Month: July 2020

Another form of design critique used in studio format learning is intermediate group critiques that are similar in form to final reviews or “juries”, yet are much more generative and positive, possessing the same coaching functions as individual critiques. Unlike juries, group crits are focused on advancing the work of the individual designer and benefiting the group via generalizable comments.

Whatever the format, a critique should have well-defined goals. Mitch Goldstein, Associate Design Professor at College of Art and Design, Rochester Institute of Technology, warns that it is crucial to know what the point of the crit is, for the process to be generative: “Some crits are for exploring concepts, some are for finessing details, some are not even crits at all, but are really celebrations at the end of a project.”

Goldstein is the man behind the howtocrit.com website where he shares his wisdom on how to give and accept criticism during design education. According to Goldstein, effective critiques must focus on the work, and not on the designer. “It is incredibly important to understand that the purpose and value of a critique is to improve the work — critique serves the work, not the person who made the work. A critique of your work is not a critique of your humanity, and making bad work does not make you a bad person,” he explains.

This is echoed by Gaia Scagnetti Ph.D, Assistant Professor in Communication Design at Pratt Institute, New York. She points it out, that in art and architecture, critiques often connote negative experiences, charged with destructive and personally abusive juries. In her paper “A dialogical model for studio critiques in Design Education”, she cites a New York Times report from 2006, where a graduate describes the crits in Yale University as ‘a gladiator spectator sport’. Scagnetti discloses that while there is no evidence or studies demonstrating that destructive critiques benefit learning outcomes or prepare for the working environment, motivating feedback have proved to produce a positive impact on students development. “Many scholars have addressed the need for critiques to avoid the climate of fear, defensiveness and anxiety that have been traditionally associated with critiques,” she writes, noting that the emotional experience associated with harshly negative juries can remain alive even years later for those who repressed their emotions to prove they are strong enough to endure them.

Scagnetti also expresses her concern that only few schools offer faculty training to reform their critique culture and assess their learning outcomes. Lack of opportunities to learn the strategies for educationally successful critiques often result in overwhelmingly negative or excessively positive critiques, as well as simplistic ones that present criticism without evidence. Meanwhile, critiques that focus primarily on minor details, facts or factual errors are often distracted from larger, more important issues. Neither of these are helpful.

However, a critique is not a competition but a collaborative generative activity, and a positive, formative atmosphere is essential to make it effective. Successful critiques either advance the discussed work or challenge the designer’s thoughts, leading to new insight for future work. The outcome of a successful design critique is brilliantly formulated by Goldstein. “You should not get “torn apart” in a crit. Crits should not be “brutal” — crits should be honest and useful. If you walk away feeling like garbage, or like you were beaten up, it was not a useful crit. It was a belittling one.You should walk away from getting a crit feeling empowered and excited to make the work better, not defeated and miserable from the experience.”

Critique can be challenging for young designers. According to Goldstein, the hardest thing about critique is that one has to accept critique without taking it personally, without getting heated, and without getting defensive, otherwise some helpful remarks may remain neglected.

Many design students get a wrong impression that success in a critique means that people like their work, and that success in the next critique is showing how carefully they follow the critic’s suggestions. Juliette Cezzar, Associate Professor of Communication Design at The New School’s Parsons School of Design in New York City, Former president of AIGA NY, believes that ability to take criticism is a critical skill to learn when at a design school. “It’s a gift exchange, not an oral exam,” she writes about a critique.

She explains that instead of sorting people into “good” people who like their work and “bad” people who don’t, young designers should start seeking out people who see things differently. “The person who doesn’t get you or what you made is the one that is most likely to come up with the idea or the insight that you can’t come up with on your own. People who see things differently are gold.”  She advises, that to call a critique successful, the designer should take away two or three insights, ideas, or suggestions they are excited about but couldn’t think up on their own.

Goldstein, in his turn, urges participants of a critique to sift through the opinions and evaluations they are exposed to. “Since you are going to get a lot of opinions about your work, you will have to decide what feedback you do and do not care about. Just because someone told you something, does not mean you have to act on it (this includes your instructor). Everything is up for interpretation — but also note that ignoring what everybody says probably won’t help your work improve.”

So, what role does critique play in design education? Scagnetti describes a critique as an educational process, in which students learn to become members of a community of practice, mastering self-analysis and reflection. Here, the relationships between different members of that community are negotiated, and the ethos of an individual as a designer is voiced. Critique nurtures independent thinking, helps develop social relationships and professional identities, as well as promotes the culture of egalitarian participation space, which will later equip students with the power to change the culture of the working places they will encounter after graduation.

The role of critique in modern design education definitely transcends its assessment function. Critique supports reflection and engagement among designers of all types, from graphic design and architecture to UX design, while sustainable feedback makes students less and less dependent on the teacher feedback to evaluate their progress, and more focused on self-evaluation. Over time, exposure to critique can help develop thinking skills of the designer, their capability to analyze, anticipate, and respond. All things considered, one can’t but agree with the words of Brad Hokanson, who claims that a instilling a habit of critique and an ongoing practice of generative evaluation of creative work is in fact a general goal of design education.

Critique – whether it is self-critique, peer review or expert tutoring – is an integral and one of the most valuable components of a formal art and design education. For first-year students, however, it can be one of the most difficult aspects of their design school experience. For both sides to benefit from the process, it should always be remembered that critique is a collaborative activity, the art of giving feedback being equally important to that of accepting it.

The professional practice of giving and accepting formal and informal evaluation of the design work is an important aspect of learning design. It is an inherent part of all design programmes and of design culture itself. Critique not only plays a fundamental role in education but it also directly informs the very practice of making through its focus on the improvement and development of the design project.

In design education, critique is an event in which students present their designs and critics provide feedback. At these events (often called ‘crits’), the designer presents their work, which is then criticized by the educator and/or peers, its virtues and limitations debated, in order to be improved. Brad Hokanson, Graphic Design Professor at the University of Minnesota and Associate Dean for Research and Outreach for the College of Design, describes the process in the following way. “Information must be gathered and analyzed and a guiding principle or idea must be developed and communicated to others. Designers must expose their work to the criticism of others and answer critiques with the quality of their arguments and improvement in the design. Critique looks at an idea—created through analysis and an inventive process, which is shared by the learner/designer—and advances its quality.”

In his article “The  Design  Critique  as  a  Model for  Distributed  Learning”, Hokanson maps the studio critique system to various mainstream educational concepts. In his opinion, it can be compared to problem-based learning, where complex challenges are posed to learners in various domains, which in its turn helps develop the learner’s ability of higher order thinking. However, if problem-solving is the only purpose of the critique process, it will bring design down to a mere “process for developing domain knowledge through problem solution, and not as a means to intentionally develop problem-solving ability or, central to design, the defining of problems.” Thus. For this reason, the closest similarity to the system of generative critique is probably cognitive apprenticeship as outlined by Allan Collins, an American cognitive scientist, Professor Emeritus of Learning Sciences at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy. According to Hokanson, the critique model as an educational process has developed from formalizing  the process of traditional apprenticeship, just like “architecture evolved from the crafts of masonry and building.”

The forms of critique most commonly used in design education include desk critiques, peer crits, and group critiques.

The desk crit is a personal interaction between a designer and critic (be it professor, visiting expert or peer) involving collaborative work on a design in progress – and in fact, it normally takes the majority of scheduled class time in a design studio. During the desk crit, the student presents possible design choices, while the professor explores their implications and offers possible alternatives, guiding the work towards a more successful conclusion. Ideally, effective critique provides not only objective answers but also directions focused on developing the designer’s ideas and thought process.

It is quite predictable that access to instructors for one-to-one critiques is limited. The main limits on the use of individual critique – time and class size – remain is a continuing source of pressure on design departments, as lecture classes and objective evaluations are much simpler and more financially viable. However, other members of a class are generally available at any time for a peer crtitique, which involves sharing opinions and evaluations of the design works and ideas between co-students.

The great benefit of the peer critique is that it develops both the designer and the critic. “Both roles have cognitive benefits to the individual designer and to their broader understanding of design,” Hokanson explains. “Designs are developed conversationally, building from the initial ideas of the designer, but tested and improved through the argumentation like process of a critique.” When reviewing his peer’s design solution, the critic gets an opportunity to extend their own skills.

Although a peer crit is the least formal critique format, it nevertheless forms the basis for an extended professional understanding of the use of critique. Those who prioritize teacher’s critique and ignore peer feedback often end up performing less successfully in the course, as social relationships and professional identities are developed mostly within the mutual exchange of peer feedback in or outside class.