Sta.sh
Posted this a while back on the ART SCENE forum... got a lot of good responses. Figured it might help out a few more if I post it here.
Cheers!
There are a ton of young people on Deviant, and the simple truth is that many of them, although they may possess well developed opinions regarding critiques, DO NOT understand how they are used or applied in the real world.
School is not the real world. Neither is home, and the web is DEFINITELY not the real world.
What is the purpose of a critique?
Well, one purpose it is not required fulfill is to make you feel good about your work. If the sole result of a delivered critique is that is makes you feel good about your work, it is not a critique, it is an ACCOLADE.
A critique serves two principle functions in the real world.
One; it serves to educate. It points out areas in your work that need attention and possible improvement, and, at the very least, may deserve further practice or repetition on your part to perfect.
Two: it serves to describe the differences between how you see your work, and how another sees it. This can be also very educational to anyone who truly attempts to derive the most from any opportunity to learn more about their craft.
What form should a critique take?
That is entirely dependent upon the circumstances or venue in which the critique is delivered. However, any true critique is inherently negative. If it were not, it would not be instructional. There is no purpose in informing you, the artist, about those aspects of your work you got right.
Most students are coming to grips with their own view of their art. Couple this with the fact that even many successful artists remain insecure about the quality of their work, and it becomes easy to see why most artists are touchy about critiques.
This is a bad thing, and cannot be justified by anyone claiming to be professional in their work. Whatever else you may justify regarding how you view your art, you do not have the right to ignore or limit input on it from qualified sources simply because you have an innate need to always "feel good" about yourself or your work.
Just about nothing you can do as an artist is LESS professional.
Let me offer a small warning to all you beginning artists out there:
The closer you get to actually making a living with your work, the more realistic and thick skinned you better become about getting critiques. I am an art director. I have been one for more than 15 years. Over the years, I have worked with dozens of young professional artists, designers, and illustrators. More often than not, those young talents have left my service to go on to make more money and enjoy more prestige within their field of work than those that have not. So, I consider myself to be both a successful art director, and a pretty good critic.
Working critiques are to the point. They are almost always delivered by someone who knows more than you do about the kind of work you are trying to do or learn. A working critique is blunt and precise. The point is to make surgical corrections. In a working environment, time is the most important factor in any successful design job. This is true when delivering critiques as well.
Depending on the job, "not good enough... do it again." is an acceptable critique.
Generally speaking, working critiques are designed to get fast, predictable, measurable results. As an art director, I do not have time to take an artist's feelings into consideration. I do not mean I am harsh simply for the sake of expediency, I mean that the primary goal is to make the "job" work out right, not re-enforce the ego of the artist.
It is also important for young artists to remember that the person delivering a critique to you, once you leave school, is almost certainly a lot more experienced than you are, and is also paid to oversee what is produced in the art department. Their opinion is almost certainly guaranteed to be valued more by ownership or upper management than yours is. It is in your best interests, both as an artist and as an employee, to listen to any critique of your work offered by such a person.
Bottom line: get really thick skin. Learn to depersonalize your work. Treat it as a commodity, even if you are an amateur or not a commercially oriented artist, and you will get a lot more out of critiques than you are now. Take the hits, review your work after getting them, and try to limit your defense of a piece.
While it is not universally true that defending a piece means you cannot accept a critique, it usually does mean that you are too busy defending to really learn what is there to learn from the critique in the first place.
Cheers!
There are a ton of young people on Deviant, and the simple truth is that many of them, although they may possess well developed opinions regarding critiques, DO NOT understand how they are used or applied in the real world.
School is not the real world. Neither is home, and the web is DEFINITELY not the real world.
What is the purpose of a critique?
Well, one purpose it is not required fulfill is to make you feel good about your work. If the sole result of a delivered critique is that is makes you feel good about your work, it is not a critique, it is an ACCOLADE.
A critique serves two principle functions in the real world.
One; it serves to educate. It points out areas in your work that need attention and possible improvement, and, at the very least, may deserve further practice or repetition on your part to perfect.
Two: it serves to describe the differences between how you see your work, and how another sees it. This can be also very educational to anyone who truly attempts to derive the most from any opportunity to learn more about their craft.
What form should a critique take?
That is entirely dependent upon the circumstances or venue in which the critique is delivered. However, any true critique is inherently negative. If it were not, it would not be instructional. There is no purpose in informing you, the artist, about those aspects of your work you got right.
Most students are coming to grips with their own view of their art. Couple this with the fact that even many successful artists remain insecure about the quality of their work, and it becomes easy to see why most artists are touchy about critiques.
This is a bad thing, and cannot be justified by anyone claiming to be professional in their work. Whatever else you may justify regarding how you view your art, you do not have the right to ignore or limit input on it from qualified sources simply because you have an innate need to always "feel good" about yourself or your work.
Just about nothing you can do as an artist is LESS professional.
Let me offer a small warning to all you beginning artists out there:
The closer you get to actually making a living with your work, the more realistic and thick skinned you better become about getting critiques. I am an art director. I have been one for more than 15 years. Over the years, I have worked with dozens of young professional artists, designers, and illustrators. More often than not, those young talents have left my service to go on to make more money and enjoy more prestige within their field of work than those that have not. So, I consider myself to be both a successful art director, and a pretty good critic.
Working critiques are to the point. They are almost always delivered by someone who knows more than you do about the kind of work you are trying to do or learn. A working critique is blunt and precise. The point is to make surgical corrections. In a working environment, time is the most important factor in any successful design job. This is true when delivering critiques as well.
Depending on the job, "not good enough... do it again." is an acceptable critique.
Generally speaking, working critiques are designed to get fast, predictable, measurable results. As an art director, I do not have time to take an artist's feelings into consideration. I do not mean I am harsh simply for the sake of expediency, I mean that the primary goal is to make the "job" work out right, not re-enforce the ego of the artist.
It is also important for young artists to remember that the person delivering a critique to you, once you leave school, is almost certainly a lot more experienced than you are, and is also paid to oversee what is produced in the art department. Their opinion is almost certainly guaranteed to be valued more by ownership or upper management than yours is. It is in your best interests, both as an artist and as an employee, to listen to any critique of your work offered by such a person.
Bottom line: get really thick skin. Learn to depersonalize your work. Treat it as a commodity, even if you are an amateur or not a commercially oriented artist, and you will get a lot more out of critiques than you are now. Take the hits, review your work after getting them, and try to limit your defense of a piece.
While it is not universally true that defending a piece means you cannot accept a critique, it usually does mean that you are too busy defending to really learn what is there to learn from the critique in the first place.
1. Mentioning the positive aspects of a work is not necessarily "sugar-coating" the feedback with no use beyond stroking the artist's ego. Sometimes, I *need* that, because I don't always catch what is good about my own work, or know what other people like about it. Once a teacher mentioned a "humorous exaggeration" I had put into a piece. I didn't realize that I had done it (it was a result of some poor drawing he thought was intentional), but it helped me to look for that kind of humor in other art in the future, and let me know where I wasn't communicating what I thought I was. Another time, positive/negative critiques together helped me see that different age brackets were attracted and repulsed by different parts of my work. That was really interesting to me.
That said, I do agree-- the negative aspects of a critique are always more relevant. They stick with you longer. But I find that another reason they're more relevant is because I know when my work has problems. Knowing that other people can see them sort of helps me prioritize what will complete the piece well, and what problems I can let slide.
I just thought that it was worth adding another artist's perspective. When people avoid talking about the problems in my work, it keeps me from understanding my own frustrations-- and that breaks my confidence much faster than knowing what's a problem and fixing it.
In that specific context, I have to disagree with you on your points. They may be applicable here on dA, or in school, but not at work. Work is WORK. The art director's J-O-B is to make as much profit from your art as he can, for the company.
No competent, good art director TRIES to hurt his artists, but neither will he/she spare an artist's feelings in order to deliver a REAL working critique. It is YOUR job as a professional to learn to handle a working critique, not his job as an art director to sugar coat what he says to make it palatable for you.
This may seem hard, but it is true. And the better the art job (like working on video games, for example) the harder the critiques are going to be, because it MATTERS more. They not only have to make profit, but they are expected to produce the most amazing art in the world... so the pressure will be greater, on the company, on the art director, and ultimately on you as the artist.
You can pray, hope, or wish it to be otherwise, but what I am saying is how it really is when you go to work in the real world.
I glad to hear you are a working pro now. Congratulations. It also seems your perspective on critiques has changed a bit... to take into account the realities of the professional world.
As far as your remarks here, I find nothing to argue with. I agree that the best way for an art director to handle critiques is to be direct, specific, and to know in advance exactly what he/she needs from the artist in the way of changes/corrections/modifications, before the critique is given. After more than 20 years as both a senior artist on staff, and then as an art director, I pretty much learned to do this on the fly, but yes, I agree that it is important for an art director to know what he/she wants before executing a critique.
I try to avoid saying whether or not I was "good" or "bad" at my job. At least, I did while I was working. Now that I have retired, I don't mind saying I think I was a pretty good art director. More than a few of the junior artists I hired and trained over the years left my department to go to better paying jobs and promotions. Several became art directors in their own right. I also had a pretty good record a far as not having artist either quit or having to fire a lot of artists. I had a tendency to build a team and then keep it for several years. and usually it was me that left, to go to greener pastures.
In any case, regardless, I was very direct. I also complimented outstanding work, when an artist did a particularly awesome job... but during the process, I stayed focused on the job, the deadline, and the budget. Those factors controlled how I handled critiques, as much as anything else.
A fact which all working professionals learn, and accept, as the reality of a commercial art career.
Once again, congratulations.
Good points all.
I agree with nomadikk---many who couldn't take a crit are younger teens. I don't know if my comments on others' works are considered fluffies or not---but I try to give them what I see or feel from their works, and give one or two small pointers occasionally. Reason for occasion is I don't like to be harassed for giving "mean comments". Oy. I think some of the teens need some fluffy now and then as well as critique---do you remember feeling insecure as a teen? Insecurity may be partly why many cannot "take" crits. Especially the younger teens.
I appreciate that there is someone who isn't afraid to get bashed a bit giving constructive crits.
If you get a J-O-B... and you work for a company that MAKES MONEY... it is a sure bet that your art director is going to give pretty hard critiques. His/her job will be to make as much money from your art for the company as possible. There will be no sugar coating.
The problem (I've seen this happen time and time again) is that many young artists leave school or otherwise get their first job as a working artist, and expect to get handled like a babe in a blanket, like they were in school, or online, or at home.
Not gonna happen, and many many young artists have to get fired form two or three jobs at first before they realize they have to accept the realities of WORKING as an artist in a real job.
Taking into account the person being critted is hard to do online, it's not like you're in a classroom and getting the vibe of the student dynamics and such.
I've kept my comments brief; I'm an amateur myself despite drawing on and off for years, so am in no position to do an indepth critique. In devs I like, I state what I see, good and bad. Most devs have responded well enough. Wording is cruicial, I asked a bunch of scientifically based questions of a dev once, and the artist responded in the vein it's art, not science. Aiyee! Is not art science, and science, art? I said I asked those questions 'cos the dev was imaginative and wonderfully wierd. The artist was mollified. It helps to say what the person is doing right, in case said person doesn't know what he's doing right.
Your world is tough, people in it should be tough. If they aren't tough, well, tough. Perseverance is the key to success, not talent.
But, the potential rewards are greater too... better pay, more prestigious work... the chance to be an art director yourself...
It's not personal... which is the hardest part for young artists to accept.