While studying for my design degree, back when Mark Zuckerberg was still chasing girls around the playground, I recall being introduced to the term ‘critique’.

The design ‘C’ word that would instil instant dread into every design undergraduate.

At the end of each project, the class and lecturers would gather for an afternoon and ‘critique’ your project. The good, the bad and the design-ugly.

In an open group session, your lecturers, classmates and dependent on your ego, ex-friends, would single handedly play design judge and jury over your hard-earned, late night, sellotape-encased masterpiece that you were convinced was going to transform the aesthetic landscape for at least the next decade.

Didn’t always prove to be so. Within the space of 600 Seconds, the product you thought was destined to be the biggest thing since the Charles Eames Chair, is no longer. Thankfully, I was occasionally at the end of a few positive critiques too.

At the time, you would forgive me for assuming this exercise was to help me become a better designer. And yes it was, to an extent.

However many years later, now that Mark Zuckerbergs' busy chasing start-ups, rather than the female of the species, I realise that these sessions where less about shaping my technical and theoretical knowledge, and more about shaping my attitude.
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Important lessons in realising that:

• Design is a process. Doesn’t matter if it’s chair or an airplane. It all requires patience, and given time, there is always room for improvement.
• To be become an accomplished designer, or any skilled professional for that matter, you have to leave your ego at the door. Criticism isn’t criticism. It’s just a tool to help you master your own emotions, when it comes to your work and used correctly, you can better your standards by logically taking onboard what another may think.
• To become a better designer, the ability to self-critique is a skill that grows with you and you get better at it with time.
• When a project isn’t going your way, no need to pull out your application for the French Foreign Legion. Learn to walk away and come back to it another day.
• With any luck, you chose your field, because you love it. Remember why you started to design and importantly understand that your design projects as well as design career is a journey too.