Turning Feedback into Your Growth Fuel
Over my career, I've experienced the highs and lows of feedback, and I've come to see it as a fuel—something that can push us beyond our comfort zones and refine our skills in ways we never imagined.
Graphic design school is a field full of learning in so many ways, from essential knowledge that serves you in any related field like design fundamentals, to technical skills that you might only use once, but especially a lot of learning to re-shape your thinking about soft skills that you might have once considered easy.
One of the muscles that I was constantly putting to good use is feedback. Naturally, when you’re going through constant visual and conceptual exercises with a classroom full of aspiring designers, your work will be subject to criticism all the time, intentionally and non-intentionally. It might as well be the very first time you’re trying out a technique or creating a brand book, but you’ll still have to face it.
Receiving feedback is a feature, not a bug. However, it’ll depend on you to pull that lever to keep growing.
The graphic design school critique format
During my time at the university, the process leading up to a design critique looked something like this:
Get a new homework assignment
Decide which topic or angle I would use to approach my design
Work on it, potentially with all-nighters included
“Unveil” my homework in front of the class
Receive feedback from my classmates and instructor
Fin
There are several things happening here that can be improved, but at the time, it seemed ok because that was all most of us knew with the bit of experience we had or lack thereof.
Assignments were all disconnected from one another, both to the progress of the class and, in most cases, also related to the topics each student was touching on. Since you don’t want to run out of ideas and have motivation for those all-nighters, the most common approach was to use topics you were the most attracted to based on hobbies.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that since you’re given the freedom to choose, but it means that providing feedback should be slightly different for everyone. What happens if you’re entirely unfamiliar with the other person's chosen topic? You still have to give feedback, so good luck with that.
At the same time, more often than not, your work was exposed to the rest of the class and the teacher until the very moment of the design critique time, with only a couple of minutes to explain your reasoning behind it. The person giving feedback might be unfamiliar with the topic while trying to judge with only 5 minutes of information.
Good intentions, lack of experience
Despite my lack of experience in feedback dynamics, I truly valued giving feedback for no other reason than helping the person receiving it improve. Having a growth mindset has been part of my nature for as long as I can remember, so I tried to be honest and helpful in my feedback and improve my techniques based on the feedback received.
Still, the feedback dynamic is different once you’re actually working, but no one told me how different it would be to receive iterative feedback compared to one-offs. For starters, knowing how to receive it. It’s part of human nature to get defensive when something or someone opposes your perspective, even more so when it comes to something that can feel as personal as your design work.
That was the first lesson:
Take the feedback impersonally because you’re not your work; you’re designing for someone else.
Given the context of how the designs were created during design school, with a personal affinity for the topics used, it was natural to end up emotionally attached to your work. That being said, understanding this relationship between your work and your perception of your value as a designer is vital to experiencing feedback in a different light. There’s no room for egos to make the most out of feedback in your day-to-day work.
Reframing feedback
In her article “Stop learning to give feedback. Learn to receive it.”, Wes Kao provides tactical examples to turn those moments into a fruitful experience:
Turn defensiveness into curiosity
Control your facial expressions
Create psychological safety
Listen first, then decide whether to incorporate feedback later
Applying this to my personal experience, I was already curious by nature, but I lacked a clear understanding of how to accept feedback when I received it. Kinda like when you’re in front of a cake while others are signing you “Happy birthday,” and you have no idea what to do other than smile.
At the core of this moment (the feedback, not the birthday song), Wes highlights one important yet challenging skill: Self-restraint.
Like many others, my instinct was to try to defend my work after spending who knows how many all-nighters and pouring my heart and soul into it. I could try to pose it as a professional discussion, but in hindsight, it didn’t help to invite others to provide honest feedback in the future.
That’s the next lesson in my journey:
Feedback is a gift.
When you receive a gift, you don’t start questioning why the person giving it to you picked that color over a different one, bring up a different wish on your list, or worse, the price tag of the gift you got. Instead, you’re thankful for the time and intention this person put into the gift.
At the same time, we can use this gift-giving analogy to give high-quality feedback because you care enough to help the other person reach the best possible outcome.
Did you give helpful feedback?
The litmus test is simple: did your feedback result in the other person taking action in a way you and they feel good about?
— Julie Zhuo, Holding up the Mirror
Developing a habit of feedback
I have shared enough about how my perception of feedback changed over time, but one thing I’m thankful for in design school was being exposed to feedback day and night. Having my work always subject to judgment allowed me to accept it as a natural activity of my role as a designer.
I had already learned to take feedback impersonally and accept it (and give it) as a gift. What would then be the natural level-up of continuous feedback?
Actively seeking feedback early and often.
This goes both ways: to give it and receive it. It might not be easy at first to keep it constantly in mind, but as with any skill, it’s all about putting it into practice. If we’re committed to being curious to keep improving, we have to look at feedback from a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset.
My favorite tactic to approach feedback with curiosity is to ask questions. Tons of them. Here are a few of my favorites:
Why is this top of mind for you?
What’s the riskiest part about this approach?
Are there any dependencies or constraints I might not be aware of?
Notice how I’m not trying to find a solution or defend my work with any of these questions. Instead, I’m probing for additional information to validate or invalidate my current approach and define the best course of action. If we already have shared goals and definitions of success, any change or iteration should take us one step closer to the desired outcome instead of becoming a contest for being right.
You can discover more practical tips for sharing early work in progress and fostering a healthy culture of design critiques in this Maven panel hosted by Ridd:
This practice will increase the quality of the work produced and, ultimately, the psychological safety within the team. It will allow you to trust each other and even share early drafts of an idea. That’s how design critiques and reaching out to others for ad-hoc feedback will fill you with excitement and motivation because you’re elevating each other to improve every time.
Parting thoughts
I hope these examples and lessons have encouraged you to consider feedback as a powerful source of continuous improvement. If you have been thinking about asking for or giving feedback to someone else, don’t overthink it—it’ll be a gift for both of you. After all, not only is our work an ongoing iteration, but everyone of us is a work in progress as well.
Do you have any tips and tricks to build a habit of feedback? Share them in the comments!
Learning shortcuts
Taking Feedback Impersonally, by
A gem from the past that helped me reframe my perspective of feedback.Holding Up the Mirror, also by
Learn to spot the difference between ineffective and excellent feedback.Stop learning to give feedback. Learn to receive it. by
Practical tips to improve your feedback experience by learning to receive it like a pro.
Question behind the question, also by
The best way to spark curiosity is by getting to the root of the feedback.
It's always more fun to learn with others than doing it alone, so don't hesitate to reach out on Threads @laurieesc if you want to continue the conversation. If this article has been helpful, share it with a friend!
Over and out,
Laura ✌️