Monthly Archives: June 2006

I don’t know if it’s a world wide phrase, but one that is used in the UK is to label a really useless thing as "useful as a chocolate teapot". When you show someone a design the response often is a dead end critique. I would label such responses – yes, no, good, bad, wonderful, wrong and many other solo or dual words – as dead end critiques. These are a pointless response and gives the designer nothing to build on or work with. The main place where dead end critiques are worthless is during the design process. A designer always benefits from another eye seeing their work. There are times when you need a good poke in the right direction to put your design on track. I can think of more than one occasion where one of my designs has been saved by this input.