rockpaperink

August 9, 2012

Go Out and Get Some Feedback

Derek Armstrong McNeill, Grill Creative

Author: Steve Gordon, Jr.

"I'm fortunate to live in a city with a great portfolio school (The School of Visual Concepts, Seattle, Washington), and I took three consecutive quarters of Teams/Advanced Ad Concepts classes. We were paired up with writers for projects, then were critiqued by local, successful professionals. The practice of working with another person and then presenting our work as a team was indispensable. If this kind of class isn't available to you, I'd try and re-create the opportunity artificially with friends, colleagues, or family. Show work to ten people. Any people. Ask for feedback. Take notes. Was there a consistent thread of feedback? Integrate it. Get in the habit of exposing your work to others and hearing what they say all the time."

In case you haven't figured this out already, your clients are not always the best critics of your work. They often have too many other professional pressures and items on their own agendas to objectively look at what you're doing for them. They're wondering if their boss will like it, if it's going to come in under budget, whether they'll have everything in time for the sales meeting. But for you to grow creatively and find the internal resources to come up with compelling new ideas, you need cold, hard critiques. Consistently. And the only way you're going to get that is to ask for it. You may have to bribe a bit, offering pizza and a beer to help grease the opinion wheels, but the investment will be well worth it.

Source: 100 Habits of Successful Freelance Designers

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