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How to deal with a critique in the wrong way

 

This is a great example of an artist being emotionally invested in her work. Then after hearing people being honest and critiquing her work she gets offended. Which then results to her getting angry and destroying the painting. I and I know you or someone you know has had to sit through a horrible critique.

The feeling of someone just telling you your work is not good and what is wrong with it can make you want to quit. Well when you have situations like this do not take it to heart. If your someone who does then being a designer/artist may not be for you. You have to realize that not everyone is going to like what you do. So therefore do your best every time. If someone does not like what you do then listen to their feedback and take it into consideration. Your best thing to do is to use those whom destroy your work verbally and tell you what you did wrong and etc to get better.

One thing to remember is you will have those whom critique your work and not tell you how you could’ve done it better. This is something I noticed very quickly when I’m in a critique. I always tried to help with critiques and be honest at the same time with the person. Because honesty will help you and the other person grow.

Get yourself together

If you are at a time in this year and your not together take sometime and get yourself together. Take time to re-evaluate your goals and etc. You may feel as if I cannot do it. I cannot get clients, I cannot get the junior design position I have been applying to. Keep at it.

Do not let little bits of failure keep you down. You have to outlast the pain, the defeat and repeated emails of the typical copy and pasted

“After reviewing your qualifications based on your experience we have decided to move forward with another candidate”.

Then when you email them and ask them what you could have done to be a better fit and they never respond. Just realize that you are going to get to where you can see yourself. Continue designing, networking and building your brand. Learning from experience for example you will get a call or email and your daily practice will come into play.

You know its better to be prepared then unprepared. Another thing is to not stay stagnate with your skills, knowledge and other things you know. Yes you may have a master, bachelors or associates degree but what are you doing with it. Are you putting what you learned to use or just passing the final was the the last time you used that knowledge. Also what are you reading? What are you doing to continue your journey to being the person you talk about or admire.

Have a great weekend

Join the dance

 

You may be wondering what do you mean by join the dance. I mean join in the dance of what you are seeking or wanting to do. Do not be afraid of becoming part of the community. When you become apart of the community then people will get to know you. The same way as joining an forum or an organization in your career field.

Literally there is not any excuse for not being apart of a community any way shape or form. Because you have twitter,forums, instagram, and tons of other resources. Connecting with like minded individuals will allow you to enjoy your profession even more. Not saying it will be all sunshine and rainbows and everyone you meet will be great, because you will have those whom are egotistical and etc. Do not let those discourage you. Take the simple approach and replace them with someone who is in align with your values.

 

Everyone you meet

Whether or not you already have this mentality its the truth. We at times are so interested in never shutting up and letting the other person talk. When you shut up and listen to the other person you can learn so much. A good saying to remember is Knowledge speaks and wisdom listens.

Just take a second to think how much you will gain by listening. You gain insight from someone who has been through what you are going through or they may offer you help with something that you will experience further down your journey through life. The other thing is for you to make the decision whether they are credible or not.

Because you would not take advice from someone who has no idea about what you are doing. If you are a football player you would not take advice from someone who is a social worker on how to run a route and remember it exactly or how to keep a defender from stealing your pass. You want to have credible sources for everything. Because if you do not you will wind up who knows where.

When you do seek advice, help and etc from those who are credible it will be more valuable. Also you can learn from those who are failures. If you meet someone who is broke and penniless sit and talk with them. Learn their story and find out what you can do to prevent it. Because if you are not a curious or person who questions things you should probably start doing so.

Do not be afraid to ask people questions about things. Also to even ask them what their profession is and letting them know what you do. I feel as a designer that is something we can forget to tell people. So therefore do not be afraid to tell people what you do and to ask them questions.

My Hand will always

When I first heard this quote from Margaret Kilgallen it was an eye opener. A great example is in our design work,calligraphy,lettering we focused so much on getting everything crisp and clean. Not to say having clean and crisp design/lettering,calligraphy work is bad. More so that you can try and try to get your lines straight but it will never be straight.

Therefore that is where the beauty is. If you look at something that is hand done it captures a different essence to it. The feeling of not being done by a machine lacks certain aesthetics. Lets take hmm a Renaissance  painting and compare it to a digital painting. The painting from the Renaissance will evoke more feeling of human like quality to the piece.

While the digital painting will have a mechanical feel to it. But this is could be up to debate for many people. I just want you to realize that the importance of having a human aspect to your work will allow you to invest yourself even more into it. Because if you look at someones lettering or calligraphy really close you can see the line waver.

Maybe from afar it looks amazingly beautiful. When close up you notice the flaws better. This involves training your eyes to be able to spot certain things. Another thing is with other aspects of lettering,calligraphy and graphic design.