What is Constructive Criticism?
Constructive criticism is used by many artists. This style of evaluating gives artists tips and ideas to help build their skills as an artist. Helpful tips include things such as:
- Use sincere praise in a "Compliment Sandwich Technique". When you use the sandwich technique, you sandwich one bad point (as a request not a direct complaint) offset between two good points (compliments). Don't sound unfriendly or too intense, yet not so mushy as to not make the point clearly.
- focus on valid and unbiased feedback and…
- make your criticism clear, understandable, and relevant.
- Be real. Make sure you are stating something that you see that can really help the student.
- Positive Comments include: Nice lines, nice subject choice, good balance, great art style.
- Ways to give constructive criticism: Work on neatening, try using more colors/subjects, balance could be better, looks a bit unfinished.
- DO NOT SAY: This sucks, you are a bad artist, bad choices for your colors, etc.
The poor way of giving constructive criticism:
- That logo design sucks, who the heck would pay for something like that!?
- I hate red and green, why not use black and white instead!
- I can’t read the text.
The right way of giving constructive criticism:
- The balloon font used in the logo seems a bit too playful for your business, do you think a different might be more professional?
- 10% of the male population has red-green colorblindness, you might want to ensure that your color scheme won’t turn away potential customers.
- There isn’t much contrast between the background and text color, and the font size is a bit small, so the text is difficult to read.