marketing output.

And yet an ALARMING number of businesses will either spend astronomical amounts of "professional" images that absolutely don't have value, or have in-house amateurs create embarrassing product images useless for any and all marketing imagery and not understand the incredible damage it does to their brand identity 

When evaluating creative work for business purposes, I can immediately spot the basics:

• Does the photographer understand lighting and composition?
• Is the copywriter’s grammar solid, or are they misusing their title?
• Does the graphic designer understand balance and hierarchy?

These are the fundamentals, and they’re easy to critique. I can immediately tell you what’s bad or unskilled. But whether the creative piece is good—whether it’s effective—requires much more context.

It’s All About the Brief

To effectively evaluate a piece of marketing or branding content, I need to know:

• What’s the brief? What was the creator tasked to achieve?
• What are the goals of the campaign?
• Who is the target demographic?
• What are the USPs (unique selling propositions) of the product or service?
• How does it fit into the larger branding strategy?
• What’s the market and competitive landscape?

Without this context, you’re not asking me to evaluate the effectiveness of the creative—you’re asking for a gut reaction to its surface-level appearance, and that's not a professional opinion, that's a personal one.

And while my guess on the subject is an informed one, a truly informed analysis will always serve you best.

To reiterate: It’s Not Art; It’s Sales. It's Advertising. It's Branding.

Creative work in advertising, marketing, and branding isn’t about being pretty, clever, or technically flawless. It’s about answering a brief. It’s about strategy, logic, and achieving specific objectives.

Think of it this way: asking me to evaluate a photo or portfolio for business without providing the context is like asking me to rate an Uber driver before the ride even starts. Sure, I can tell you if the car is clean and the driver’s on time, but I can’t tell you if they’ll get you to your destination safely and efficiently.

A great piece of creative content may look like art and it may look, frankly, like a mess, but its purpose isn’t artistic. It’s functional. It’s built to drive engagement, communicate a message, and ultimately generate revenue.

If the creative work doesn’t do that—no matter how stunning it looks—it’s NOT a good photo, video, or graphic FOR BUSINESS.



We're not hiring your wedding photographer here, that's a different world of photography.

So the next time you’re asking a pro to evaluate creative output for you, understand that we're looking at the 360 marketing or branding, and don’t start with, “Is this good?” Instead, start with arming us with the answers to the following questions:

• “What’s the goal?”
• “Who is this for?”
• “Does this achieve the BUSINESS result we need?”
• "Did it or will it probably make us money?"

Because in business, it’s not about beauty—it’s about quantifiable results.

And then and only then can we tell you if it's "good".