They say practice makes perfect, but what if you’re practicing something incorrectly? More accurately they should be saying perfect practice makes perfect.

In order to practice perfectly, you must know how. You need to define what you’re aiming for. This is where critiquing comes in handy.

Get in the habit of critiquing others’ designs (even if only in your own mind) and, as we talked about before, asking for others to critique your work, too.

Analyzing Makes Perfect

Practice looking critically at both designs you find appealing and designs you find appalling. Analyze why you have those impressions. Pin point the mistakes in a design, even if you do think it is good. Nothing is perfect and things can always be done better.

Things can be done differently, too. If you can’t find mistakes, find things you would change.

But What Should I Look For?

Start off critiquing a design by going through the seven elements of design, line, shape, space, size, texture, value and color. Ask yourself these questions:

• How did the designer use each of these elements?
• How could the designer have used this element more effectively?
• Would I have used this element differently? How?
• Did the designer keep his/her target audience in mind?
• What could be improved?

What the Future Holds

I would like to create a new category of this blog where you can submit your own designs for critique. The submissions can be for print or web. Projects can be finished or still under construction, but should be something that is almost ready to be sent to the client. In a post on Creative Curio, I will give my impressions of your design, a little information about you and the background of the piece and, of course, a link to your website if you have one. The comments will also be open for reader opinions.

If you would like to submit a design, you can email me at lauren_at_creativecurio_dot_com (and of course replace the _at_ and _dot_ with the appropriate symbols!). Attach a jpg or png of your design and write a little bit about the background, how you came up with the idea and if there is anything we should know about the company or its target audience in order to understand your design. If you would like to write a little bio about yourself and include a link to your website(s) that would be great, too! You’ll be able to preview the critique before it’s posted and we can discuss changes, if needed.

What do you think? Is this something you would find valuable?

Technorati Tags: Design, Graphic Design, Critique