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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 and that 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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!