How to give creative feedback
Do you struggle getting across what is in your mind? or find yourself getting confused with your own thoughts? Follow these 4 steps to give your designer the best possible constructive feedback.
I’m going to get you to start thinking about what is working and what isn’t, getting your thoughts into a rationale and using them as a base for feedback, which will put your designer in the best possible position to make any required amendments.
Firstly, remember your brief!!
Go back to your initial briefing, what were the details you gave to the designer to create? What was the key message? Has the design gone off tangent? Is that good? Does the design reflect the overall vision of your brand?
Trust yourself, first impressions do stick, and most probably will come back to that feeling you first felt when you first laid eyes on the design.
The first thing you see when reviewing designs
What are the feelings you get when you look at it? Answer these questions below and try be as emotive as you can:
- Five things that I want my clients to think when they see the design
- Without over thinking it, name one positive thing about the design
- Without over thinking it, name one negative thing about the design
Dig deep into the details
Print out your designs and mark up the positives and negatives:
- List all the details of the design that are working well
- List all the things that aren’t working
- What changes do I think will eliminate these negatives
Be careful not to over art-direct the designs. If you have got a good designer he/she will be able to take you general feedback and create a new round of exceptional designs. It’s important to not micro-manage your creative or do their job for them as you’ll end up with a result that’s diluted and not a cohesive concept.
Hand it over
Your feedback should be concise and to the point:
- Overall the design makes me feel
- And I want my clients to feel
- Some finer details that need refinement are
- The finer details that are really working are
- The next steps are
How do you provide feedback? Do you add more or less information? Lets have the conversation over on our facebook page!
