the biggest weakness is the people who are submitting critiques.

many of them need a lot of practice to start producing good designs and are too reluctant to make significant changes to their design or style. they go in thinking they'll get a print, then don't understand when their design drops.

the other big group of critique users are people who are already alumni of and only submit every design into the critiques for a chance to win that bestee. their design would end up looking the same with or without the critiques.



i think the whole section could be scrapped with little effect on things that are submitted.

what is the "bestee"? Are there designs chosen just from the critique pool?

at the end of the year, there are awards called the 'Bestees.' There are different areas, and the winner typically gets a couple thousand bucks. One of the areas is 'Best Use of the Critiques.'

Ah! How long has the critique feature been around?

there are 3 kinds of critiques:



the WILL YOU EVER SUB THIS? critique. the artist just keeps posting new version after new version, making very minor changes that won't prevent the inevitable crashing and burning of the design. that is, if it is even accepted. who knows, though, maybe they'll just keep making changes!



the Forgotten Critique. The artist posts it, and then never subs it. Maybe they died.



the Awesome Critique. This thing doesn't need critiqued...it's destined to be awesome.



yep.

the first critique available for viewing is 925 days old, so the section is at least 2 and a half years old.

wow - you are quite the fountain of info, I'm glad you were online.

PS - I liked the examples.

:)



one of the first things i learned is how inefficient the critique section is. it's much better to just consult a friend of yours on their opinion. a threadless alumni is a good contact to have for this, with their knowledge of what is well-received and what isn't!

be wary, though, if your linework sucks and your design is doomed from the git-go, nobody's going to have the audacity to tell you that.

i doubt i'll ask for a critique ever again. people are going to tell you that even your junk is good, just to be nice. like my first handdrawn sub, triangle, was really crap. but i was told it was good! I mean, it kept me drawing, but it didn't really help the design. nobody even told me the nose was humongous and the eyes looked wonky.

i've improved a bit, but i'm still nowhere near good enough to be an alumni. maybe one day. but that's all going to be personal improvements, i think.

if they're not lying when they say your design is awesome, then it'll do well and you didn't need the critique anyway. so yeah, critiques are unnecessary, in that regard.



i have seen some critiques where the colors were adjusted to improve the design, but those seem more rare than the other cases.

loooooooooooooool, how did i miss this gem crit



Dream Big, Version 4, Version 28

I'm posting in here so I can find this easily when I get home and have time to write a more thorough reply.

I agree with most of what Jellyes said. I seriously don't know how the critique section could be improved. For me it is a bunch of newbies praising and spamming each other. Real critique is not given or not received well. Every visit has become kind of frustrating. A waste of time. A lot of people have tried to change things there (like 'adopt a critique') but eventually have given up on it. Most designers, who have been here a little longer, ask their friends and post a blog to get some real help with their designs.

Instead of critiques something like a tutorial system would be much more effective - The Tless Art Fart School. Alumnis and other advanced designers and bloggers could accept or adopt a certain number of new designers and help them with their design skills.

But maybe the critique section like it is now is still necessary. A first testing ground. Once you know what Threadless is all about you leave and never turn back.

I would like to think my design that went through critique is at least decent and does not fit into one of Jellyes' three categories. It changed a good deal, but I'll have to see how voting deems it.



I think this is a rather nice use of critiques! Alien Autopsy .



From my observations and commenting in critiques, yes I am a new here, there are a good deal of people that just don't want to make changes such as friends. That same individual copied a Last Samurai silhouette and posted it to critiques with bamboo....



So ya, I'm figuring out how things work here.

sidepull, that is an awesome use of the critiques and an even awesome-r design! great work!

indeed, there are the rare cases, like yours, where the critiques produce some amazing results, but i think they make up a pretty small percent of all the critiques.

isawa your design 'Alien Autopsy' is a good example of how the critique section could work but most of the time doesn't. Already in V1 one you had a whole bunch of people saying: Looks great. Please critique mine! My Link'. Comments like that don't help and designs get subbed without a real chance for improvement. You have the skills and are willing to improve those skills, you stuck with the design and the good suggestions and now in V6 you have a really nice sub people will easily give a good score.

*Chris Rowson's design 'Alien Autopsy' is a good example...

Sorry if I made that appear like it was mine.

oh haha, i did think it was you:(

The alien autopsy is good!



Ckid, what did you by:



But maybe the critique section like it is now is still necessary. A first testing ground. Once you know what Threadless is all about you leave and never turn back.

the most eay thing they could add is to have button to click to view next critique so you can automatically change crits that way I would happily go through alot more

That makes sense - then you could plow through a bunch really fast.

easy*^^

This is what I said in this blog.



I was thinking the best change we can do for the Critiques is move it out of being a Blog only thing where the only way to see them is from bumps in the forum and give it its own part of the site.



Create an option "Critique WIPs" under the "Participate" drop-down menu where "Score Designs" etc currently is. From there we will be taken to a page separate from the blogs, just like how the Score Designs page is set up. New Critiques would be listed in order of their submission, most recently submitted first. From there we would have similar options as in designs to "Show me ..." All Critiques/Critiques submitted today/Critiques submitted in the past X days/Critiques active today/etc and "that I" Have Critiqued/Haven't Critiqued Yet/Have Marked "Needs Work" etc.



The idea struck me that while the blogs has an "Only participated" filter, there's not an "Only not participated" filter and it would be really good if you could see ones you haven't helped out on, from a limited selection of critiques rather than everything still on the blogs.



Critiques in this section would only be those from the past week. Old Critiques would still exist rather than being deleted and their owners could bump them if they want help in the future but this would keep inactive Critiques out of the way.



Once you click a "Submit/Needs Work/Don't Submit" option, redirection to another critique in this list would occur to encourage further critiquing and exchanges not based on spam.



So with this in place, it would be possible for someone to Critique all active Critiques if they chose to. It would also help the spammers to identify which Critiques are active. Hopefully spamming won't be necessary with these changes but it is annoying when they bump inactive Critiques. it contributes to clutter in the blogs and makes the Critiques process futile if the owner has moved on to something else or if the design has been submitted (or in fatheed's case, printed.)

Sorry. I meant:

Maybe the critique section like it is now is still necessary. A first testing ground for new designers. The first time you open your work to a bigger audience and get feedback - positve and negative. You learn how to live with the negative and how to improve. After a while you get the feel for that certain kind of quality. Once you know what Threadless is all about you leave the critique section and hardly go back there. Then you work even harder to get that damn shield :)

One of the biggest problems is that it's hard to be the bad guy. In theory, people submit designs to critiques because they don't know what they're doing and want some advice. When someone comes to you and says, "I just made this, and it's my first time, and I hope you like it!" it's pretty damn hard to say, "Sorry, it sucks."



So many people don't. It's been noted that for even a design guaranteed to drop early, the comments will be full of praise (and requests to comment on other critiques.) That's weird to me, because if I wanted good input on a design, I sure as heck wouldn't go around blindly praising other people's work before asking them to look at mine. Blind praise begets blind praise, so what's the point of comments like that?



So most people don't give negative feedback--at least, not in the comments. If someone genuinely thinks a design sucks, they might hit the "don't submit" checkbox. That's a start, because at least the designer is aware that the design isn't universally favored... but it's not enough, because they aren't getting any useful information on why the design isn't favored. We see blogs about this all the time: "If you're going to click 'don't submit,' PLEASE TELL ME WHY!!!1!"



I remember reading about the idea of having a different checkbox system, and I think that would be great. Instead of three boxes "Yes, No, Maybe" for the design as a whole, there could be a broken-down version where people can vote yes/no on whether or not different aspects of the design are working: Concept, linework /drawing, colors, presentation, maybe something else.



Ideally, someone would comment with input about each aspect of the design . . . but critiquing is voluntary, and we can't obligate people to spend their time doing it. So a more detailed checkbox system, even without explanatory comments, would at least give the designer an idea of what is and isn't working.

http://www.threadless.com/profile/828242/CallMeSteven/blog/418069/My_and_your_Suggestions_to_Fix_The_Critique_Section

lots of suggestions in there

oh yeah mismonaut, thats what I just linked to

Also, I think critiquees might need to improve a bit, not just in the quality of stuff they're submitting but in the way they ask for critiques. Simply saying "How can I make it better?" is a common noob mistake. You need to tell people what you're trying to achieve with the overall thing, what you're unhappy with, options you were thinking of adding etc and give people something to riff on.

The other big problem is that people go in there wanting different levels of feedback. Some people know exactly what they are going to submit, and just want a couple opinions before doing so. Some people are willing to make changes, up to a point (tweaking colors, presentation, maybe moving some elements around). And then you have people who are willing to do anything it takes to try and improve their design--redraw the whole thing, shift the concept, lose their favorite part to make things stronger. Comments geared toward any one of the three groups are generally useless for the other two.



For people who just want to test the waters (or gain a little bit of confidence) before they work up the nerve to click "submit," comments like "looks good," or "neat! check out my design" are okay. They're not going to change much anyway, they get their confidence boost, and they go on their merry way. Generally, if anyone suggests a change, they will defend the way it already looks. Telling them "this would be stronger if you redrew the characters so they were facing the audience" (v2 vs. v3) definitely won't affect the design they've currently got up.



People who want to make minor changes probably get the most use out of the critiques, because most people who do give feedback use the "start small" approach. Even if they hate the design (say, a ninja posing kissing a geisha in front of a Japanese war flag) they can say, "try steering away from the stark red/white/black color combination--put it on sand instead of white, or change the red to maroon or something" or "don't use clip-art, draw your own fan with which for her to coyly hide her face," and hopefully improve things a little bit. It won't change the fact that it's a ninja and a geisha in front of that damned Japanese sunburst, but at least it's a better version of a ninja and a geisha in front of the Japanese sunburst. (Of course, if the design is already good, this artist/feedback pair makes things even better.)



People who are willing to start over from scratch to make things stronger have impressive commitment, but run the risk of getting burned out--because no version will ever please everybody, and once the major changes are done, they can get stuck making successively smaller and smaller changes from here to kingdom come in the hopes of improving their design. They also have to sort through a lot of comments geared towards groups one and two. If their idea has been done to death, they want to know, not just get suggestions on how to improve their beating of an already dead horse.



Maybe if there were a box for the artist to check when submitting the critique? Just to let crit'rs know whether the artist is looking for quick opinions, minor suggestions, or major suggestions? I mean, ideally the designer would volunteer that information without being prompted. . . and probably, everyone would just click "minor suggestions," all the time. So that probably wouldn't work after all. Hm.

This is really good stuff. ***thinking***

i agree with Jelllyes about how inefficient the critique section is. and mismonaut shares some great points. but based on my (little) experience the big problem in the critique section is the way people will ignore your work.

i have a couple of designs in there, one was after i submited a design that people said "you should have put it in the critique section first" i put it there and guess what?! only one comment. i know i'm not yet at alumni level but the problem isn't about getting bad or inconsequent/honest feedback the problem is not getting any kind of it.

and after researching about it i found that it's easier to get feedback by posting the wip on your blog than through the critiques section

so according to Jellyes scale i have a couple of Forgotten Critiques :-D

How do you get to alumni level?



What is "wip"?

WIP would probably be Work-In-Progress

Thanks bottle, I just realized that by looking at a critique. I had one of the DUH! moments.

alumni level is just getting your work printed i guess

Once you've been printed you get your shield, your name turns purple and you have excess to the alumni blog section



At least that's what they say... :)

"excess" - I'm not sure whether that play on words was intended but it's funny.

No, wasn't intended. Just bad English. *access :)

spencer, I think you should tone down on posting your message:

'Hey X - I saw your critique X and thought you might be interested in a study I'm doing:...'

I know this is important to you but it starts get annoying. I kind of feel spammed!

CKid - well put. I'm done doing that. I realize that the line between spam and trying to get a message out is rarely "fine." That said, most people seemed to be genuinely grateful to get the invitation and I have a big group ready to take the survey. My hope is that the information I'm able to relay will make the annoyance worth it. Thanks for the feedback.

a big group ready to take the survey Sounds good! :)

I'm curious to see what will be the outcome of this survey.

I'm curious as well.

I came to see if you had an updates on your survey and just had put in my own two cents here. I was actually compiling a blog myself about all my annoyances with critiques, but I'm now realizing that a lot of other people have already mentioned the same things. So I'll just offer my unique thoughts.



I was reminded of a blog I read about why people spam, one reason being lack of context. The author compared, say a discussion board, to walking into an empty room with no indication of what's acceptable or not. You're bound to get a couple of jerks that are going to act like and idiot and run around naked. Their behavior would be much different if the room was full of Grandmas.



Think how different the critiques section would be if it was notorious for people being brutally honest and ripping your art apart. You would think twice about what you submitted right?



Unfortunately as it is now, the critiques is just a catch all for everything that isn't a design submission. Without restrictions you get everything from pencil sketches, to malformed concepts, to sub-ready designs that are just going through a dry run. And of course, a lot of crap. Additionally, as mismonaut pointed out, people come in with different expectations, some just looking for an ego massage, others looking for a "design by committee" experience. Honestly, why would anyone ever want to wade through so much stuff? If it could be made clearer



Further evidence of this confusion is the complete lack of etiquette in the Critique section. You learn very quickly that you shouldn't advertise on other people's subbed designs, but it's viewed as acceptable in critiques. Because "anything goes", there's no sense of what's right or wrong in the Critique section, and thus most people jump on the bandwagon of "Cool! Look at mine: link!"



A step in the right direction would be to actually make Critiques useful. Mismonaut is totally right in that it's hard to tell someone their concept is crap in a comment. Of course the truth comes out when the design is subbed and people have the luxury of anonymity. I think Ste7en's idea of detailed check boxes is brilliant because it allows people to leave honest feedback while still retaining anonymity, which is more in line with the actual scoring progress.



I also would like to see a system that rewards people for critiquing. Even if it's just a tally of how much you've critiqued, like your design's scored tally. Another helpful idea might be to allow comment rating. If you saw a comment that you agreed with it, or you thought offered some really good advice, you could check it with a thumbs up. Sort of like on Amazon where you can rate whether a person's review was helpful or not. That would save people from having to reiterate the same points over and over again, and would alert the artist to the suggestions that others think have the most merit. It would also set an example for how to critique, encourage people to read what others have said, and give even the critiquer feedback on whether they're helpful or not.



By implementing some of the changes people have suggested, the etiquette would develop naturally on it's own and make the critiques a nicer place to be. Just giving critiques a time limit would encourage people to submit better stuff, and in turn make it inappropriate to advertise on other people's crits. Or if the critiques were easier to navigate, then you could expect more traffic and wouldn't have to worry about whoring out your links.

uh whoa, I didn't realize I'd typed so much, maybe I should have saved it for a blog. sorry! :

This is a big great question, i have learn a lot, thanks!!!

This is a big great question, i have learn a lot, thanks!!!

I'm new here and I must say this is a good blog,i find some answers on my questions as begginer. Thank you