Design is Always Evolving, and as a Designer you Should be too.

February 24, 2023, | By Erika Glysz

Not everyone who takes marketing classes also takes graphic design. I remember when I first was looking into marketing I decided to go to my local college for a 2-year Business Marketing Degree. Out of the 2 years, there were only 2-3 classes that were design-based, everything else was statistics, strategy, and math (my worst nightmare). I didn't end up completing the program due to a strike, so I ended up going back to the same college a year later and in a different program altogether. It was a half marketing strategy and half graphic design and to this day I say it was the best program I ever went into. My teachers used to say that 'marketers don't know how to design and graphic designers don't know how to market themselves' and that's something that always stuck with me and made me very thankful for my choice.

That program ended up teaching me a lot of things, but one of my favourite learnings was the ability to have my design work critiqued by my entire class and profs on a regular basis. This has been something that has been life-changing for me which is why I want to share with you why it's okay to get those critiques and why I encourage it in my day-to-day.

You can't get attached to your work, especially if it's for a client

Let's be honest, we have all had that one Instagram post, Canva mockup, or even drawing that we've fallen in love with and think it's a total 10/10. There's nothing more heartbreaking than loving your work and having someone rip it to shreds and say it's not 'on brand' or 'good enough'. This will happen often, especially when you do work for clients. I can't even count how many times a client has given me direction for something and I go create something just for them to not like it and we go another direction.

I'm going, to be honest with you, this happens A LOT, and you need to be prepared for it. When I stopped thinking of each correction as a personal attack towards me and my skills and started thinking of it as helping me become a better designer or a more critical thinker that's when I saw my designers improve tenfold. You have to be able to set aside any personal emotions when working with clients and take corrections as they come. Whether it's in a classroom setting, in a meeting, or with a client, the corrections are going to come and at the end of the day, it never hurts to have that second opinion.

Get fellow creatives to take a look at your work

Not everyone is in the working industry or is able to get their work critiqued. the time. Whether you design in school or even just for the fun of it, try getting a friend or family member to take a peek at your work and see what their thoughts are. Sometimes having an 'untrained' eye can help you see things that you wouldn't even process such as a font that is too hard to read, or a paragraph that isn't lined up.

I used to ask my mom to look at my school projects all the time. She is an administrative assistant and has never designed in her life, but believe me when I tell you she can spot grammatical errors and miss-alignment like it's nobody's business.

Looking back, I can see a huge change in my work

I think back to when I first graduated and I wasn't confident in myself at all, and here I am confidently designing work for group projects (yes, I went back to school), and pitching my designs to clients. I love seeing how far I've come and how much my designs have changed. I credit all my current success to that one Visual Impact class that started it all. I now have the confidence and the knowledge to be out in the industry and create on a much higher level than when I was in school.

Little by little the amount of critiques got small and smaller to the point where it just became simple little things. I will never pass up the opportunity to have someone give me their feedback on my work because I think it's so valuable and such an important piece to grow as a designer. I also have grown to love critiquing my friend's and classmates' work. In my current program, I talk about critiquing all the time and how much it can help you grow and I feel like I've come full circle from the one being critiqued to now helping others critique their work.

I encourage everyone to step out of their comfort zones and really build themselves as a designer, you'll look back in 6 months times and wonder why you didn't start sooner.

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