Good and bad design? Good and bad critiques.

I spoke with a group of design students at a local community college this past weekend. At the end of the lecture, I talked through a bit of my work which includes a couple slide of which I am not particularly proud.

Basically I mix a bit of bad with all my best work so I can talk about "bad design" - something I learned from a past lecture.

I put the terms "bad design" in quotes because of the ridiculously subjective nature of what constitutes a bad piece of design. And it's frustrating as hell, man!

So during my walk-through, one of my rather unhealthy pieces appeared on the big screen and I began to speak about why the piece does not work. I started into my little diddy about the fine difference between subtlety and hammering one over the head with your message.

In the middle of my rant, the instructor for the class raised her hand, pointed to the screen and said, "I like it."

The students, who were all attempting to digest my thoughts on my very own bad design work, were blindsided by a lone compliment from their fearless leader. Well, thanks for the kudos, but now I have an auditorium of students staring back at me with a giant collective question mark hoovering over their heads (which puts a question mark and exclamation point above my head as well since I am a novice lecture-giver).

I turn to the class thinking, "Hello, beginning design students! Welcome to the Dadaism of what is design critique. Confused as to what is considered good and bad design? Yes, that feeling will never go away."

I didn't say that, though. I was able to use the instructor's kind words to segueway into a conversation about how design is subjective. I told them that as they progress through the curriculum, they will experience critique after critique, and usually no two people will be of the same opinion (unless it counts for a grade).

Don't get me wrong. I think debates and critiques are healthy. I firmly believe there are solid benefits to a good design critique of one's work, but the idea of how some people could be right on the money while others are pulling stuff out of the proverbial ass used to elude and annoy me. Heck, just read the comments over at Ads of the World.

As a budding design student, I remember sitting in my layout class during a critique. In this class, you always wanted to be the first one up on the chopping block because the class has not yet warmed up, see?

However, after critiquing a few measly design pieces, the students begin showing their teeth and they are out for blood. Piece after piece would become a victim of classmates looking to toss in their two cents, with pessimism on full display masquerading as deep intellectual thought and sophistication.

Some pieces deserved it, some did not. Some absolutely did not!

I remember looking at some of the design pieces that were getting kicked violently around the room, all the while thinking, "This piece works, dammit! Would I have done it the exact same way? No, but it communicates its purpose clearly. Thumbs up."

I came to the conclusion that if I took a professionally designed cereal box or candy bar wrapper or whatever, and hung it up on the classroom wall, it would still get torn to shreds by these students.

That bummed me out as a student because, in my mind, a cereal box from Kellog's or a candy bar wrapper from Mars were done by real professional designers with professional art directors with professional production teams who, for all intensive purposes, know their STUFF.

Me, I was just a student, green in design principles and Photoshop, who was not in the same league as a designer at Kellog's, yet the cereal guy would still get his ass chewed by a bunch of peeps with my same experience (which was next to nothing).

It wasn't until a few years later when I discovered the difference between a true critique and self-satisfying verbal garbage. A true critique is about design quality while the other is solely about personal preference.

Another individual's personal preference in how they would have designed your piece is good to hear sometimes, if only for a bit of food for thought (and usually, that food only contains nourishment if offered by another professional - i.e. someone how knows what they are talking about. Usually).

Actual in-depth criticism on how a design piece communicates successfully or unsuccessfully based on principles of grid use, eye flow, information hierarchy, usage of color, white space, etc. can be invaluable in making a stronger piece.

However, back during my time in design school, it seemed that students would rely on personal preference instead of design quality while judging others' work, and even if I didn't fully understand it all at the time, it still rubbed me the wrong way.

But they were students, right? Still wet behind the ears. Once they get out in the real world and gain a few years of experience, that will all change in how they critique (or worse, direct) design work.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Nope. Well, sometimes.


TO BE CONTINUED...

First year students and my own bad design work

Along with my lovely wife, I gave a presentation about working as a graphic designer to a lecture hall full of beginning design students.

The instructor wanted us to give a small kick in the pants to these guys and let them know how freaking cool it is to be a designer.

Well, shoot, that's easy. Right?

So as the presentation began, we spoke about our early years in design school: commuting, working full time, and completely broke. BROKE.

Many students related to that. Score.

We told them about how their passion for design will reflect in their work. We told them how to make the most of their time while learning design principles in school.We told them that school assignments aren't like pain in the ass math story problems, but rather a journey for their creativity, and school is the one place where they will be able to shine and build that gorgeous portfolio to entice future employers.

Sounds great, eh?

Oh, it wasn't all pie-in-the-sky talk about passion and creativity. We also warned them about dangerous office politics and how to avoid the dreaded Weaselsnake-worm, but we only touched on that. Most of the presentation centered on how it completely rocks to be a graphic designer. Infinity.

Now while this might have been a pleasant eye-opening experience for the students, I had a bit of an awakening myself.

It happened while talking through some of my design work. I brought with me mostly print pieces - ads, campaign posters, newsletters and the like.

As each slide clicked by, I had a great time explaining process, grid and concept. Then it happened.

One of my favorite pieces popped up on the giant screen. I looked up at the oversized ad, ready to dive into the what's and the why's of the piece, and all that came out of me was, "Uh..."

As I gazed up, it was like I saw the piece for the first time. I designed it a couple years ago and it always stuck in my mind as a very cool design piece. However, now it was up on the big screen and after a few seconds I thought, "What a colossal hunk of crap!"

After thinking that and realizing that the students were all looking at the same image I was looking at, I had to say something a bit some substantial than "uh".

"Okay, I don't like this piece," I said, as if I had thought that all along. I went on to explain why I added a bad design to the slides. I explained to the students what I was originally thinking when working on the design and why it really doesn't work (zero eye flow, hits you over the head, a "try too hard" look to the design, etc.).

This actually gave me a bit of cred. An designer who could keep his ego in check long enough to speak about his own design mistakes! Yes, I exist, although by accident. I really thought it was a good piece at first.

So after speaking about the mistakes I made, a student raised her hand and asked, "If you designed that today, what would you have done differently?"

Crap.

I JUST found out that I hated it. Now I had to quickly deconstruct the design and see about how to do it right.

Thankfully, I was able to explain on the fly by reversing what I said about the design's major flaws (pay attention to eye flow, be more subtle, don't over-think, etc.).

I was a little more specific than it sounds, and in the end, my explanation worked.

After a rather successful presentation, i went home to think about how I need to go back over some of my past designs to look and learn from previously unnoticed mistakes.

Putting past work under a magnifying glass might be a great idea. Not only can it help a designer see what he or she may need to clean up in their portfolio, but it can be a nice affirmation of one's growth in the profession.

If we can keep our egos in check long enough. ;)