How to handle creative criticism

Hint: If you think it’s easy, you’re wrong
 
It happens all the time. You slave over a creative piece, you pour your heart and guts into it, you turn it in, proudly and/or terrified…
 
And then it tanks. 
 
What do you do? Did you fail? Should you fight back? 
 
In this article, we’re going to touch on the touchy subject of criticism. It’s universal; every creative soul faces it. Creative professionals get more than their share; it comes with the job. 
 
Fortunately, there are ways to deal with criticism that’s aimed at your creative work. There are ways to actually improve from the experience (even when said criticism seems patently boorish or unwarranted). Better yet, there are ways to avoid even getting the criticism in the first place. So get ready for lots of tricks, both procedural and mental. 
 
A chronological approach
 
Tracing a typical story in chronological order will help you to spot opportunities for improving your lot. 
 
It goes like this: You’ll be handed a creative assignment, either by a client or a superior/sponsor within your own organization. And when we say “creative assignment,” we mean something that requires interpretation. It won’t be something like “Make last year’s orange layout, blue.” It will be something like, “Figure out an exciting way to reach this specific audience via a direct mailer, with a given form-factor, based on our available budget.” 
 
Then you take that input, you huddle in your creative cave, and ideate your brains out. You choose what you believe to be the best idea, develop it, hone it, and turn it to your client/sponsor. That’s when they reject it/hate it/ask you what you were thinking/what you were smoking. And you try not to take it personally, but it still hurts. Because there are pieces of you all over that thing. 
 
Identifying the gaps
 
The story we just spun is ripe with opportunity. In other words, it’s rife with glaring gaps in the narrative. Do not take such a story for granted. If this is the way you receive, and then deal with, creative assignments, you’re shortchanging yourself. You’re making it too easy to get disappointed—and to disappoint others. 
 
Let’s take that “direction” that was given in the above story: “Figure out an exciting way to reach this specific audience via a direct mailer, with a given form-factor, based on our available budget.” Seems pretty detailed, right? 
 
Wrong. 
 
You can, and should, spend a lot of time with your client/sponsor at this point. “Tell me more about this specific audience!” That’s an hour-long conversation, easily. “What are we offering them?” “Why do they need it yesterday?” If you can’t get good answers, you can’t do good work. Be prepared to push back at this point; to quote the old computer adage, “garbage in, garbage out.” 
 
Here’s another gap in the supposedly gap-less story above: “You choose what you believe to be the best idea, develop it, hone it, and turn it to your client/sponsor.” Oops. That’s a lot of work in a vacuum. Instead, show your client/sponsor early/rough ideas. Don’t commit to in-depth execution without their sign-off. We have a great article devoted entirely to this topic: It’s called Why We Have Layouts.
 
Then what?
 
Let’s say you plug all the gaps in the above-spun story. You get good input. You follow a “gated” process for execution. And yet still the criticism comes raining down. What do you do? 
 
There are two important things to understand here. 
 
One: If you have indeed gotten good input and followed a “gated” process for execution, you can rule out those factors as the basis for the criticism. We can’t overstate the importance of that fact. Consider the opposite: If you didn’t do that, you wouldn’t know where to start, nor how to react. 
 
Two: The criticism probably has merit. Yes, there are always bone-headed clients making ham-handed suggestions; that’s part of the business landscape. But even the most brutal and seemingly senseless critique has, as its core, valuable intentions. Your job is to find them. 
 
Now you might expect us, at this point, to say, “Swallow your pride. Act professional. Find out what’s needed, so that you can minimize your time and effort on the next-round revisions.” 
 
That’s only partly true. Because advice like that ignores basic human behavior, especially if you’re the creative type. To wit: When you first get that heat-seeking email, you want to scream.
 
So scream. 
 
Indulge in some good old-fashioned primal therapy. Rant. Rave. Curse. Throw things. Burn off the anger and the aggression. Here’s the only trick: Do it privately. You may need to “take a breath of fresh air” and head out to the parking lot. You may need to simply close your office door and work out with a stress-relieving device like a spring-loaded finger-strengthener. Just get out all the knee-jerk anger first. Then you can take a nice long breath, consider the criticism, and work up your line of questions to help you nail that next draft. 
 
A parting word 
 
Creativity is subjective. You, as a creative professional, are an arbiter of taste. So sometimes, that first-round version you’d submitted is, actually, really really good. You’ll just need to make a new version, going in a slightly different direction. And other times, you’ll have to admit, that first-pass effort wasn’t your best. No one’s a machine. So be grateful for the second chance. 
 
Need help with that next creative assignment? We practice what we preach. Contact us today for a no-obligation assessment. 

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