Setting up for a critique session in one of my classes at UCLA Extension.

Being a designer is perceived by many as a fun job. Designers get to work with colors, shapes and amazing computer programs and be creative for a living. The design field is a natural choice for creative people.

Students often enter a design program and are surprised by the reality that design is a discipline. Design involves theory and practice. It includes psychology and geometry. There is critical thinking and hand skills that need to be developed. There are tools and materials, drawing and technology. There are objectives, expectations and deadlines.

Design takes aesthetic principles and marries them to function. A designer must be visually literate, able to speak the visual language. This involves being able to think both concretely and creatively. In school, theory taught and projects assigned are meant to develop these skills and ingrain them into the emerging designer so that they become innate. Achieving these things is not easy. It takes hard work, long hours, trial and error, evaluation and lots of coffee. Students complain when a project takes all their time or is too hard for them.

What should determine the degree of difficulty for a given project or course of study: a student’s inexperience and assumption that design is supposed to be fun and easy?

We automatically default to our lowest level of effort. This default position results in mediocrity rather than excellence. Most of us become designers to create meaning, to create change or to achieve significance. In none of these cases will mediocrity meet the call. We must be excellent. Excellence requires effort and training.

The design practice isn’t for everyone. Design is not easy. Design is not decoration. It is a discipline. It is naturally difficult. Those who are gifted with visual acumen must still develop the character required to make those creative gifts useful and the skills needed to provide a platform. Those with less talent are not necessarily out of the game, but they must understand that what makes design valuable is not that it’s fun or pretty but that it is the result of a compendium of thought, evaluation, ideas, skill, theory and practice. Competition for design jobs is crowded with talented people exercising various levels of discipline and character development.

When students realize the challenges ahead of them they generally respond in one of two ways: either they say it’s too hard and give up or, or they take up the challenge, press in, work through and allow themselves to be molded into visually literate people with the ability to create the right solution to a stated problem.

The degree of difficulty is determined by the level of competition and the expectations of excellence imposed by the sophisticated, visually-aware marketplace.

No one likes to be critiqued, but everyone is a critic.

As a design practitioner and teacher of design, I am involved continually in the analysis and evaluation of design. I critique my students’ work in the classroom and I critique my own work in the studio. My clients critique my work. I critique the work of other designers. Judges critique our work when we submit it to design contests. Our clients’ customers critique our clients based on our designs.

Critique is a normal and necessary part of the design process, yet I find that people don’t like to formally critique a work and they don’t like to have their work critiqued. How can we improve upon anything unless we critique? How can we innovate without evaluation and appraisal? How do we establish value in something unless we assess it?

Critique is simply an assessment, appraisal or evaluation of something. When we critique something we are analyzing it. We do this all the time in the normal course of a day: We critique each other’s driving, style, attitude, favorite movie, political position, religion, job performance, home run average and habits. We each have an opinion about what is good, better, best, bad and ugly.

I think that students and practicing designers don’t enjoy being critiqued because they understand criticism to be destructive or mean-spirited. Or they take it personally, as if it’s them, not the work, being evaluated. Or they don’t want to be wrong. Most critique tends toward negativity.

Criticism is often disguised as critique. They are not they same thing. Criticism involves disapproval of a work based on perceived or obvious faults and shortcomings. There’s a thin line between the two ideas that’s easily crossed. Critique should be objective, honest and useful. Criticism is most often subjective and destructive. Its intent is to tear something down. On the other hand, critique tests for weaknesses for the purpose of improvement and excellence. Criticism accuses; critique edifies.

In reality, critique should be neutral. It should not be feared as much as it is. It should be performed in order to asses what is right with a work and where it can be strengthened.

For critique to be neutral it should be based on established objective guidelines. For a design work, this is fairly simple. We look at the work and its outcome on the basis of the intended goals for the work, since all design has a purpose to it. Are the aesthetic principles supporting the function of the design? Are color, balance, rhythm, harmony, spatial relationships and value all working together to enable the design to accomplish its intended outcome?

If design is not whimsical but purposeful, critique of design should also be purposeful and not based on personal opinion. The kind of response that is, “I think it’s a good design because it reminds me of…” is not an objective criteria. Values, purpose, specifications, etc. are a much more just basis for evaluation. If critique is based on objective criteria it cannot be dismissed with the excuse that it’s just one person’s opinion and therefore invalid.

When all is said and done, honest feedback is better than warm fuzzy feedback. Critique should be honest, just, and balanced between strengths and weaknesses. It should serve to build up the designer (or student) and empower them forward into creative maturity and greater success.

On the evening before during the meeting of a creative team I’m leading, one team member made the statement that orange is a hideous color and no one likes it, so therefore it would not be appropriate used in the particular identity program we were discussing. Having observed varieties of orange in common used, I disagreed, and we had a lighthearted argument.

On the day after, I was recounting the discussion to my students when I happened to look around the classroom and noticed the amount of orange in the room. Almost all of the various branded shopping bags and totes the students used to transport their projects had orange in their design. So I pulled out my iPhone and happily photographed the bags as proof that orange is indeed liked by many and is widely used in design solutions.

Color trends come and go. Orange, which is an energizing and somewhat forceful color, has been enjoying a widespread popularity not seen since the 1970s. It’s used brighter and bolder than the burnt oranges back then, and is often paired with neutral grays or earth tones. As one student commented, “Orange is the new pink”.

Toward the end of my design fundamentals course I generally ask my students how they, having gone through the process of learning design principles and applying them to a variety of projects, would define design. Here are the responses from several who recently completed the course:

Design is the process of externalizing many possible solutions to a problem and making choices regarding which solutions are likely to be most appropriate to the future contexts of the problem -Matthew T.

[Design is] the creation, invention or materialization of an idea or thought into a visual and/or tactile and/or audial presence to be shared with others, either for an end-goal like persuading into action or thought-provocation or for pure enjoyment (which sometimes still leads to the aforementioned end-goals). –Erika R.

If I was giving a talk about design I would probably define it as a way of communication. The planning and execution of a project that says what I am trying to say and has a start to finish. –Amy M.

Design is a visual or graphic means to communicate an idea or message, toward a particular goal or outcome. While there is a very critical aesthetic element to design, the function has to be considered first and foremost. I have to first ask (and really take into consideration) very practical and fundamental questions, like who is the target audience and what is the purpose. Otherwise, if I always designed based on my own personal taste or preference, all my designs would probably come out with a very similar style and they wouldn’t as effectively convey the idea or message or achieve the desired goal. -Naomi B.

Design is the creative and artistic solution to an overall problem or goal through the means of texts and graphics. –Kathryn V.

How do you define design?

Why is spec work so prevalent in the design profession when it’s not in other professions? Increasingly companies – “creative” businesses included – are offering “unpaid internships” instead of hiring designers outright. In trying to reduce costs, they will offer an “internship” and even go through a selection process similar to that involved in standard hiring practices.

Unpaid internships are harmful to the industry and are legitimate only as part of a work-study program for students, involving evaluation, grading and course credit.

Unpaid internships are a viable part of a student’s education, where he or she works at a firm for a specific period of time in an unpaid capacity to gain real-world experience and earn work-study credit toward their degree or certificate. Student internships are great opportunities to gain practical knowledge, and can lead to employment with the firm or to referrals and recommendations. A great benefit for the student is the relationship that they build with the firm and the connections forged to the industry.

However, it’s my opinion that any unpaid work as a professional is inappropriate unless it’s a pro bono project undertaken because the designer chooses to offer his or her services in that manner.

It’s peculiar that the design profession is full of unpaid positions, spec work and expectations that we’ll work for peanuts or for simply the love of making art. These expectations are propagated by people in the profession who will accept a job in return for experience alone who even accept abuse from a client simply to “get something in their portfolio” or for the hope of proving themselves and obtaining something secure down the road. These practices hurt the profession, degrade the value of design and debase all design practitioners. Such practices propagate a general lack of respect that is ordinarily accorded professionals in other industries.

I don’t advocate spec work, the use of online bid sites or unpaid gigs in any form. Design is valuable and is worth the investment. Unpaid internships are purely speculative and offer no security and no value. They are entirely inequitable. And as for being unpaid while “in training” for a position, let’s compare this to practices at banks, law firms, grocery stores, the military and all other entities where one is paid equitably during on-the-job training.

The AIGA just came out with a clarified position on spec work. Spec work is any form is unethical and should be discouraged. It is of no value to the designer and is entirely unfair. Designers should not engage in it but instead should negotiate fees, deliverables and intellectual property rights that are reasonable and competitive.

This was a real post to an online job board:

We are just weeks away to launch our new high end cosmetic line and are looking for a student graphic designer who would help us design the packaging, business cards etc. Some knowledge of the Asian Market would be appreciated. This is a great opportunity for somebody at the beginning of their career, if we work good together there is the possibility to become a full time employee.

No pay but lunch provided.

What are they serving for lunch? As compensation for designing high-end packaging it had better be a high-end lunch. Perhaps it could be lunch in Rome. That would make their offer worth passing on to my design students. Otherwise, it’s simply not worth their time. Look, even a student should be paid for doing “real” work.

Unfortunately, some student, somewhere, will take on this job at these terms. I’m sure it will be quite a learning experience.

Imitation is said to be the sincerest form of flattery, but it is the laziest form of creativity. 

There is a common response from my design students when I give them their first project assignment: They want to see some examples of previous work. But I won’t show them examples. Instead, I provide them with a specification sheet (a design brief), describe the desired outcome, answer their questions and provide information for them to go forth, design and conquer. I will show them inspiration images, suggest artists and designers to research and even present approaches they might take to solve the problem. But they really don’t like it when I don’t show them previous work.

There is a reason why I don’t: They have to be able to see the thing before it exists. That’s what designers do. We imagine and envision first, plan it out and then manifest the thing into actuality.

It is easy to imitate: to simulate or copy something else. It is also easy to innovate: to change something that already exists by adding to it, deriving from it or expanding on it. But to create is to bring something into existence that isn’t there already. It is a different pursuit requiring a different set of skills.

To create something, we must be able to see it first in our mind’s eye while it does not exist. This is a daunting concept if we have never had to seriously think creatively. In our desire to do things right the first time in the most expedient manner, we default to imitation – a safe but non-creative endeavor. Creating is a courageous act in that we go boldly where no one has gone before, not knowing exactly how it will turn out but knowing what it’s supposed to be because we’ve got it solidly in mind.

Imitation does not build creative thinking or the necessary confidence in oneself to be a designer. Imitation can never see beyond where or what it is, and does not allow for the development of a distinct artistic style and voice because it only copies someone else’s. A copy cannot measure up to the original.

I ask my students to be creative instead of imitative and to know the difference between the two.

I’m getting into the habit of keeping my sketchbook close at hand all the time. I take it with me to my design classes at UCLA because a lot of times it’s easier to sketch a point than explain it verbally. The students will watch me draw and their light bulbs start flashing. Oh, duh!

I sketch fellow students in a class I’m taking. I aim to be unobtrusive and I try to avoid staring at my subjects while I’m drawing them. One thing I noticed is that, while most people will quickly realize when a camera is being pointed at them, they will be less aware of being drawn. They think I’m just taking copious notes. Most of the time they won’t notice at all until the person next to me happens to glance at my book and exclaim, “Oh! That’s Rick. You drew Rick.” And then, of course, Rick will have to come check it out when class ends. A lot of conversations have started this way, because of something I drew in my sketchbook. It’s almost like a social networking app, but in person and with less technology.

A few weeks ago someone sitting near me (who doesn’t know me) asked to look at my book and commented, “Hey, did you every think about doing this for a living?”

I had a discussion with my students about why designers should draw. It was interesting to me that no one refuted the idea; each one agreed that designers should draw. So we were able to focus on the “whys”.

Designers should draw because:

Now, my question is: If I draw and don’t do it in a Moleskine, is it still drawing?
 

I had the opportunity to sketch some of my students while they took the midterm in my color theory class. This was a quick sketch, drawn in about 8 minutes.