Whether I am working, taking a class, mentoring, talking with my peers, or simply cooking dinner for my kids criticism is a huge part of what I create. Over the years I have had my work rejected, my portfolio overlooked when job hunting, ideas laughed off, and I have even been asked if we have to eat this, can’t we just have pizza instead?
As a designer having a thick skin is part of the job. More importantly you have to learn how to set expectations and understand what your customer wants. I learned this lesson at a young age.
When I was maybe 13 or 14 my mom would take us to Tri-County Flea Market. (Think the dirt mall from Mallrats) while she shopped my brother and I would hang around the baseball card booth. I would sit with my drawing pad and my Walkman and just sketch passers by. Back then my sketchbook was never too far from my side.
One day the owner of the booth and I were chatting. He asked me if I could draw him a sign for the booth. Back then I didn’t know anything about lettering and I had never made a sign. The owner loved my work and reassured me. He offered me $100 to make a sign called Mickey & the Mick.
I was so excited. I went home and started sketching away. His idea was to used Mickey Mouse and Mickey Mantle as the icons for his booth. I sketched out a thumbnails and brought them back the following week.
He really dug an idea where the 2 were bookending the words. I took this idea and I ran with it. I only had my sketch pad, some markers, and colored pencils.
I had no idea how signs were made, but I was going to put my heart and soul into it. My father was a huge Mickey Mantle fan and I used one of his books for reference. Mickey Mouse was easy enough as I had been drawing Looney Tunes & Disney characters most of my life.
When Saturday hit I was ready. I knew my work was strong. I had asked my friends and they were all impressed. I will never forget the moment when I presented it to the owner.
He was not impressed. His words to me were, “Where’s the rest of it?” He then told me that he would not pay me a dime for something so small. He expected a big professional sign. He could not hang this on his booth.
I took it pretty hard. There was a time I considered not drawing any more. My mother reassured me that it wasn’t me. He should have known what to expect from a teenager.
Still, I have carried this with me. Not as a failure, but as a lesson. We can debate my age and what I knew and how the adult handled the situation all day, but the real lesson is to properly set expectations.
This would serve me well in school and my career. Whether freelancing and explains milestones and scope to a customer or speaking with developers on project plans and working to mitigate risks communication is a large part of design.
I’ve made mistakes while working in prepress where I have screwed up the imposition on a job that took hours to set up that the pressman through a stack of press sheets at my head. I’ve had website designs rejected. Don’t even get me started on why I don’t create logos. It doesn’t matter how harsh the criticism, I take it all in stride. I have never forgotten that the real criticism is a failure to meet expectations.
Take a look at how divisive Star Wars Episode VIII is with the fan base. It’s a movie that plays on the viewers expectations. The largest part of the divide can be viewed in two camps. Those that had their expectations played with and were delighted by the surprise and change of pace the movie brought to the audience. Others did not enjoy the film as they felt that it did not stay true to the characters’s journeys thus far.
No matter which camp you fall in the indisputable fact is that playing with customer expectations has had an effect on the fan base. To a degree the franchise is in a level of damage control. Rehiring J.J. Abrams to “right the ship” as he did with The Force Awakens.
This is one of the biggest franchises in the world and it is produced by one of the largest companies in the world and they still are concerned with customer expectations.
I attribute a lot of what I have done in my career to being shredded by that baseball card booth owner. So, my advice to you is to take every criticism with a grain of salt. Try and understand where you may have failed to understand your customer’s or your team’s expectations and take it back to the drawing board.
Every thing in your life has opportunity and lessons buried within it. Your strength can be found in putting your pride aside long enough to take a look and better define expectations.