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How to Provide Proper Design Feedback
For the success of a project, is important to understand that I am not a
mind reader. I am working with you, not against you. The success of your
project is our shared common goal.
Keeping these in mind, your feedback could improve significantly. When you
receive the draft(s) from me, you might either feel angry or happy. In
either case, if feedback is necessary, please follow these simple tips for
proper feedback:
- Avoid, at all costs, feedback that sounds like this: "Not what I
am looking for!"
Think of it, if you spent 2 days painting your
living room then I come in and say "Not what I am looking for", what will
you do? Spend another 2 days painting it in a different color, blindly? No.
You expect me to make you understand what I liked and disliked in your paint
job. Same applies here. Try to relax and put some order on your thoughts
then make a list of pros and cons. It will be very helpful to me.
- Avoid rushed feedback
Try to understand that
feedback over e-mail is different than feedback face to face where we can
occasionally take a pen a paper and doodle it out. Once you have received
the draft(s), if you are in a rush, please postpone the feedback until you
are able to take more than 5 minutes of your time to provide thoughtful
feedback. Once you found the time, sit back, relax and think constructively
and make a list of pros and cons.
- Subjective vs. Objective
One of the most common
feedback issues is given by the subjective notions used to describe both the
first impression a customer had on a draft and his/her expectations. For
example, "Please spice up the logo a bit, looking good so far". This type of
feedback is very unhelpful. Spice up is a relative term and so, it does not
help us at all to know what would be the actual improvements to consider.
Apply this to a cornucopia of terms which their exact meaning differs
greatly from a person to another.
- Not the same quality as your portfolio
Statistically
speaking, this reason is invoked mostly by the customers whose company names
are long and made up of several words and even numbers and the name is
usually generic without something unique, to set it apart. First, a
portfolio quality, beyond the technical abilities, is highly subjective,
therefore an accurate measurement cannot be employed; so does an accurate
comparison. Please don't hold it against me that the said company name was
not chosen with the branding perspective in mind. Most of the memorable
logos in general, will have a few things in common: their names are very
brand-able, relatively short and concise. You can never achieve the same
professional impact with "Cars4YouNY" vs. "NYCars", both being a
hypothetical car sales company in New York. Please understand the branding
limitations of your company/product name. I am offering naming services as
well, should you be interested.
That's about it, looking forward to working with you!