?! focuses on identifying and explaining an issue I believe is severely effecting my and other young, aspiring designers ability to improve their work and refine their practice. I also explain the commercial context behind my issue and document how I’m going to attempt to solve the problem. Finishing with my self written brief, that outlines my target audiences, creative requirements and primary & secondary research avenues.
So whats with ?! ey?
I named the booklet ?! to symbolise my process in writing and responding to my own brief. When creating my own brief I need to ask myself a lot of questions: What issues are affecting me? What do I want to change? What issue am I going to raise? How am I going to solve this issue? What areas of research will be helpful to my brief? Once these questions, and many more throughout the process, are answered and the brief is written, the question mark turns into a exclamation mark. This symbolises my response to the brief, the actions I take to make the idea a reality. Usually responding to a brief in industry also means urgency, working to a deadline and making sure the work is up to standard. I feel the “?!� represents the process perfectly. So naturally this booklet is full of questions and answers that attempt to introduce and explain the issue I believe is affecting the creative community massively.
Criticism is really important within the design process. It drives us to evaluate, improve and change. Criticism is a complex issue in today’s design world. Students and young designers crave it while industry professionals are reluctant to invest their opinions. Criticism is a tool that designers use to improve their work, but it’s not always successful and can sometimes be detrimental. Overall it’s one of the most valuable assets to a designers growth.
So what’s my issue with criticism?
My issue is not necessarily criticism itself, its the lack of access to it. From personal experience I’ve found it difficult to find the right feedback, it’s usually positive comments from family and friends which means there’s no scope for improvement. I believe my growth is being stunted by the lack of access to a professional opinion. I’m passionate about this subject because I feel like it’s becoming a genuine problem, with the invention of social media the notion that you are reaching a larger audience is a lie because ultimately your audience depends on your popularity. I found that the opinions I was getting from my work while on placement were extremely beneficial and helped me learn to improve and I want student/ amateur designers to have access to that. I believe this will help designers to understand how industry works and come accustomed to taking criticism on board and using it more effectively.
How am I going to solve this issue?
I want to create an online community that brings criticism and feedback to the designer from credible & professional sources. I want to create an incentive system for the industry professionals so that they benefit from giving feedback while benefiting the designer. I want to encourage collaboration and connectivity within the design community and bridge the chasm between student designers and industry.
What is commerical context?
Commercial context, put simply, is the relevance of my issue to the commercial industry and how I aim to appeal to the community to understand my issue and help me rectify it. It’s also an opportunity to provide evidence that my idea is relevant and a genuine issue to the creative community at the moment.
Criticism and Commerical context
Written and visual criticism is ubiquitous, but it’s also embodied in many things, each of which speak to us in different ways. Criticism is really important to the design process. It drives us to evaluate, improve and change. So why is it so hard to find an opinion that could be useful to you online? It’s important that designers have access to that. Unfortunately there isn’t any motivation for professional designers to take interest in the next generation but my proposal stands to profit both target markets in different ways. It was surprising how difficult it was to find a resource that provides designers with an opportunity to upload work for feedback. I found an online community that runs workshops for critiques, mainly for literary works but had just started an art and design workshop which I felt was too formal, expensive and not really achieving what I aim to produce. It proves that this is an untapped resource that needs to be handled correctly in order to achieve the best result. The sort of tool is needed to grow and improve a designers practice through constructive, rich and diverse criticism and would be useful for designers to experience that they would before they enter industry. The question then becomes; how do I get professional designers involved and excited about this venture?
FOR PROFESSIONALS
The largest problem I faced when writing and creating my brief was figuring out how to make this a interesting and exciting prospect for industry professionals and more esteemed designers that may not have the time to devote to critiquing work on the website.
Earn access the highest rated designers on the site:
After critiquing and rating ten pieces of work professionals get thirty minutes to access to the best designers on the site.
The opportunity to contact designers of your choice:
During the thirty minute access professionals can contact any designer on the site, If they’d like to see more they can request portfolios.
Promote collaboration within the design community:
Not only are the professionals giving valuable design insight to up and coming designers they are promoting collaboration to students and encouraging the conversation.
Improving designers therefore improving quality of candidates:
By critiquing work honestly and effectively professionals are essentially improving future prospects for their agency/company.
FOR DESIGNERS
While the benefits are clearer for the designer its important to document how useful a tool like this could be. Space to upload work to be critiqued for your benefit. Place for work to be seen and presented in a clear, informative manner. With visual and enlightening modalities of criticism. Opportunity to sell prints of work you upload in shop that recognises ratings given by professionals. Use the ratings and criticism you receive to create an overall rating that can be seen on your profile and could be useful for selling prints of your work. Opportunity to be handpicked by an agency. If a professional really likes a piece of work he/she can request your portfolio which could potentially lead to a new role or freelance project. Improve your practice through feedback. Learn from the ratings and criticisms you receive so that you can improve your style and practice to make yourself a more rounded and accomplished designer. Get used to understanding and implementing feedback in a productive manner. Connect with professionals and agencies to learn more about the industry and possibly collaborate with them Help understand the industry and its harsh, competitive environment to prepare for your future.
Constructive criticism is a crucial ingredient for growing and maturing as a designer, so it’s important to provide a service that helps bring more valued opinions to designers to greatly increase their chances of developing into a professional. Create a location for university students & amateur designers to upload work for critique by industry professionals and tutors. Become a platform to encourage designers to share work and collaborate with each other.
Target AudiencesArt & Design students, Industry professionals, creative community
Creative RequirementsTo produce, create and realise a launch event for an online service that gives student and amateur designers an opportunity to upload work and receive different modalities of criticism that apply to that work. This should be annotation, written evaluation and/or more visual and creative forms of feedback. Produce a strong, vibrant visual identity for the online service to appeal to the target audiences. Become a platform for designers looking for recognition but not finding it through the conventional channels.
Objectives/DeliverablesWeb Design, Graphic Design, Branding, Digital Design, Promotion.
Primary ResearchResearch into how valuable feedback is to me & how it affects my work by presenting case studies that look at previous projects from University & my placement year and the positive & negative effect feedback and criticism has had on them. Are you more likely to implement a change suggested by a designer/industry professional than your friend? Can we quantify criticism?
Secondary ResearchLook at how successful websites such as Behance, eye, Issuu, Deviant Art, Critique.org are at enabling designers to give/receive positive feedback & constructive criticism and the impact that has on their work. Understand how websites like these present an opportunity to designers to receive acclaim and feedback and how likely is it that someone from the design industry is going to view your profile/see your work.