The ICON CRIT meme

[powercorrupts]

Anonymous icon critique meme

Do you ever wonder if there's something that you could improve with your icons, or have you ever wanted to tell someone that there's one thing that they do phenomenally, but you're afraid to leave a comment logged in? Do you just want a no-risk place to get icon concrit from, without the stress

Comments

[firstillusion]

Hello. I came here through your graphics community through the secrets post at iconsecrets where you mentioned you keep getting rejected from elite communities and you're pretty sure your colouring is too dark. I hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but I thought that maybe I could give you some feedback if you're still open to it?

I think that if you applied with icons like 1, 3 and 8, the criticism would not be that your colourings were too dark. On the contrary, number 8 has gorgeous colours and what I would say instead of "too dark" is: "great use of light and shade." If I were a elite community moderator, I would compliment you rather than criticize the fact that you like to work with darker colours.

I think, however, that what could be meant by 'too dark' is that some of your icons could use some contrast. I went through some of your posts at your graphics journal and what my biggest 'issue' with your work would be, is that sometimes, the colours in your icon lack a little depth. This doesn't mean that you're icons are too dark (or too light for that matter) in themselves, but that when you opt for a darker colouring, you have to be careful that there is still something light that stands out.

You've done that wonderfully on #8 (eye and skin under the eye), #2 (the upper right corner) and it's there on #10 as well. So I would say contrast and vibrancy of your colours, regardless of whether the colourings are darker or lighter or pinker or bluer or greener in themselves, is something you maybe look at. In that respect, I think icon #3 would be absolutely gorgeous if the greens, yellow and reds had been brought out a little more. I'm not sure what graphics program you are using, but if it is Photoshop, I think your icons would be transformed by using a Vibrance layer and/or Brightness/Contrast layer.

It's not a matter of dark to me, because I would recommend the same for #6 and #7. The colouring is nice and soft on both those icons, but nothing about it really pops, if you know what I mean. A little more vibrancy to the colours would make the icon as a whole stand out more, which is probably what elite moderators are looking for.

If I have misunderstood your original comment at iconsecrets and you understand everything I'm saying and think "I know, I've been told this before but I just disagree; I just LIKE that slightly faded look to my icons", that's absolutely fine, good for you. I really mean that, it's not meant bitchy or sarcastic at all: if this is your style, you should definitely stick to it. (I don't think it is though, I've seen gorgeous colours at your graphics communities in several posts and there is a lot of variety to your icons.)

But if you've received feedback that said "too dark" in the past, I hope my feedback(/essay) is a bit more useful. :)

[twolefts]

This is actually really helpful, thank you so much! The only concrit I was getting was literally "#'s blah, blah, and blah are too dark." OR "There's not enough color." And I do still like to make icons in this style even though these are way old (I took like a year hiatus from LJ). I've been trying to do brighter stuff lately because of the "crit" I had been getting each time I applied somewhere. And yeah 1, 3, and 8 are all ones I've applied with and got a too dark comment on lol. So thanks for explaining exactly about the contrast and vibrancy and everything. Before I took the hiatus I got accepted pretty much everywhere so I was just super baffled as to what I was doing wrong now.

[firstillusion]

Oh wow, I can imagine it must be incredibly weird to come back to LJ and all the icons looks like rainbows on acid! Especially when it wasn't your thing to begin with. Bright colours have always been my thing and while I like the extreme vibrant colour thing when done well, I agree that a lot of what goes on in elite communities is focused more on creativity than on quality, sadly.

Like I said, I don't think you're doing anything wrong. I'm sorry to hear you got just a "too dark" and "not enough colour" on those icons that I definitely think are well executed. Of course there's always the matter of taste in your judgment of other people's work, but it's also well-known that there are a lot of so-called elite moderators who judge more on style than on icon quality. I hope you can find communities that are run decently.

By the way, if you ever need any advice on your icons, for example before you want to apply anywhere and are unsure, you can always ask at icon_talk or ask people like absolutelybatty or library_of_sex. They are both considered to be among the "top" and they are both really decent people who give great feedback and are actually nice people too (that helps ;)). absolutelybatty has experience in moderating elite communities and library_of_sex is always up for talking graphics. :) (Or ask me, I won't ever mind, but I'm not as experienced as these others. ;))