I believe there are ways to get what you want out of a critique, where the determining factor is not the crowd, but yourself. I don’t believe that its fair to blame a crowd for not speaking, I also don’t believe that the internet is stunting our vocabulary or grammar skills. That is like an overweight person blaming McDonalds for making them fat.

Which means, the only person to blame is you. Which also means, the only person to fix the problem, is you.

You are the only one responsible for the way you speak, the way you act, etc. If you want people to say something about your design, ask them questions to get them to talk about your work. Its not polite to not answer a question, no? You could also go up to a person during class and ask them if they have some time to critique 1:1 with you. Just tell them they can stop by during class and you guys can critique each others work.

If you’re not getting anything out of a group critique in class, use that time to practice your ’speaking in front of a crowd’ skills. Practice a joke, opinion, anything. You have a bunch of designers sitting in front of you, ask them their opinion on something, lord knows designers have opinions!

Bottom line, make your time count. Like Colleen said, once you’re out of school, you will be surprised how much you miss critiques. Its a platform worth taking advantage of.

A project is only as good as its presentation. Outside of school half of a designer’s job is to interact with clients. This includes writing regular emails to clients and coworkers in addition to presenting work and concepts. Not only does presenting physically, verbally and in person help to better one’s presentation skills but more often than not it helps the presenter to better understand their own idea. I can think of numerous times when after being forced to present a concept I had not fully worked out on my own, I came to a better understanding of what I was trying to say simply through verbally expressing myself.

Our generation is repeatedly accused of being passive and apathetic, perhaps this is a product of growing up in an age where anonymity behind a computer screen became the most common interaction we had with our peers. In-class critiques are an excellent place to own our opinions and express our thoughts. I encourage all of you to actively participate in class critiques, believe me, once you’re out of school you will be surprised how much you miss them.

Glen Cummings one of the Creative Directors from the company 2×4, was gracious enough to get involved with the GD handbook and give us his response to class room critique (aka THE CRIT). Much of the time people take comments the wrong way or way too personal in general. I think class room critique, for me personally it has helped to strengthen my confidence and vocabulary. Being to tell the story and process behind my work. Technology sure great, crit me online, but there is nothing like something being said to your face and having to respond directly facial expression, body language and all.

A glimpse into what you might read in the upcoming GD handbook.

Glenn Cummings writes:

CREATIONISM VS. EVOLUTION
Many young designers think that creation is the only important design step. They hope that they’ll be lucky enough to make the perfect thing the first time, every time. This heroic notion of creation stops working once criticism enters the picture. Criticism cannot inspire revision if the designer thinks their work is done.
The most important steps in the design process are criticism and revision. They enable the designer to learn while they are developing their design object, discovering and incorporating new perspectives along the way. If you work and think alone you can only discover what you already know. Criticism and revision eventually leads to a smarter objects, a smarter processes and smarter designers.

YOU DON’T SUCK, YOUR PROJECT DOES
Instead of visualizing yourself standing in judgement before your critic, visualize yourself standing alongside the critic looking at your design object together. The object is the thing being criticized, not you. Be a fellow critic. You are both working on the same project. If you’ve taken your design object as far as you can, its relieving to let someone else’s brain work on it for a while. Allow yourself to feel comfortable about being in-progress. Try see your design object through the critic’s eyes as they attempt to read it. See how they see. What facets are they responding to? Nothing could be more entertaining. When the critique is over the development of the object is your sole responsibility again. Although you send all your time making design objects, the real goal is to become comfortable with the way the design process works.

The classroom critique process has always been of interest to me for many reasons. Many students use the critique as a way to affirm their design directions – they want to know if what they’re doing is an appropriate solution. When this is done most hope they can receive honest feedback when it’s their time on the podium. Except more often than not other students just sit listlessly, staring blankly at work and offering mild shrugs and feedback that is either terribly subjective or of no use to the receiving party.

So my question to students and instructors is how can we be more engaged during this process? It has become apparent (particularly in certain graphic design classes) at CCS that the current state of the critique process is archaic and un-engaging and ultimately wastes our valuable time.

After seeing how some studios critique work and offer feedback I have a few suggestions of my own for this process:

1) Critique while on our feet. Standing up, not sitting down. Sitting down is a very passive act, and most people associate it with relaxing. Making students be on their feet not only forces them into an active position but ultimately keeps them more engaged and focused on what’s in front of them. It also makes the student receiving the critique feel as if they’re not talking down to their peers and instructors – they are all on the same level.

2) All students and instructors must take a close look at the work and speak about it. I’ve noticed many times students will step into the critique process later while the person up for critique is in the middle of explaining themselves without getting a close look at the work and then offer feedback in regards to the little they have heard and even less of what they have seen. This is problematic for many reasons but more importantly it is disrespectful to those in front of the class.

3) Be completely honest with your peers and colleagues.This might be your last chance to offer feedback that is critical and valuable before we lose some of our scruples to the professional workplace. If you don’t like something or a particular area of someone else’s work speak up! But also, tell them why you don’t like such and such. Likewise, be completely honest when you like something too.

That’s all for now, this has gotten much longer than intended. If anyone would like to add to this list please feel free! I think the critique process is important for artists and designers and the more feedback we recieve the better our solutions become.