Critiques are hard!

One of the hardest things in the design world is the critique. Critiques are a vital part of designing, as it is a great way to get feedback on your work before it is sent off into the world. The difficult part about critiques, is emotion gets involved. I work in a place where critiques are brought up on a daily basis, sometimes we forget and let emotions become involved and it becomes more of a “I like this better…” or “I don’t like this…” while it’s good to know what people like and what they don’t like, it isn’t very helpful and can be detrimental to the project. Critiques need to be helpful, and without emotion, we can’t take critiques personally, just as much as we can’t critique personally, it’s way to easy to get upset and let our emotions ruin what we’ve worked so hard on. Early on in my design career, I was always reminding myself “Nick, you need to have thick skin” but it was so hard when I felt like everyone hated my work! How was I supposed to become a better designer if it feels like nobody likes what I’m doing? I have since realized that for the most part, people were giving me critiques on my design and illustrations, and they weren’t meaning to hurt my feelings, but more than anything, they were just trying to help.

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