FINAL post! Week 15

CRITIQUE:


This week I was apart of the feature design team working on the Careers issue. It was a bit of a roller coaster process to say the least, but once it was all figured out we had a good handle on our vision and went straight to work. I was in charge of designing the psychological profiles feature. This was an interesting challenge because there were four stories, one of each featuring people in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 70s. I needed a concept that related the different stages in a persons life, particularly with their careers. I went with this arrow concept and changed it around quite a few times. The color palette also changed about three times. Ultimately we decided to use the colors Tanya used on her cover, which worked really well with my spread.

RESPONSE:


Well, what can I say, the journey is over!!!!! It has been amazing four years, and one lesson that I will always take with me: the best days are the unplanned ones. Try not to get too caught up in all of the work and seriousness. Life is just as much about enjoyment, friends and experiences as it is about working hard.

This poster says it all for us designers!

YOU CAN'T MISS...


Book cover designs are probably one of the hardest things to do (at least I assume.) We have to summarize a story or a feature package into a design - these have to summarize an entire book! As my friend and I discuss what books we are putting on our summer reading list, I came across this blog that features 30 beautifully designed book covers.


Side note: at the top of our reading list is Chelsea Handler's latest book, The Lies that Chelsea Handler Told Me. If you've never read any of her books and love humor, crudeness and hilarious stories you will love all of her books. I highly recommend them.

Here are some beautiful book covers though:

Week 14

CRITIQUE:


This week I am participating in my final cover competition. The 5/12 issue will have a large feature well about the history and information of murders in the Boone County area. It's really difficult coming up with ideas intense and depressing to reflect murders. A few of us agreed it is not a topic we could design for frequently (and hopefully would never have to). I knew I needed to get in at least one gory cover, hence the knife. It has a shock factor that readers would not be able to ignore, that's for sure. It might be too much though for people who cannot handle blood. Then I did a more light-hearted illustration and a simple photo cover.

RESPONSE:


I can't even count how many times I have been asked "What are you doing after graduation?" I am just as guilty for spitting this question at every senior I converse with. It's the only thing anyone can think or talk about at this time of year, at this time in our lives! So. Scary.

My current life plan is this: I have to complete 6 credits of any topic, any level this summer due to some miscommunication with my advisor over class schedules this year. So when the opportunity arose to go to Tokyo, Japan for two-and-a-half months of course I jumped on it! I will be completing one class for 3 credits the week after graduation and then starting an online one in June. The rest of my summer was going to revolve around pool days, summer nights and occasional babysitting. Now I will be a camp counselor for the 3-5 year-old class at the U.S. Embassy preschool in Tokyo, Japan. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I am thrilled to have a new adventure! I have never been abroad and this trip not only allows international travel, a salary and amazing pictures, but humanitarian opportunities to help with the tsunami disaster relief. So keep tabs on my Facebook and Twitter this summer because I will be uploading my adventures like crazy!

And then when I return I will be madly looking for a job. Or going to graduate school.




YOU CAN'T MISS...


A blog post about "70 New And Interesting Fonts For Your Design Projects." Some of the fonts we used for Plaid Dad are actually featured! It's always fun downloading new, free typefaces so when you have a new project you have a variety already in your Font Book to select from.

Yes, I downloaded them all but here are a few of my favorites. If you can't tell I am a huge fan of clean, simple, almost/sans serif fonts.

Week 13

CRITIQUE:


This week I am working on one of the features for the VOX magazine careers issue. It is a psychological profile about people and the place they are currently at with their careers in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 60s. I wanted to utilize some kind of illustration that represented a path. Each person is in a completely different state of their life, so they're all on the same journey but at different places. This is what I came up with. The colors are somewhat retro, so I might play the ages up more with some typography changes.

RESPONSE:


IT IS DONE!!!!! Our commissioned prototype magazine Plaid Dad has finally been completed and is going to press at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning! I have spent the last month with my team and other designers working in the design lab until literally the sun rises. I hope all of our hard work, lots of energy and creativity receive a good response. Designing a magazine for males is a challenge in itself, but designing for males who are fathers and like to cook? That's a whole other level. I'm very happy with how far we have come from the original designs and I think we collectively pulled it all together and gave it our best effort! Next step, creating "iDad", a supplemental application for the iPad, and presenting it all in Des Moines. Woo! Here are two features I designed...

YOU CAN'T MISS...


This is so true

Week 11

Yes, I skipped week 10 because it was spring break; and unfortunately I was on a cruise in Mexico without internet; and unfortunately I have returned with a nice tan. Sorry 'boutcha :)


CRITIQUE:


Not much has gone on in the last two weeks. We had an in-class critique of our prototype Plaid Dad. That was pretty harsh, but very much needed. Our team has since discussed all of the criticism and suggestions, developed a new plan and we are moving forward. Those changes will be posted next week.

Upon returning from my long vacation, I headed straight to the magazine office to design departments. It was a pretty standard layout, but I am very happy with the turn out. There were no real challenges except working with spacing (as always). I was called back for a last-minute switch of stories in the recurring section. The art director felt the Cage the Elephants story was more important than the album review. I thought it would just be a quick copy/paste, but I had to do some re-working because the photo switch went from vertical to horizontal.

All in a day's work.


RESPONSE:


For our photo assignment over break, I took pictures every day of lovely things I saw while on vacation. Here are a few of my favorites in terms of inspiration...

Depth and dimension

Repeating elements

Color

Simplistic yet beautiful

Typography can be found everywhere!

YOU CAN'T MISS...

I stumbled upon these pictures on the "All that inspires me" blog. They are from a post by Terry Border:

"I always knew that my weird point of view was my gift or perhaps curse, so I'm glad I finally found a use for it," Terry says. "As far as getting ideas, I simply try to amuse myself. I look at objects and wonder what they remind me of and then I create a sort of story about that. I have a good sense of humor. I like to laugh but I can't tell a joke to save my life."

Week 9

CRITIQUE:


Continuing on Plaid Dad design, here is my revised feature spread. It is still very much a draft, and I am having a lot of difficulty with it. I think my problem is that I am attached to my headline design, but I need to find a way to make it fit and flow with the eight gadgets. My other issue is organizing the eight gadgets. We have determined that dad's (and men in general) would rather view a grid or chart of some sort than read a lot of copy. With so many different shapes of objects it has been a challenge to lay out this page. My publishers are working on getting the permanent pictures. I was thinking I might cut out each object and work with them in some way like that. SUGGESTIONS would be greatly appreciated!

RESPONSE:


We also had the pleasure of viewing each others' magazine in class today. I was only able to see two - Nosh and mine - because I had to leave early. Nosh is off to a great start though! I was very impressed with their progress and the overall flow of the pages; there is no divide between spreads that different designers have done. I noticed that the they paid a lot of attention to detail, which always takes a magazine to the next level. I thought it was a bit overwhelming that there were arrows on every spread. It's a great element and I definitely think it adds a lot to the personality of the magazine, but when it's overdone it loses that punch. Maybe only using it on department pages would help cut back. I would have also liked to see more color used throughout the spreads. I absolutely loved the detailed photographs of small portions; it completely gets the point across and I think it's a unique way to display food.


YOU CAN'T MISS...


Tuesday was the 200th birthday of Manhattan's street grid, and The Wall Street Journal blog featured creative maps made over the years of the grid system. Definitely check out the post, because there is an array of typographic, illustrative and info graphic designs. Here are a few I found to be the most interesting:

Week 8

CRITIQUE:


My second cover competition is currently underway. We are designing for the food feature, which covers all of the local food challenges in Columbia. There are giant burgers, loaded breakfast plates, spicy wings etc. Coming up with a studio shoot, an illustration and a photo cover is very difficult but it was a really fun challenge for this particular topic. I had more than 3 ideas but this is what I decided to present. (Please keep in mind these are rough first drafts just showing my vision!)

This last one is the cover I will be revising for Thursday's critique. It will be a studio shoot of leftovers/half-eaten food on a plate. Then I will do some editing in Photoshop with text underneath. It should be really fun and eye-catching if it all works out correctly. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

RESPONSE:


The greatest thing that has seemed to go on in the last week is the tragedy that is still continuing in Japan. I was up that night on my computer and saw the early tweets about the earthquake and tsunami. I watched the live streaming of the tsunami just rolling across the land. It was the most surreal and tragic thing I have ever seen, and I can't even imagine what it is like there right now. My mom has a good friend who lives in Tokyo and he was stuck at his office for almost two days not knowing if his wife and kids were alive or safe (which they are!). It just puts everything into perspective and it's sad that major tragedies like this have to remind us that bad days are really not that bad. Stress is not fun, but it's not the end of the world. Pulling an all-nighter is rough but you will survive. My life seems to be all design right now in this moment, but design is not life. It's a fun part of my life.

I did stumble on this campaign called Font Aid V: A Call to Action. The Society of Typographic Aficionados is accepting submissions and will compile them into a typeface to benefit the earthquake and tsunami relief in Japan. The typeface would be used on all fundraising materials and would help unite the world as it unites to help Japan.

The Font Aid project began in 1999 with the first project benefiting UNICEF. It has since campaigned for the victims of September 11th, victims of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis and the earthquake in Haiti. Hundreds of designers have made submissions and joined the cause.

So cool.


YOU CAN'T MISS...


On a lighter typeface note, we watched this fun video in my news design class this week. It is amazing what you can do with words. Some of you might have seen it before, but it was my first time!

Week 7

CRITIQUE:

This past week we embarked on our "20/5" challenge: logos. Our assignment was to create 20 logos for the Sports Journalism Institute. It is a national sports journalism organization that helps women and minorities in the newsroom. Obviously the main goal of a logo is to visually stimulate a viewer and convey the whole entity of what the organization stands for. WAY easier said than done. Finding an image that reflects sports and is easily integrated with an image that reflects journalism is very challenging. I found the best solution was to focus on typography.

After receiving critiques from my fellow designers and brilliant teacher and TA, I have narrowed the logos from 20 to five. The biggest concern is incorporating diversity into our logos. That is the main point of the organization so the next challenge is figuring out either a visual or stimulating colors that portray this message. The logo in the first row, second from the left, with the baseball flying through it was favored the most. It is my favorite as well. I was told that it shows action really well, which is great for the sports image. Suggestions I received for improvement include trying different typefaces, making the baseball just a colored ball and working with the colors (diversity, diversity, diversity). I would love suggestions!

RESPONSE:

On Monday I had the amazing opportunity to sit in the MU iPad conference all day and hear from editors, art directors and social media gurus from Wired, National Geographic, Men's Health, ESPN, Better Homes and Gardens and Popular Science. It was inspiring and exhilarating to hear about the opportunities and developments between magazines and the tablet world. Every group told us what they know, how they've attempted applications, what they think about the future and how in reality it is still a complete guessing game for each and every one of them. 

I also have the opportunity to develop an iPhone app and formulate an iPad app prototype for a magazine supplement this semester. Learning more and more about this field is fascinating and I am starting to expand my search for application development opportunities. I have always been a gadget guru, wanting the newest and greatest. Jumping into this tablet application development world would be such a great experience and I want to be in the center of these changes and discoveries. I am so fortunate to attend the MU journalism school and be able to participate and attend events such as this iPad conference.

YOU CAN'T MISS...

A scrabble redesign found on GOOD!

 

Andrew Capener created this redesign last year while studying at BYU. His version allows you to use all one typeface or mix-and-match. He eliminated the clutter on the board and went with these sleek colors. If I was a design junkie AND scrabble nerd I would definitely be hunting for this (unfortunately I find the game fairly boring). The design is beautiful though!