When People Criticize Your Work

It’s Not Always about You

Let’s face it. When people criticize your work it can really suck. Whether you’re a beginner artist or a professional artist, you’re bound to come up against criticism eventually. If you have a formal art education, then you’ve gone through your fair share of class critiques. At one point or another, we all had to bite our tongues during a teacher’s critique for the sake of a grade. In the real world, criticism would come from your employer or client. Even if a client isn’t harshly criticizing your work, asking you to make a change indirectly tells you that they didn’t like something, right?

How do you handle it when people criticize your work? (Photo credit: 123RF.com Image ID: 46958590 Copyright: rafaelbenari)

It’s nice to think that your work is so perfect that everyone will just love it, all of it, and all of the time. But let’s do a reality check here. You’re not perfect and neither is your art. Some people will like it, others won’t. It’s no reflection on you. That’s just how it is with everyone. Therefore, the odds are pretty good that sooner or later, someone will criticize your work. So, when (not if) your work is criticized, how do you handle it?

First, consider the source.

When people criticize your work, you should take it with a grain of salt. First of all, we should differentiate between the sources. Criticism from an uneducated source shouldn’t even be an issue. And by uneducated, I mean that they don’t have any art education or training. Don’t put any stock in criticism like this. Toss it out with yesterday’s trash. Seriously.

I discussed this in the Not Good Enough Mentality post in the Ask for Feedback section. When an individual like this can only offer an “It sucks” comment with no educated reason as to why they think it sucks, dismiss it. It’s pretty obvious that they don’t know what they’re talking about and it’s clearly a knee-jerk opinion. That’s fine. People are entitled to their opinions. Don’t take offense and don’t waste energy trying to convince them otherwise. They’re most likely just trolls with nothing better to do.

However, if they say they don’t like it and can offer some constructive reasons why, then maybe tune in and pay a little closer attention. For example, if they highlight some perceived flaw in the basic foundations of art (value, form, perspective, etc.), or offer a helpful suggestion, then perhaps listen to what they have to say. It doesn’t hurt to  reevaluate your work from their perspective. You can choose to make changes or not.

How will you react when people criticize your work?

When your work is criticized by an employer, chances are greater that they do have some education in art. They won’t just tell you that it sucks without giving you a reason why. How would you handle having your work criticized? Throw a tantrum and storm out of your boss’ office? Go back to your desk and cry or sulk? Or do you pull up your big boy/girl undies and make the necessary changes? If you want to keep your job, you should probably do the latter. But how do you keep doing that without letting it getting under your skin?

Keep these things in mind:

1. You applied for the job and accepted. Hopefully you did your research on the company before you accepted the job. At the very least, you knew the type of artists they hired and the type of look they were after. If you got the job, you obviously convinced them in an interview that you could do the work. So, do what you said you would do when you accepted the job.
2. Understand that it’s not about you, personally. Every company is after a specific look. And for each project they have a certain picture in their heads of what they want accomplished. It has nothing to do with you, really, other than you being the artist who is assigned to bring their vision to life. You’re getting paid anyway. Just do it how they want it. That’s why they hired you.
3. If what they want violates some basic foundations that were drilled into you in art school, you can try to politely point it out to them. If they still insist, just do the work as requested. You don’t have to put your name on it if it bothers you that much.

Heavy Metal movie poster, 1981 © Columbia Pictures

Heavy Metal, 1981

When you have an employer or a client, remember that they hired you to do the job and you agreed to do the work. They have job specs of what they’re looking for. Can you imagine if Disney hired an artist who insisted on drawing in the 80’s Heavy Metal cartoon style? I can guarantee you that they would not be a Disney artist for very long.

Independent artist’s challenges

When people criticize your work as an independent artist and it’s the client who commissioned you that’s doing the criticizing, chances are good that they won’t have a formal art education. You can still politely try to educate them on the basics of art, but it probably won’t accomplish much if they’re set in their ways as to what they want. For the most part, you still shouldn’t take it personally. If they ask you to make changes, and it won’t cause you too much stress, then go ahead and make the changes. If it does, you might consider one of two options:

1. If you really need the money, make the changes anyway. Don’t sign the work if you don’t want to. I get it. Times are tough. You do what you have to do to get by. Once you’ve completed the job, carefully consider whether you’ll accept future work from them or not.
2. If you just can’t stand it, apologize, give them their deposit back, and say you can’t do the work. Explain politely that they hired you based on your work that they’ve probably already seen. Better yet, if you know what they want from the beginning and it’s not in your wheelhouse, just don’t accept the job.

Patience is a virtue. Being prepared is wise.

Honestly, super critical clients are just a pain. They can be incredibly annoying and it can become increasingly difficult to continue being polite with them. As an independent artist, it’s just smart business to anticipate having these clients every now and then. It’s up to you to let them know somewhere in writing, whether it’s in a contract, written on your order page, or on the receipt you give to them for their deposit (or all three), that you’ll allow for 2 or 3 changes before you have to start adding extra fees.

I usually do $25 per excessive edit (I’ve never had to use it). Even if it is in writing, you should still verbally let them know in the beginning stages of your transaction that this is your policy. Not many people read the fine print. This keeps the nit-picking criticisms to a minimum.

In either case, be polite and respectful. It’s a small world and you never know who they might know. Most of my clients come to me from other client’s referrals. At the very least, they’ll respect you and appreciate you being up front and honest with them.

Different strokes for different folks.

Be aware that different artists will have different challenges. For example, in my case, people come to me knowing exactly what they’re going to get. They want a photorealistic graphite drawing of their pet and that’s what I deliver. There really are no other variables with what I do other than eliminating or including collars or backgrounds. It’s important to discuss this at the beginning so there are no questions later. By the way, I charge extra for backgrounds. All of this is discussed before I agree to do the work.

On the other hand, painters, illustrators, ceramic artists, etc., have to sign their names to work with so many other variables. This might present situations like those mentioned above. “This is too big. That’s too small. Can we make this red instead of blue? Can this turn to the left a little more? What about making this part…” You get my drift.

Graphic artists or web designers on the other hand, don’t necessarily sign their names to things. They might not give a rat’s patooty what the client wants or how it grates against their design standards. For them it may be easier to just focus on the bottom dollar and give the client exactly what they want, design standards be damned.

A contract agreement can help to prevent overly-critical clients from getting under your skin.

It’s worth your while (and your sanity) to determine what you’re willing to handle as an employee or as an independent artist. If necessary, adjust your situation accordingly. This may mean finding another job that suits you better. If you’re an independent or freelance artist, it may really be in your best interest to sit down, write up a contract which states all the critical points of your work. You should list details on what the project is, the cost, the due date, how many revisions are included in the original price, and the fees for each additional revision.

Those basic conditions should be on any contract you draw up to avoid any misunderstandings once the job is underway. This may be a work in progress as you learn what works or doesn’t work along the way. You can always add things if problems arise so you’ll be ready for the next job. If you are not sure how to begin, Google artist contracts to find examples to pull ideas from.

Take control. Be proactive.

Remember that having your work criticized really isn’t a matter of IF, but WHEN. When people criticize your work, how you handle it is up to you. With these few pointers, I hope you realize that you’re more in control than you think. By using some of these suggestions you can avoid some of the criticisms altogether.

By researching jobs properly and having a firm stance on what you’re willing to do, you’ll find a job that fits well. Having contracts in place, you limit nit-picky customers from the get go.

Primarily, I hope that you take to heart that when people criticize your work, it’s not always a personal attack. People want what they want and they like what they like. Every person’s aesthetic, or visual preference, is unique. Their sense of aesthetics might not fall in line with the basic foundations of art. And all that aside, it’s true that other people just like being negative and critical. You won’t be able to educate them all, but you have the power to choose whether or not you’ll work for them.

Further Reading:

Not Good Enough Mentality

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