GRAPHIC DESIGN
The secret to becoming a better church designer
You’re missing out the most important step in your design process. We tend to think that once our design has been approved or printed or posted online that the design process has finished and we can move onto the next project. But if we do that we’re losing crucial opportunities to grow our skills and become better designers.
The final, and arguably most important, step of any good design process is the feedback stage.
The feedback you get after a design is seen is one of the most valuable tools you have when it comes to growing your skills. Whether that feedback is critical or encouraging, if you take time to consider and question it, it can reveal so much about the effectiveness of your design decisions. And it can have a significant impact on the quality of your designs going forward.
And if you’re a church designer then you have a real advantage because if there’s one thing many people in churches are good at, it’s giving lots of feedback!
Unsolicited feedback
Often, if you have a lot of graphic design experience, it can feel really jarring to take feedback from someone who doesn’t really know anything about design. When you know that they wouldn’t have been able to do a better job than you, should you bother listening to their feedback? The short answer is yes.
I’d encourage you not to shut down that feedback before you’ve had time to consider it carefully. Let’s be humble enough to hear them and admit that, no matter how much experience we have, we can still learn. Design is communication and any feedback that comes from the people we’re trying to communicate with should be taken seriously.
People without graphic design experience might not have the words to explain what the problem is. Or they might not be able to appreciate your reasoning for certain design decisions. But they can probably still tell you when a design looks wrong. They know something is off, even if they don’t know why or wouldn’t be able to fix it themselves.
It’s your job as the designer, when you hear feedback like that to work out what they mean. If someone tells you they don’t like the font you’ve used, consider why that is. Is it hard to read? Does it give the wrong impression? Is it in keeping with the style of the design? Or is it just their personal taste?
If someone says they really liked a design, consider why that is. What is it about this design that is better or more attractive than others? Have you done something different this time?
All feedback is helpful feedback. Because you don’t necessarily have to agree with it. You can take it graciously, use it as a means to help you assess the strengths and weaknesses of your design, and then decide whether or not to apply it in future.
But feedback doesn’t just come in the form of verbal comments. We get feedback on our designs in a whole host of ways.
More types of feedback
If your design is being posted online, you’ll receive feedback in the form of analytics. If it’s a social media post, did it get any traction? Did people like it, save it or share it? Did people comment? Did you get more website views? Did it reach the right people? If you notice something, ask yourself why. Why did this design get more likes than that design?
Or if your design is being printed, you might receive other types of feedback. If you’re handing out flyers, for example, how many were taken home and how many ended up in the bin. Why do you think that is? What can that tell you?
And as I’ve already said, sometimes you’ll disagree with the feedback you get. But all these types of feedback are opportunities to help you look at your work from a new perspective and this helps you grow as a designer.
One of the most important things to consider after your design has been shared is whether your design has achieved its purpose. Design always has a purpose.
You make a flyer because you want people to do something in response to seeing it. That might be signing up to an event or starting a conversation about something. So did they do it? Did people sign up? Did they come along? Did they start conversations? This is incredibly valuable feedback to take note of. And while you can’t give the design credit for everything, just like you can’t blame the design for everything, it’s always worth questioning why a design was successful or not.
Ask for feedback
But this is all unsolicited feedback. But why not also actively seek out feedback. Reach out to people who are better designers than you and see if they have any feedback for you. Some professional designers have a consultation offer where you can essentially pay for their advice and feedback. If you’re just starting out, or if you feel your design skills are plateauing, this might be a worthwhile investment.
Sometimes it can be worth sending your designs to people who aren’t connected with your church and asking for their feedback too.
And so if you’re convinced that thinking through feedback is an essential part of the design process, how should you go about implementing that? It might be that you come up with a system for tracking feedback. Maybe you have a notebook or document where you always jot down feedback so you can spot trends over time? Or it might be a case of simply changing your reaction to feedback in the moment. So that you don’t just dismiss it outright, but you spend a few moments considering it.
I hope this video has convinced you to let feedback become a valuable tool to help you grow as a designer. If you’re interested in thinking more about the design process for creating church graphics, I have a whole lesson on this topic in the Church Graphic Design Training Programme which you can find out more about here.
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