I currently have 4 of what were at one time "final" designs in the "critiquing" process for improving the designs. Most of the designs have been in their original version for almost 3 weeks... meaning I'm not in much of a hurry.

Anyways, what I find funny is that as I updated a critique with a WIP, in this instance Muse of Vitality, the responses imply the "critic" is viewing a final design. This brings a question to mind, What is the Threadless critiquing process really for?I don't really want to question the process, I want to benefit from it.

If I use the critiquing process in the way Threadless has designed it, or at least how users are using it, I'm really only getting feedback on what I haven't done to a design, not what I have done. That's not a critique...

As an artist, I was always taught to use critics as a counterpart and a tool for interpreting how my art affects the audience. That doesn't really define the situation I am experiencing with the Threadless "critiquing" process.

When it comes down to it, I think the word evaluation would be better used to explain what I am experiencing, and for myself to not expect to receive a real critique.

An artistic evaluation is the process of analyzing work of its subject matter and process, which in return can receive suggested improvements or changes. Ah ha! That explains what going on here.

In the end, I'm not that anal. I just think its odd that people freely use the word critique and evaluation interchangeably when they can have significant differences that are crucial to artistic development.