Self assessment for graphic designers

I see self-assessment as an essential part of the learning process, for people in any industry. Graphic designers especially need to constantly be learning and growing their skills, not just to get better at their jobs, but to keep their jobs. Because graphic design is all about fashion, and keeping ahead of the curve. Assessing your own work and your own skill set is an essential way to see how you fit in with your peers, and how your work fits in to the world.

Cultural Capital

Cultural capital, a term first used by Pierre Bourdieu in 1973, refers to the accumulation of cultural knowledge people acquire, and the power and status that this affords them. In the simplest of terms, it means ‘to have good taste’. A person gains cultural capital by watching films, reading blogs, books and magazines, observing fashions, experiencing architecture; in short, by educating oneself on culture.

Graphic designers need to have plenty of cultural capital, because we are professionally engaged in the process of creating culture and presenting it. How can we do that without knowing what kind of world we are sending our creations out into? Clients need designers with cultural capital – they need designers who can make their business or message look like it is an important part of today, on the ball and in line with the latest aesthetic fashion. Cultural capital is not only developed by looking outward. The necessary other is to look inward - self assess - and note how your work will be received when it’s out in the big wide world.

Reflective Design Practice

Donald Schon wrote in 1984 about the reflective practitioner. He set out a means of engaging with one’s own professional activity, unpacking the design process and exposing the successes and failures within a finished project. This can happen before, after, or during the process of professional creation.

“When we reject the traditional view of professional knowledge, [we are] recognizing that practitioners may become reflective practitioners in situations of uncertainty, instability, uniqueness, and conflict.” (Schon 1984:309)

In other words, when a designer comes to a difficulty in the creative process, a creative block or a difficult problem to solve, Schon posited that it is helpful to reflect on your own professional and creative practice, and address the problem from that perspective. It means to acknowledge that you may have your own faults and to recognise that you are engaged in a lifelong process of self-improvement. As M. K. Smith put it,

“As we think and act, questions arise that cannot be answered in the present. The space afforded by recording, supervision and conversation with our peers allows us to approach these. Reflection requires space in the present and the promise of space in the future.” (1994: 150)

Self-reflection is an essential part of professional practice, especially for graphic designers. We are always learning, always trying to stay on top of the latest fashions, and always learning how to use the latest technologies. This is something that can only be done by regularly noting one's own position in the world, and assessing just how well one sits there.

References:

Bourdieu, P & Passeron, L 1973. ‘Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction’, in Brown R (ed), Knowledge, Education and Cultural Change, Tavistock, London.

Smith, M. K. 1994. Local Education, Open University Press, Buckingham.

Schon, D 1984. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action, Basic Books, US.