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TRANSCRIPTION  of Chapter 8 of Season 2

Surprising Ways to Use Design Feedback to Your Advantage

00:00:05 – 00:05:04

Welcome to Design Speaks the podcast that helps you use uncommon inspiration. So you can overcome creative block and make life better work. I’m your host Brandi seen joining me is my co-host Julie Haider and this week. We’re going to be talking about how to level up your work by harnessing the power of feedback stay tuned for that coming up later than his chest. Hi, Julie. Hi franzie. So again, we didn’t plan this we like kind of match again. We’re both wearing like black shirt, like dressy kind of style blouses with like a pattern or something on it. But what the heck, I don’t know. I was like subconsciously telling you Yeah, I’m lucky. Oh my gosh, we’re even wearing look at this. Oh my God, I never even like those like bar silver bar necklaces. There’s something but Yes, mine has the GPS coordinates for where Anthony and I got married. Oh, that’s so cute. So mine says Ohana which defines family. Yeah. It’s from Lilo & Stitch, which is one of Kenny’s favorite movies and I was like, I had a little someone gifted me a subscription to these boxes off at like come with a bunch of Disney things at this came in it. Yeah amazing. That’s fun. Yeah. So Julie. Yes, how many times have you heard designers or creatives? Ask for feedback like this? Which one of these logos do you like? Or what do you think about this photo? All the time, I can’t stand it. I’m actually a part of like a few like graphic design not support groups. They’re just like wage like private groups on Facebook for graphic design. Yes, and that’s where those questions get asked because I was about to say the same thing those questions get asked to my photography groups. Even the logo question, you know, somebody’s working a designer and then they’re like, hey, my designer sent me this these for Logos, which do like like better a b or c Which one do you like better A or B one or two? And I’m just like to a roomful of strangers. Yeah, if you don’t know this by now. You know that that stuff doesn’t matter people’s preferences no matter so today we’re going to talk how to give and receive the right kind of feedback. So it actually helped you like be better. So first of all, before we go into that we’re just going to have to make this a thing now, I guess where are you? What is going on in your background? And what have you been up to? So my background is actually another photo that I took this is the famous mcway Falls in Big Sur, California. You can see a little waterfall over there. And then this is the ocean. Yeah, you can kind of see behind me and this was like a a long exposure which I thought was kind of fun cuz it has like the movement of the waves and then obviously like the waterfalls looking like a a continuous stream and everything. So, yeah. It’s a cool icon in place. I just realized that the photos Actually slipped for some reason here. It’s normally the other way interesting. Yeah. Well, so it’s not just a window views of a this is like know. Well, you can see the waterfall if I did just the window song aside goal and I love it. I love it so much teal teal is becoming a trend for you. It is ideal of that color. And then what I’ve been working on so long every year for the last like six years, I think for my husband’s birthday. I make him a birthday cake and it’s like a total surprise to him and I always pick a theme and like decorate to that song. I Am by no means like a professional cake decorator, but it’s just kind of like a fun thing to do and I like we’ve talked before about like having creative Outlets that have nothing to do with your work. And so that’s just like I’m not going to lie. It’s kind of stressful sometimes but it is like fun to age. Creative and like come up with a design and then bake it and decorate it and everything. So he just had his birthday and I so usually I work with fondant because he his favorite kind of cake is a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and it’s really hard to like come up with cool designs that work with chocolate frogs Yeah, so I pretty much always use fondant wage year.

00:05:04 – 00:10:09

I wanted to do just like a vanilla buttercream and for my birthday during quarantine so had to get creative. He got me a bunch of oil paints and painted along to Bob Ross. Yeah. And so that was really fun. So I thought like oh if you really cool if I could paint his cake and so like edible page or just like we’re just not going to eat this fondant. We’re going to turn it off like, okay, so like watercolors on cake. Yes, I ended up doing a buttercream and then I mixed dog. Butter cream with different food colorings and kind of painted them on but with like a lot of texture I thought that would be more fun than just painting directly on there. But to give it like a dimension to it. So I did a Bob Ross painting on the cake. No way. Okay, you’re going to have to send me this picture so I can link it in our show. Okay. I I am like picturing just amazingness wage. Yeah, it’s fairly simple. Like usually I go more elaborate but it was really really fun to do like I’m not going to lie, there were some hiccups and it was a little stressful with like getting the other cakes together. But once I started painting it was so much fun. It was surprised or were you like steal the kitchen? I’m doing something special. So he always like at this point after six years here’s knows I mean the the cake but he has no idea like what the theme is going to be this year. I told him I was leaving completely different than and he would like never guess. So he was like, is it just going to be a plain cake? That would have been wage? Twist. Yeah, but that was a fun little thing that I did recently. Oh, that’s awesome. What a cool idea. Yeah. We’re like two episodes ago. We talked a lot about cake and now my cake again and it’s like lunch time right now that we’re recording and so I think like next episode we need to be eating cake on the podcast, right? That’s true. But yeah, this is going yeah, but what kind I don’t know but I think maybe we need to have like a cake episode. Yeah. Yeah painted by Julie Cakes by June. That’s your new Venture. You know, thank you. Oh my goodness. That’s amazing. I love it. Yeah. So what if you actually been inspired by lately besides cake besides cake all the cake. So do you have Disney plus I did for a free trial? Yeah, we’ve determined the Julie is not a huge Disney fan. Okay. We’ll just move. Watch the Mandalorian knows it. It was worth it just for that. Yeah. Yeah, it totally was so they’ve been releasing a lot of new stuff over quarantining and things like that and with Kaden and I usually watch a show like when we’re eating lunch, I guess not usually once in a while, we’ll watch like a short documentary or something learning related. So we’re not just like zombie out when we’re watching TV in the middle of the day. So we were on Disney plus and usually we watched something that’s like I don’t know Nat Geo or something like finding phones and weird stuff like that, but they released a frozen to documentary on Disney plus so it looks like the making of and think it was like Eight Episodes like eight thirty minute episodes and I was like, yeah, I like seeing behind the scenes like I love watching like bonus contest DVDs sounds like they should be fun. Like I really enjoyed thousand two and the story was really great sounds like this should be fun. So when we were watching it, they were really like doing a real like they were doing a really good job telling the story of telling the story of Frozen too. So a little bit meta, but in the process of it they were showing how like for each like draft they will go into like a theater and show like their peers like where they’re at to that point and then after they show them like whether it’s just like obviously the first few steps are laughing. Animated it’s just storyboard. Like it’s really simple, but you’re checking the story right there. Just making sure that the story Works before they move on to doing anything else and they go into a room and they showed this sign on the door off its like the room where they’re all going to go like me and get feedback and talk and it just said story trust and this is what they called it. Like they called this like meeting of the minds like the story trust where they have to trust people with story and talk about. Yeah and one of the I like pause the movie we wanted a couple of times because I wanted to catch the quote that one of them said they basically said everyone off here to help the film. And even though the feedback was hard that that everyone knows that’s the goal like to make this. Yeah, so it was really inspiring because There’s there’s something about showing people your work and asking for feedback.

00:10:09 – 00:15:12

That’s kind of terrifying. Yes, because there’s like in honesty if you are with the right people like you’re probably going to hear something that you aren’t wanting to hear. And so there’s the potential for their work to be like really ripped apart. But something else that the like the primary writer and director said was that People have to be open to a level where they are ready to be exposed and potentially torn apart for the purpose of improving it. So it was on Iraq like a timely reminder that I needed to keep my focus on working with groups of creatives. And that’s like for my business at the beginning of the year. As you know, I’ve been shifting into being like a creative coach and design strategist as like my Niche and I was I was kind of struggling with well, I’m working like it’s a lot of energy to work one-on-one with people but maybe that’s like what I need to be doing and watching this really inspired me that like, I felt like this really like actually cried talking about it with kenix. I was like I need to be working with groups. I need to be working with groups of people. I like to lead a team which is why what made me such like I really enjoy being a creative an art director cuz I got to leave a team of people so that really helped me through. Shift over now into creating like a mastermind as opposed to one on one coaching and I still do that and I still will do that if it’s like necessary or if someone really wants that one-on-one time, but it was it was eye-opening and the feedback loop idea. It was it was like really an awesome push to remind me like, I need to be focused on so that was that was really cool. So maybe you should just get to sleep less. That’s tomorrow. The story moral of the story is Julie needs more Disney in her life. I mean in October when the Mandalorian comes back I’ll get it is October Julie. It’s October right now. I’m doing it. So maybe maybe you already have it so long. So yeah, also, there’s some music that I wanted to tell you guys about always always music. I’ve been listening to a song called Dark Days by Local Natives featuring Sylvan Esso it came for birth birth. Yes, I chose this song this week because it is fall off and has a really great fall Vibe. I actually love Local Natives and Sylvan Esso. So this song was kind of a gimme I it came up in one of my like discover weekly playlist on Spotify home. But I also appreciate the sentiment of asking in the lyrics it talks about asking why we’re fighting if we don’t know why so whether that’s fighting other people or waiting with ourselves. Sometimes we just need to like take a step back and look at our motives and think about like, why are we fighting are we afraid of something are we worried about something and took a just kind of look at that? The song isn’t isn’t actually dark songs called dark days, but it’s a really sort of upbeat Fall by B songs to listen to in front of a fire and when it’s cold, so it’s dead. Like great. I love everything about it and you can find it on our Spotify playlist music from design speaking podcast, and I hope that you will yes, the song is great and I don’t have the lyrics memorized and I forgot to bring my paper. So that’s as good. So, okay, Julie now, let’s talk about feedback Yeah, I think this is a great topic slightly scary to all of us. Yeah, but I think there’s a good way to do it and then not so greatly. Yeah. Absolutely. No. When I was teaching I was teaching Junior and senior graphic design majors at our local art college at my alma mater and there were multiple points in the year where we had to they had to have like their work up to a certain point so that we could have feedback and something that I really appreciated about how they get there is so at that school.

00:15:12 – 00:20:00

They have animators fine artists photographers graphic designers and illustrators. That’s like they’re they’re not a trifecta. It’s a five factor. I know know what that would be. There’s five things that people do their so they would basically mix and match for the feedback stuff to get an outside look at it. And so it’s actually took her to like what the Disney story trust thing was they weren’t all people from inside Disney or Pixar even it was like a couple of people from inside and then other directors and writers and producers outside of it. So the way that they the way that they did that there was like, okay at this point you have to bring your work. And get feedback on it. Yeah, did you ever have to do that? Was that something that was offered like as a option or was it just feedback from your instructor when you off off to school? Well, first of all, I have to remember that far back. I think I did have like a little bit of feedback off like from people in the class, but it was all I don’t know it wasn’t well facilitated. So I wouldn’t necessarily say it was super valuable. But I do love that idea a clicking outside of your industry. I think that’s super important because for one just looking to someone else they’re going to have a different perspective and see things that you’re too close to see but to change someone’s perspective in a different industry some like that. They’re going to see things that just can’t be seen in the industry, you know, like we’ve talked about before in a very different context of the curse of knowledge that Donald Donald Miller talks about and it’s like you, you know, everything you see everything and so you missed the the stuff that’s obvious some time. Right? Cuz you’re too close to it. You’re too close. Yeah, so so When I was in college, I remember feedback but it was always only with my class. So the chances are also that like I’ve been with this same group of people for how long for many years and now we sort of like understand each other and like oh, I already know how they work. So I know what they’re doing here and I’m not going to really say anything cuz I don’t want to hurt their feelings back then like, I think that’s a huge part to like, I’m in Enneagram 9, so I don’t want to say anything to like, you know, just feel like you didn’t do a good job with this thing or whatever or like, I don’t like, you know, whatever. Yeah, I don’t want to like disturb the Peace by doing that especially with classmates. We’re like, well, we have a whole other rest of the semester off like I can just like leave this and never see you again. So who cares what you think it’s like you get to know these people. Yeah. So just as a just as like a a precursor to the feedback. Is like making sure that you are getting feedback from a variety of sources. If you can if you can’t at least have people that would know what they’re talking about. She talked a couple of episodes ago about like asking your kid to look at your hierarchy and stuff like that. But when you’re really looking for like at a certain level like feedback on messaging and communication and stuff like that, you should be asking someone that would have some valuable insight to say and that’s kind of what we’re getting at today is leveling up by knowing how to give or receive feedback and the the biggest thing that I would say, you know, I guess not the biggest I say that a lot. I guess it’s more of a foundation of everything we’ve been talking about this season month is when you are showing someone work for feedback. Tell them who it’s for. Tell so important you are making it for which obviously you need to know that first. You shouldn’t be making anything. If you don’t know who it’s for and then the message so the, so if you don’t tell them anything else, what is the goal? I’m creating. I’m creating a new website for a interior designer who just starting a new pillow line and the concept is Urban Chic. And the audience is like a 60 year old mother of four who really appreciates something interesting in different rooms of her house and pillows are a good way to do that. I just looked at changes. I just like to feel like idea.

00:20:00 – 00:25:01

Can I come up with you? Yeah, but I like changes the perspective so so much cuz if you just say do you like this logo? Like it might be good for that one target market but like really terrible for the other or yeah, it just changes like the The Narrative of like where the conversation is going to go off. Yeah, and I think also like ask if you can to ask someone who fits In that like target market would be incredibly valuable because again that goes to like they not only do they like fit that and have the right perspective. But also, I don’t know anything probably about what you do and how you can help them still like is the message coming across clearly, right? Like it might look nice. But like are they getting the message that you need them to get in order for them to be interested in hiring you for whatever. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s where the difference between just being a graphic designer and being a design a strategist comes in because you are no longer just designing for pretty you are designing for purpose and lots of people can make pretty things but is that going to sell more pillows? Yeah, and also like can we talk about feedback on websites? Like can people find the information they’re needing to find if you have a beautiful site, but it’s not easy to navigate down and for someone who isn’t you yeah, if they can’t like move around and find the cool stuff that you’ve put in there and also like does it have enough information? Yeah user experience from a website to a magazine to you know, when I get my Apple watch I’m trying to figure out how to open the stupid box. Like all of that is understanding and respecting feedback because you gotta believe that every time Apple makes some new product. They are testing the heck out of that packaging to make sure that every little bit is and that was that wasn’t a hit on them. Every time I get something from them. I know exactly how I’m supposed to open this like step-by-step. I understand what I’m supposed to be doing and that is the same for this so you talked about we talk dog. People saying like oh, I like this or I don’t like this or asking those questions. Yeah. That is the number one thing that we always start out with when I’m teaching students how to give and get feedback is you are you’re basically not allowed to even have any statements of their called statements of preference. So you’re not allowed to say do you like this or something like this because or even saying well this works because which sounds funny because it’s like well, how can I know like if it works or not where that comes in is asking questions that are more open-ended. Yeah. And so so for example, like a bad question would be does this make you feel sad. I don’t know doesn’t make me feel sad should I be feeling sad now? I’m looking for things that might make me feel sad. Yeah, you can’t lead them into the answer because then you may not be getting the truth. Right? Exactly. So a better way to phrase that that same sort of idea of a question would be how does this image make you feel? How does the dark area in the top-right influence your experience when you look at this design? What is it inspiring you to do them or believe and so you’re not even saying with this? With this ad make you want to buy this perfume. You’re just saying when you if you were to walk by this, what would this make you feel like you should do. Yeah, and so having those those kinds of questions, how does the use of read like, how is how I used the color of Jell-O here influencing your experience right now. And it gives you as the person on the the side of that created the design the opportunity to really learn more about a broad experience with one that you just created as opposed to. Do you like this? Yes, the thing about that is also like I don’t like it. I don’t like it when people just say they like something I did. Or like when my child is showing me this is something I actually learned in a parenting book a long time ago that when your child is creating something especially and they show it to you. I might I have to remember this all the time.

00:25:01 – 00:30:24

It’s feedback but like Kayden will build something with Legos and he’ll come show me and if I’m being lazy parent, I’ll be like oh, hey bud. That’s awesome. That’s cool. Go back to work. That doesn’t do anything for his self esteem. That doesn’t do anything for his like ideas of like how he can continue to be good at that or get better off. So something that I learned in the parenting book is like find something specific and tell him why you like that. So yeah. Hey, I really liked how you used color here. That’s really cool. I like how this shoots I love the way you engineered this little piece here to open and shut and then it’s like okay or I can say, you know, what might be better. How what’s another way you might be able to like shoot that from here? What’s another sort of part that might make this easier to open and close. So I’m not even telling him even if I know you know what there’s this piece and it looks just like this you should go find that piece and put it right here. That would make this work a lot better off. I have that knowledge. I could tell him that but that takes away from his problem solving and it takes away from the self-esteem when he can actually achieve that so the same as like for Designing and any kind of so we had the opportunity to critique and give feedback on photography and illustration and like small bits of animation and things like that off when you when you look at it from that angle when you are the person giving feedback. It’s an open door for you to also exercise your own critical eye. Yeah, and be able to help people exercise what they do and be better at it. So how effectively are you communicating to the audience based on specific things off because the goal is to learn. Yeah is for the person get receiving the feedback like this isn’t a personal attack. It’s it’s not me saying you’re a terrible designer. Yeah. It’s it’s a chance to learn and as the person receiving feedback like that does feel scary sometimes but it’s a huge opportunity to grow don’t we all want to grow and be better? So, yeah, and the last thing I will say in regards to that is when you just ask for the kind of feedback that says do you like or not like this that it’s personal when you’re not talking about like specific aspects of how the work communicates It does become personal like if I were to ask Kenny, do you like my outfit? If he says yes or no if he says no, but doesn’t give me anything more than that. I take it personal cuz like why I put a lot of effort in this outfit and like it could just be like he doesn’t love a purple shirt. Yeah, it could be or maybe he like wasn’t even really paying attention and didn’t quite understand the question and thought I was talking about something else if if I go, you know, what how what do you think about this blouse with these jeans? How does that feel like does this feel like too dressy is this too casual for what we’re doing. It’s no different than that. And so when they just like throw up our work and say do you like this we are opening our self-esteem up for attack because then it becomes all about us as opposed to here’s the work. Here’s what I’m trying to achieve can help make sure that I’m actually sending the right message here and when you approach it that way then people’s feedback feels helpful as opposed to like well sorry Jerk it wasn’t for you. Why? No that you just asked if I liked it. Yeah. Yeah, I think you have to have the right mindset to especially as someone receiving feedback and I think I feel like this is especially true of photographers and I bet for any creative like we get like emotionally attached to our work like for me when I look at a picture. It’s not just about all the technical stuff about it. It’s like the relationship that I had with my clients, you know, if they treated me poorly then even if it’s a beautiful photo I may not have great feelings toward right or I might have really loved the couple and this photo like, you know wasn’t all that great, but I think it’s great because I remember that wonderful time though he had or like if you get a location that I love or you know, like we just have so much attachment to it that has nothing to do with the actual art and the technical skills and all of that stuff so for someone else Like I try to have someone like literally just last week. I had someone who knows my target market knows like what I’m trying to put out there looking through my portfolio and tell me you know, which ones were her favorites but not just like oh, I like this one, but I think this one, you know embodies the issue like resonate with your target market and bodies what you’re trying to show and here’s technically why it’s good and that’s just really valuable and and the time before when I had someone look at my life fully.

00:30:24 – 00:34:59

Oh, I also asked like where do you feel? Like there are holes in this like here’s hair my goals in my business and like what is missing from my portfolio that I need to be showing that’s going to like get me sources goals. And then also just you know, like what are some technical mistakes that I’m making more than once, you know, if it’s a if it’s something you see in one photo or in one design wage Never like, you know, maybe it was just a last judgment. Yeah, but if you’re seeing this multiple times, like can you tell me that and I did give feedback like that and now every time she came like oh, yeah, I gotta watch my Horizon Lines and make sure they don’t go through anyone’s heads. Oh man, that’s so funny. Yeah, and honestly like seeking out places. They you can give constructive feedback is going to make your work better because then you learn how to look at your own work if by some chance you don’t have a chance to show somebody else being a Critic of other people in a constructive way is going to make you better also, so yeah having the right having the right Outlook failure is feedback, but also offer feedback isn’t failure like just because you’re getting negative feedback. That doesn’t Every opportunity for you to grow you should take and so I have to remember that too. I tend to especially at this stage in my career be like no, thanks, like I know things and you don’t have to tell me anything. So I don’t actively seek out feedback and that is some place where I know I have to grow and that’s something I’m I’m been I have been forced into in some ways because I have shifted my focus. So now I’m in sort of a realm where I’ve not generally then and so taking this advice myself is probably where this topic even came up. So hopefully those are some really useful ways that you can harness feedback to level up your game as a designer and help others level are game too and Julie and I I venture to say her here for you. If you ever need that like extra I for feedback just be prepared for us to say who did you make this for off hand? Like what’s your concept here? Cuz I have had numerous creatives message me on Instagram and just say can you give me feedback on this? I don’t know. Can I what do you need from me? Yeah, so we’re here for you really excited to be doing this and be able to give you guys some ways in that are in your work home page. Again, that was dark days by Local Natives featuring Sylvan Esso. You can find this song and lots of other inspiring music on our Spotify playlist. Just search music from Design Speaks. All right everybody. That’s our episode for today. If you enjoy this job and want to support us become one of our exclusive patrons over at patreon.com Design Speaks or you’ll have access to some extended episodes and fun components contents page design speak is produced by Kenneth, Nathan and Dakota said audio production by the podcast things. Thanks to Colin from best fourteen for our theme music. You can find best 14 on Apple music and Spotify Design Speaks is a project of BrandiSea Designs. It is recorded and produced in the shadow of the watermelon pink Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque, New Mexico, you can leave us a note off Instagram at Design Speaks Podcast, and you can find all current and past episodes at DesignSpeakspodcast.com. Thanks again for listening until next time.