How I Review My Own Work
A checklist for stepping back from a design before it goes to the client.
Jonas Verdin
Date
Category
Process
Reading Time
2 min read
The hardest critic to find is the one who can look at your work without knowing what you meant. Since I rarely have one nearby, I have built a short routine for becoming that stranger myself.
Wait before you judge
Right after finishing, I am the worst possible reviewer. I see my intentions instead of the page. So I leave it. An hour is the minimum, a night is better, and for important pieces I wait two days.
Change how it looks
I look at the work in a way that disrupts my memory of it.
Print it, or shrink it to the size of a thumbnail.
Flip it horizontally, so familiar shapes look unfamiliar.
View it in greyscale to check the hierarchy without color.
Squint, until only the biggest shapes remain.
Each of these removes something I rely on and shows me what is left.
Ask the same questions
A fixed list keeps me from reviewing only what I feel like looking at.
What does it say in three seconds?
Where does the eye go first, and is that the right place?
What could I remove without losing the idea?
Is anything here only because I like it?
The removal test
The third question is the most useful. I cover one element at a time and see whether the piece gets better, worse or just different. An element that changes nothing is decoration, and decoration is the first thing to go.
If you can’t explain why something is there, it probably isn’t doing anything.
Write down what you find
I keep a short list of notes, and I phrase each one as a problem to solve, not a fix. “The headline competes with the image” leaves room for several solutions. “Make the headline smaller” does not.
Then act on one thing
I pick the note with the biggest effect and fix only that. Then I look again. Fixing everything at once makes it impossible to know which change helped. This is the same rhythm I describe in Designing in Small Loops.
Know when it’s done
Work is done when the remaining notes are about taste, not about clarity. At that point further changes are just rearrangement, and the best thing I can do is send it out and start the next one.