“Students often come in thinking that the word ‘criticism’ means finding fault with something, looking for the weak spots, finding something harsh to say,” says Natalia Ilyin*. “But ‘criticism’ in design and in writing is not that; It’s trying to figure out what problem the writer or designer has set up and then deciding whether the designer or writer solved that problem. … Criticism that points out something that you may have missed or made a connection that you didn’t see—is of immense value.”
Personally, I like the concept of the game “Musical Chairs” in design. Where everyone moves and works on somebody’s design each day. Musicians get their songs remixed or performed by other artists, so why not get your design remixed? Someone else will find things that you didn’t see in there. It’s also refreshing to see that someone can give away a design without envy, ownership, or jealousy. For programmers, this is called “open source code.” Only then we can grow a robust and un-hackable application. At my pharma job that was very common. And at the last step, the “pre-press,” was the rule.

During a Parsons workshop about meaningful critiques, we were lucky to hear about CalArts’ Allison Yasukawa’s conversation starter cards. I made a set of them (each one is using a different classic typeface). Just like the words “calm down” has a 100% failure rate, the words “don’t be shy” do very little to start the conversation. These cards do start a conversation.
Allison gave us these instructions to talk about an artwork.

Things to do as a viewer if you don’t know what to say:

1. Describe the artwork’s formal qualities including the following: line, shape, form, space,
color, surface, balance, emphasis, movement, repetition, variety, unity, and/or pattern
2. Respond to the title, materials, and/or process by which the work was made.
3. If you know the artist, compare this work to their previous work.
4. Respond to another speaker’s comment(s).
5. Also for more information about something someone has said.
a. Could you say more about that?
b. What do you mean by…?

Reality TV and Casting Shows

Allison started the workshop with questions into the room:
— do you like reality TV?
— which show do you like, or hate
— do you know American Idol?
Very often they have some kind of competition.
What roles do the people take on as part of the shows?
Competitors, judges, hosts, audience.
American Idol example:

The judges are:

Paula Abdul

Paula Abdul was born in 1962 in California. A natural-born dancer, Abdul was selected as a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers while in college. She continued her career as a dancer and choreographer and eventually worked with The Jackson 5 before becoming a pop star in her own right during the ’80s.
She is the descriptive judge, she mentions what she sees. Her sentences start like: ”I noticed that you…”
Paula is sometimes referred to as the show’s “den mother,” hovering over and protecting her cubs, particularly from the scary man next door, Simon Cowell.

Randi Jackson

Randall Darius Jackson is an American bassist, singer, record producer, entrepreneur, and television personality.
Playing with everyone from Herbie Hancock to Bob Dylan. He was even a temporary member of the 80s rock band Journey. Jackson also recorded and toured with such well-known artists as Jerry Garcia, Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, and Madonna.
The interpretive judge, he talks compares things to ideas and concepts.
When Randy says something is “pitchy,” it means nothing except to those who have had some kind of musical training.

Simon Cowell

After each performance, his criticism tends to focus on the actual singing and song choice, but he’ll often acknowledge the role other factors play. This season, he told one contestant, “This came over as a bit of a joke. Having said that, I have a feeling the audience at home will like you.”
Simon Cowell basically says something like, “You really sucked just then, mate” while Paula tends to say, “Puppies kittens bunnies teddy bears not the best song choice for me but that’s okay, sweetie, sunshine happiness flowers.”
The insufferable studio audience nearly always erupts into applause after Paula says something inconsequential, and then obnoxiously boos Simon for being honest. He never softens his responses the way Paula does, and they hate him for it.
Allison then asked us to split into 3 groups to each design a costume representing one of the 3 judges, using some very basic material such as newspapers and tape. Additionally, we could make one item to hold, that represents the character archetype.
Each group then displayed the costume.
The hand-held items were kept and used for future critiques. They act as representational totems to speak from the archetype’s point of view.

references:
* Natalia Ilyin’ second book: “Writing for the Design Mind.”

The vocabulary list is here

The printable PDF is here

Moodboards are an excellent start for any project to explore different visual themes, styles, and concepts and get your many far-out ideas into focus. It’s good to keep the ideas on a mood board abstract, lucid, and not too literal.

The purpose of this set of mood boards is all about you. Please introduce yourself using visuals. Please make a “me”- mood board. What is your brand? By that, I don’t mean a logo but rather what makes you unique. Anecdotal imagery to show values you have, concepts that inspire you, the food you like, the things you love, the stories you tell.

The mood boards should be explorations using pictures, textures, shapes, colors, smells (you can write those down). You can find sources on dastner.com/moodboards, on the internet, your photos, and books, scrapbooks, sketches, or on the street, anywhere.

Group those ideas into the five category boards. Once you start working, more ideas will come up and form clusters. After that, you will see some core ideas begin to crystallize. You will find that it’s hard to make decisions, but don’t overthink, do, and move to the next idea; not everything has to be explained; it might make sense later on. Let’s vary the sizes of the pictures; otherwise, you can arrange them however you like.
Delivery: Physical collage or post PDF slides (horizontal, so we can share them onto the screen in class)

I start everything with a mood board. Life should be a mood board, like “where do you see yourself in 5 years”. This is the most fun part of the job, the time where you get more and more hyped up. Mood boards are a great tool to explore different visual themes, styles, and concepts. Make them from a “gut” instinct. Don’t try to explain or justify any decision. Work fast and don’t worry about mistakes.; at first glimpse at least.
They can be done using Pinterest, but I find that it is somewhat limiting and uninspiring. One cannot change size or relations as quickly as in photoshop. However, use Pinterest to search for trends and keywords, over time I started building my own library of images (you know, there really is an image library on 42nd St, I haven’t used it for a long time since the internet became one).
For example: on The Doctor’s Cohn website is a website with information for older people, They talk about health and retirement, for instance (also an excellent sponsor opportunity). So I chose the image of two squirrels gathering nuts for winter. In this case, I showed the client the boards, and they found it rather funny. Usually, I wouldn’t show clients the mood boards. It just leaves them confused. It takes practice to make or read them.
Through the design, I often take a look at the initial mood boards to help me make decisions and check if the ship is still sailing on course towards the goals.

Examples