The Importance of Feedback
I have now been at uni for a month and am beginning to settle in. However, something that I have noticed throughout all modules that I wanted to discuss is feedback and critique sessions, and the importance of the opinions of others for my specific course. For every piece we do, we either self critique, give feedback in groups and/or receive feedback from the lecturer. It is really helpful, as sometimes a "new lens" can really change your perspective. As a designer, it is really easy to get caught up in your own ideas and forget what the brief is really asking, or what the audience or client might want. But getting feedback helps to show another angle, and opens up your idea, making it more suited to its purpose. I learnt this when we were receiving feedback for our first proper project, the Kenzo posters. We had to stick the designs up in the hope that people would chose to write feedback on yours. This wasn't like any other session we had done, usually we are guaranteed this all important feedback, by directly swapping with someone else or in a small group where everyone is going to give you something to work on, however, with this task we saw everyone's work at the same time and some people just got more feedback than others. Whilst it was exciting to see everyone's work, the feedback wasn't the best. This was (I believe) down to the fact that firstly everyone was excited because we were on a trip; some people weren't focussing. Secondly, because the space was so small that it was cramped. With 94 (ish) people in the group, it was hard to move around easily and see everyone's work.
As the lecturers noticed some people had got more feedback than others, they stayed behind a while to ensure everyone had something constructive on their work.
This is how the session was formatted, with each piece on the wall, and post it notes were used to give feedback to the posters.
Overall, feedback is critical to a designer when creating a new piece of work. This is because people all have subjective viewpoints, so everyone naturally sees things in different ways. This can be really helpful, and it is why I like showing my work to other people to get their opinions.
Thankyou again for reading this weeks blog post! I hope you have enjoyed it.
Katie Xx
