The Faces of Criticism focuses on identifying my target market & exploring and understanding the market that I wish to enter. Criticism is a valuable human emotion and since I aim to target my website towards Art & Design students and professionals I need to understand what they like and how I can appeal to both audiences in unique ways. The booklet will have a look book visual approach and include imagery of my potential target market and how the market is branded and visualised online.
It’s important to identify my target audiences so that I can tailor my service towards them in a clear and accessible way. To do this I’ll be looking at my three main target audiences and how I aim to appeal to them. I hope to learn more about what makes my audiences tick and how they operate.
Art & Design students are one of the main conponents to my service, they are needed to fill the website with content so it has to have a strong vibrant design aesthetic and a unique launch event. It has to be exciting, fresh and innovative. If the idea behind the service is presented correctly I believe the prospect would be difficult to ignore.
Industry Professionals, professional freelancers and agency employees all come under this catergory. With experience in the design industry it’s imperative to the service that the professionals get involved and are excited by the prospect. Without the professionals the service and idea will fail so it’s really important to appeal to them and the rewards for the professionals investing their time in the site are appropriate and enticing. The site also has to appeal to this audience so I will have to find a balance and a melody between the two different markets and their styles.
It’s important to get the creative community involved in the service as it only stands to benefit it. The service inspires collaboration and inclusivity. Most of all it encourages the conversation and gets us all thinking about how we can improve and bridge the chasm between industry and student/ amateur.
It’s important to understand how websites that offer similar services operate and style themselves to appeal to the creative community. It’s pivotal to examine the what service they offer and how they entice designers to upload projects. Also how they manage to persuade more accomplished designers to upload and visit their site regularly.
Heres an example of a project that’s been uploaded to Behance. It includes pack shots, logos and packaging design. Behance’s format lets the designer upload their work in a linear format that culinates with comments and a short description of the project. While this website focuses on presenting designers work and has criticism as a by product it’s interesting to see how effective and useful it was to the designer. By and large the comments section are full of “Beautiful” “Really Nice” short complimentary comments there are one or two constructive notes made by other users. For this project The comment read ““e” looks too tight for me. Usually, for that matter, the thinner horizontal line is to be used. Keep going!”It’s this thought process I want to capture and encourage with my service. Behance is mainly filled with finished projects which is something I don’t want to steer towards, I want designers to feel comfortable to upload work they haven’t finished as criticism isn’t as effective once the project has finished.
behance.net/gallery/63533187/nenae
Eye magazine is a professional publication that focuses on design excellence and publishes designers work every quarter in their magazine, they feature more in depth criticism. The difference between eye magazine and Behance or DeviantArt is that they hand pick the designers they showcase on their wesbite and magazine whereas the others are more user based, allowing them to upload any work they like.
“One little critique at the highest stage - without your description I cannot see crystals in the painting. I know the previous painting and can imagine that these pillars on top of the city are giant crystals but I personally think in the previous painting the crystals look more natural. I miss the reflections. However, all in all another very good piece of art.�
DeviantArt focuses more on community and has an extensive user base with over 26 million members and 251 million submissions . It contains categories that cover all art forms and users utilise these to find work. Criticisms like Behance come from the comments section. Again like Behance the comments are mostly all positive but above is a nice example of some constructive criticism that I want to encourage with my service. DeviantArt is also a good example of a website that doesn’t mind that the users work is not fully complete.