In most design firms (and hopefully in most in-house departments, too) before presenting ideas to clients, the various designers and art directors will gather round and have a critique. The idea is to refine the work before presenting it, hopefully making it better in the process. The only problem with this system is that most designers don't have any idea how to give and receive effective critiques. They make vague criticisms of work and take the whole thing too personally. Here then are some suggestions on how to give and receive critiques that will improve the work, rather than just tearing it down.

Making client presentations can often feel like jumping through hoops, but the ability to make a great presentation is one of the most important—if not the most important—skills that every successful marketer must master. Don’t let anyone fool you: producing fantastic work is just the price of admission. If you really want to be successful in the business world, you’ve got to know how to sell your ideas. After all, a good presenter can sell a bad idea; a bad presenter can't sell even a great idea. With that in mind, here are seven tips to make you a better presenter.

I review a lot of portfolios. It's what I do for a living. And the single biggest mistake I see in those portfolios is that people don't show the kind of work that I'm hiring for. As designers, we are trained to take the client's needs in mind when we are creating new work. What most of us fail to do, however, is to keep those same needs in mind when putting together a portfolio. What follows are based on my notes from the presentation I gave in April at the AIGA Minnesota 2009 Portfolio One-on-One. 

For far too many designers, when asked about why they designed something the way that they did, the answer is some variation of, "Well, I thought it looked good that way." The problem is, with that answer, the designer ceases to be an expert.