Specific: Identifies a particular strength/weakness (not speaking in generalities).
Language appropriate: Uses language understood by the audience.
Practical/action-oriented: There is something to do or think about.
Timely: The type of feedback given makes sense for the stage of work.
Why critique matters
Effective critique can:
Motivate and inspire
Reinforce existing strengths
Keep goal-oriented behaviour on track
Modify and/or improve skills
Remedy errors
Help reflection and learning
Ineffective critique is...
Absolute: Providing no potential direction for solving the problem.
Not contextualized: Speaking your own opinion without stating so.
Not clarified: Talks to work without understanding what it is about.
Uninvited: Given without being requested or expected.
Needlessly vulgar: Swearing unnecessarily.
Critique context
Before giving critique, it is always important that you understand what the project is, and where it is at. This helps ensure your feedback will be timely and purposeful.
Today's critique
A reminder that we are looking for our critique to:
Have a clear statement or goal.
Identify a particular strength/weakness (not speaking in generalities).
Offer something to do or think about.
Is appropriate for the work we are looking at.
Today's critique
Our approach
We will be taking the 'I like/I wish' approach for today's critique: Please start each critique with either 'I like' or 'I wish'.
Kandinsky Exhibition Poster by Herbert Bayer (1926)
How to choose ideas
Getting good at picking ideas to further refine requires an understanding of the purpose of the design, the principles that define good content structure, and critique.
Design principles
What are some of the things a point can represent?
What are some of the things a line can represent?
What are some of the things a plane (not the air kind) can represent?
The Visual Form
Consider what does the visual form afford us that other forms — i.e. auditory, tactile — do not?
Good content structure
Good content structure helps direct and guide a viewer through the content actively. We are going to recap a number of design fundamentals that help us build better structures.
Sequence of cognition
A simplified overview for the purposes of our class:
First is shape.
Second is colour.
We will skip this one for now as we will discuss colour/meaning later in the course.
Third is form.
Gestalt
Next in our order of cognition
A psychological theory that our minds self-organize disparate elements into a unified whole. Can you see the 'shape' in this picture?
Building Relationships
Gestalt theory offers us tools for building meaningful visual relationships.
