How Not to Ask for Design Feedback

A practical guide for students who want to get better—without accidentally turning their mentor into an unpaid designer.

Feedback is the oxygen of your design journey. Without it, your work suffocates. With it, you breathe better, think better, and eventually design better. But here’s the part nobody tells you: feedback only works when you ask for it the right way. Otherwise, it’s like giving a Ferrari to someone who drives only in first gear—frustrating for both sides.

Design is a craft that demands consistency, curiosity, and the ability to function without outsourcing your entire brain to your mentor. Let’s break this down.

1. The “Tell Me What to Change” Syndrome

There’s a special place in design purgatory reserved for the question: “Can you tell me what to change?”

Look, if you’re an absolute beginner—absolute as in “I-just-opened-Canva-five-minutes-ago”—then sure, you get a mercy pass. But even then, homework is mandatory.

Because here’s the secret: if the mentor tells you exactly what to change, congratulations—you’re now executing their design, not yours. And that’s the fastest way to become dependent, clueless, and stuck at “sir, what next?” forever.

Instead, your job is simple:

• Understand the problem.

• Try a solution.

• Show that attempt.

• Ask why something isn’t working.

Asking “what do I change?” is like saying:

“I didn’t think, can you think for me?”

No mentor enjoys that.

2. The Timeline Tragedy: Late Work, Late Learning

Design feedback operates like milk: timing matters.

A beautifully structured critique becomes meaningless if you submit your work only after the class has collectively moved to another continent.

When you miss guidelines, ignore timelines, or drop your work into the group one week late with the confidence of someone submitting a tax return, here’s what happens:

• The feedback your mentor gave earlier no longer applies.

• The project context changes.

• The flow of learning breaks.

• And yes—your mentor now has to mentally travel back to a different timeline just to review your piece. Nobody has the energy for that, not even designers powered by caffeine and trauma.

If you want good feedback, be timely.

If you want great feedback, be consistent.

Simple.

3. The “What Image Should I Use?” Question (Also Known as: Do My Job For Me)

Asking “What image should I use instead of this?” is a fast way of announcing:

“I would like to borrow your brain, please hand it over fully charged.”

Alternative selection is your problem to solve.

Your mentor’s role isn’t to choose your stock photos—it’s to help you understand why something works or doesn’t.

If something isn’t working, ask:

• “Why is this wrong?”

• “What principle is being violated?”

• “How do I judge good alternatives?”

Don’t ask for the fish. Learn how to fish. Also, fish better next time.

4. Respect Your Community (Yes, Your Mistake Affects More Than Just You)

Design learning isn’t a solo sport. Your delay or carelessness affects the entire class—review schedules, mentor bandwidth, peer learning, everything.

Being proactive and responsible isn’t just good etiquette; it’s part of becoming a professional designer. A small personal error can cause a chain reaction in a shared learning environment.

Good design requires empathy. So does good classroom behavior.

5. Respect the Mentor’s Time (Use It Like Gold)

Your mentor is there to guide you, not Google things you can easily find yourself.

When you ask questions that require zero effort to solve, you burn time that could’ve been used to actually improve your craft.

Use your mentor’s time for:

• insights you can’t get from YouTube

• perspectives shaped by experience

• critical analysis

• direction, strategy, thinking

Not for:

• “Which image should I pick?”

• “Is this color nice?”

• “Can you tell me what to change?”

• “Sir, I didn’t read the brief. What do I do now?”

Your goal isn’t just to learn.

Your goal is to make an impression.

Get their sources, absorb their thought process, ask sharp questions, show initiative—and they will pour far more into you than you can imagine.

Final Thought

Great feedback is not magic. It’s collaboration.

If you respect the craft, the timelines, the community, and the mentor, you’ll grow faster, design better, and—most importantly—you’ll stop asking questions that make your mentor stare into the void questioning their life choices.