Constructive Criticism: The Works

I used to love the idea of getting lots of criticism and feedback, but now I prefer to find a handful of people I can trust to be honest and stick with them. I also prefer getting criticism from people who will show me their writing, too, because then the trust becomes mutual.

IF someone hears a song of mine and says "great" or "good" its useless. I knwo I have failed. If i hear "awful !" or "brilliant!" i have won

Good point, Mike.

Hey, were you the one on that other list there that I had the discussion with about flash-based sites? Hm. Well, the thing that sucks about criticism is that it's totally subjective. Often, years later, popular concensus proves to just be totally wrong after all! "He was years ahead of his time" and like that. Criticism is a way for snooty artshits to assert themselves and their superiority. I'm an art fag myself, but I can hardly stand the rest of them. Lately, I find myself not caring or arguing about anything related to design or marketing. In the end, it doesn't matter. If you are the boss, then you get your way. If you're not, then you don't. Marketers and their research are also not dead on with the decisions they reach; it's based on their supposed brilliance and the validity, if any, of their surveys. I know that Danon yogurt spends millions of dollars researching a new friggin' yogurt, when it's obvious as hell whether or not it's going to sell. We all know big companies blow money on dumb shit that official "knowers of things" need to test market.

Trust your gut.

I am always parnoid that people do not like me. I take all sorts of clues ( like not being aped on that thread). Criticism from those i love is very much apprecaited. Criticism from those i like or do not know is devastating.

But Mr Nude, the fact Danone's sales have been going up the past years, must account for something? It can't be merely "luck".

No, it's a good idea to begin with. There was one meeting that dannon spent close to a million dollars to fly everyone to one location and have a kind of meeting party with a huge projection camera thing to reveal Dannon's animal yogurts, Danimals, that my friend made in his small studio in Connecticut. This was after over a year of test marketing the yogurts.

Excuse me for being obvious, but
1. Yogurt sells
2. Yogurt tastes pretty good
3. Yogurt's good for you
4. Parents know that yogurt is good for you and would probably like their kid to eat some once in a while
5. Kids like cute cartoons
6. Good tasting yogurt with cartoons is bound to sell.

They wasted millions of dollars on the development of the first generation, then spent more to create a dinosaur version, then they decided to make a cartoon commercial after the fact... It would have been cheaper to go ahead and have the packaging created, release it and kill it, if by some odd chance, it flops.

But, the point is that criticism gets in the way. You have so many critics, that these idiots are not quite sure if it will sell. Let me tell you, anything sells, especially if you have the money to market it. I work for a company that generates over 40 million dollars in profit every year selling promotional items for community concious companies. All the products are shit and the sentiments are tacky. The company has less than 200 people. We are all rich. Except the phone answerers, of course. Nuff said.

Actually, I'm positive that it was a bunch of middle man wasting Dannon's money for their own enjoyment. You know how expensive it is to have a product manufacturing plant run out a few small runs of a packaging design you created from scratch just to show it to someone in Arizona and ask their opinion? Do this a couple times now. Pay for people to fly all over, expense hotels and restaurants, rent out theatres and pay people for their "honest opinion"? It's just nonsense. But, you've got a company full of people who's opinion counts, so everything must stand up to collected "data". Surverys are all horseshit, often manipulated by the person set up to survey the idea. Great ideas are marketed poorly, bad ones have bloated marketing budgets. That's why I say "trust your gut". If you fail, at least it's not because of the advice of some fucking numbskull.