In most design firms (and hopefully in most in-house departments, too) before presenting ideas to clients, the various designers and art directors will gather round and have a critique. The idea is to refine the work before presenting it, hopefully making it better in the process. The only problem with this system is that most designers don't have any idea how to give and receive effective critiques. They make vague criticisms of work and take the whole thing too personally. Here then are some suggestions on how to give and receive critiques that will improve the work, rather than just tearing it down.

How to give an effective critique

1. Know the project specifics. It's hard to critique a project that you don't know about. How could instructions from the customer have limited or constrained the work?




2. Keep yourself out of it. Don't like Century Gothic? Hate drop shadows? So what? Doesn't mean the design is bad. Look past your own personal aesthetic preferences to what is objectively good and bad about the work.




3. Be as specific as possible. Comments like, "I just don't like it," are completely worthless. Try to focus in on exactly what is or isn't working for you. This will help you to avoid subjective critiques.




4. As much as possible, focus on how the work meets the client brief. It may (or may not) be personally appealing to you, but the real test of a design is how well it achieves the objectives laid out in the brief.




5. Make positive comments, too. Don't lie, but search very hard for things that are good about the work. It is unlikely that you will not be able to find a single thing to like in a given piece. Figure out what that is and be sure to include it in your comments.




6. Specify solutions. Don't just list what's wrong with a particular work; be sure to tell the designer how you would improve it. Be as specific as possible with this. "Make it better," doesn't cut it.

How to receive critiques constructively

1. Don't take it personally. Repeat after me: you are not your work. Even if the work is truly as awful as they said, that doesn't reduce your value. Assuming the criticism is valid (a mighty big "if"), use it to fuel your desire to improve your work.




2. Specifics will improve the piece. If you aren't given any specifics, be sure to ask for them. If they can't give you any, I'd ignore the critique; it's obviously not a real, objective gripe. If there are specifics, do they make sense to you? Can you see how addressing those concerns will improve your work?




3. Focus on how the work can better meet the client brief. Despite all of our protestations otherwise, much of design is subjective. Make sure that when you are implementing the improvements suggested in the critique, you aren't ignoring the brief. If your "improvements" take you away from what the client is looking for, you aren't improving the work at all. And that will lead to an objective complaint from the client.

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Image by mappamundi and is used under the Creative Commons license.