Crits - How to destroy a mans soul.

Critique, As a designer is a bit of a double edged sword. Sometimes it works to your advantage and other times its downright soul destroying...
Throughout your academic career you find yourself subject to the whims of teachers, tutors and even your peers when you reach higher education ( If indeed they feel brave enough to comment ), I figure that the type of person effects the way a Crit may evolve.
In all the years I have spent in higher education I find certain individuals, Tutors mainly whom seem to delight in pulling apart your work and in some cases your personal belief or dress sense all in the name of 'positive advice'
Of course there will always be an element of personal preference in a critic, No-one is going to like everything under the sun, I for one dislike modern art with its pomposity and lack of clear understanding on what I would consider to be the principals of art.
But this is probably what goes wrong. As a Critic should we not sit back and evaluate something as a designer rather than what we like?

No project is ever finished in the sense that you can always evaluate the idea and improve and this is a good positive thing as it allows a student to discover new ideas and develop a visual and design language that will continue well into the course of their career but as the saying goes, If you cant find anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. I have seen so many promising projects shot down purely because the evaluating tutor decided to riff on about why the Idea didn't work rather than suggest improvements and compliments the good elements.
Arguably the worst offender are those who get personal. We are here to get our Project/Drawing/Creation etc critiqued, not to have comments of how we dress, speak, think, expressed ourselves insulted. It is not an excuse to feel big about yourself, tears should not be involved in the classroom thank you very much.

Equally those being evaluated can have issues that may not necessarily a good thing. A good critique is to positively reinforce strong ideas and show you perhaps where you are going wrong. It certainly should not be or isn't a personal ATTACK on you and you alone, you should be able to walk away with positive feelings or an understanding of where you went wrong, Walking away angry or feeling hurt is not going to help you or encourage good faith in your classmates/clients. Nor is insisting the tutor is wrong and continue you down the design path they have considered weak without good reason. If your going to own a critique then make sure you have reasons to back up every design decision and speak to the person, make them understand what you want to do.

In the end this 'Process' is to prepare you for working with clients in the industry who in some cases will be less forgiving but certainly more likely to focus on the final imagery than the whole project. REMEBER we are to speak to those of us who don't know design language and include them in our little loop, make them feeling involved and understood so they pay you. That's the goal at the end of the day, to get paid.

Clients may be idiots, But they pay the bills.

So if anyone refers to you as a rich tea biscuit, just smile, agree and dream of how your gonna spend the money they are paying you extra for.

B,