Critique: Better Cook

My designing this week consisted of creating a cover and a department page for Better Cook, the magazine my publishing group has been assigned to. The members of my group described the vision of the magazine to have a fresh tone, easy-to-read pieces, colors you would want in a kitchen, free from pastels and nontraditional. I found it to be not very specific, which made it kind of difficult to create an overall theme. I wanted to include bright, bold colors, instead of lighter colors, because I love bright colors and am not a fan of pastels at all, especially in a kitchen. So alas, my cover...

I loved hearing all of the comments about it from my classmates. Overall, they liked the crispness to it and also the way I did the logo. I played around with the logo quite a bit, but decided to keep it simple. Since my publishing team wanted a magazine that is a "quick read," I didn't want to do a whole lot with it. I also felt like it had a "Better Homes & Gardens" feel to, but not too similar.

This is my first draft, and I haven't made the changes that my classmates suggested yet, I wanted to put it up on my blog first so I can show my progress. I'm going to work with the sell lines some more, and create better balance, maybe more one to the top left. We'll see. I'm also going to move the "10 healthy recipes" stamp to a different spot and make it not as much a part of the logo. But overall, I think everyone really liked the picture. (The one thing I can't take credit for!)

I also designed a department page...

"Meals by the Minute" would be a department that would be in every minute, showcasing a different recipe that can be made under a certain amount of time (15 mins, 30 mins, 1 hour, etc.) I stuck with some more bold, bright colors that I pulled from the color palette from the cover. Might change it to some warmer colors though. More my thing. It's been really fun searching for pictures for this project. I find myself looking at them in my free time... nerdy? Probably.