Critique: True/False cover

I haven't done much designing since last Wednesday since I've been preparing for my Good Housekeeping presentation over the weekend. Last week was design-overload for me so I was happy with this little break. For class on Thursday I did my second draft of my True/False Flim Fest cover. I was pretty happy with is because I found a really awesome T/F picture to go with it. If you go back to my 3 first draft covers from my blog posts last week, I decided to execute the 3rd cover -- but somehow managed to completely take a different route.

I decided to kill the idea of listing the films inside the T and the F since it was a) really hard to find a way to make them all fit inside perfectly and b) it was super overwhelming and didn't look organized whatsoever. So I went with no fill, which I thought worked well, capturing the T/F logo inside the bottom of the T. I was also happy with how the F overlapped the T just perfectly.

These little details get me very excited. I think I really love designing covers.

Response: History Presentation

For our magazine history presentations this week, I chose to critique Good Housekeeping in the 60s. I chose this magazine because I've been doing research on how to handle recipes and food articles for my Better Cook prototypes. I found lots of interesting stuff. I don't read Good Housekeeping very much right now, but I found it interesting comparing it to how magazines with recipes work now. Magazines with recipes now tend to have quite a bit of design elements... little measuring cups to determine cooking measurements, little clocks to determine how long it takes to make, etc. I found that not only the recipe slides were text heavy, but the stories in general were as well.

What I love most about the research I did was the covers (probably because covers are my favorite part of magazines!) I found myself sitting in the stacks for quite a while flipping through the collections admiring all the covers. What I found particularly interesting was that the art director was there from 1960-1969 and the masthead changed 3 different times.

The changes were even pretty drastic, going from big, block "G" and "H" to a serif font to a sans serif font. It's interesting even comparing sell lines from issue to issue, not staying very consistent. Magazines now are usually so formatted with how they handle sell lines.

Although presentations aren't quite a designers best friend, I enjoyed doing this project. I didn't realize so many magazines were so easily accessible right there at the library. They might be located in the scariest part of the library but definitely worth using as a resource in the future!

Can't Miss This: Liquid Layout

So I've been working on designing the VOX iPad issue for this week. It has required an unbelievable amount of patience, but I have enjoyed it. What I found most difficult was designing everything twice -- in landscape and portrait -- but that also might be my most favorite part of it. It was definitely a challenge, but I liked the challenge.


So I found this post on my blog that I've been following, magculture.com/blog, about "Liquid Layout." Below is a video they had on the post:

http://youtu.be/JZJ6r3VyU5g

I found it particularly interesting because it is all what I have been spending my last couple days doing: transferring a print issue into an iPad production.


They also included a link about how magazines are keeping up with the times and technology, especially with all types of tablets coming out, like the Kindle Fire, and not just the iPad.


http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-conde-nast-aims-to-unify-tablet-and-mobile-magazine-production/


Enjoy!

Response: Prototype Presentation

On Tuesday, my design group presented our prototypes for Better Cook to our publishing team. It's so cool how three people can be given the same mission statement and the same goals of the magazine's image and create completely different magazines. We all had completely different color palettes, and I loved seeing how everyone else envisioned the magazine.

I'm really excited working with my publishing team and the other designers to create this magazine. I think everyone has something different to bring to the table. All 3 of us designers have different ideas and styles that I think will really work well together and help us all be able to create a really quality magazine, and help us expand our design knowledge and experience individually.

Critique: Prototype Presentation

As far as my design work load goes for this past week, this one probably takes the cake. I've been working on covers for the True/False Film Festival, working on the iPad issue for this week and completed my prototypes for Better Cook. I'm learning that I can produce designs a lot faster than what I used to be able to do!


I'll start with my True/False covers.

For this cover, what I wanted to play up was how beautiful the F fit right under the T. I get really excited about the way letters can fit together and look pretty (lame I know) so I wanted to play up that element. Although the official True/False colors are red and black, I thought I would mix it up a little since Vox usually sticks with a red and black theme for this issue. So I went with turquoise. Looking back on it, I realize Vox probably wouldn't publish a turquoise cover because of people's initial reactions when they see it on the stand. Most people in Columbia are familiar with True/False so they're expecting a red and black color scheme that they will recognize at first. But I thought that a little change could be good.

 For this cover, I was pretty much just experimenting with Illustrator and seeing what I could do with it. I enjoy recreating things in InDesign and Illustrator and seeing how well I can do. This probably isn't my favorite cover that I've made, but I was proud of myself for making something in Illustrator instead of just sticking with InDesign. 

While this a bit of a rough cover, I have selected this cover of the three to make for the final draft. I like the whole idea of working with the words inside the "T" and the "F." The words inside are the names of the films at this year's fest. I am working on revising this cover and creating some kind of background to it to give it some sort of texture and not look so flat, however I do like the contrast of the letters to the white background.

On a different note, the other project I have been working on is for Better Cook. I took what my publishing team wanted and created a cover, department page and a feature page.

For my cover, I found this great image of a salad. I love the bright bold colors and pulling the red from the image into the masthead I thought it all pulled together nicely.

For this department, it would feature different meals that can be made in a quick amount of time. This magazine is all about quick stories, where you don't have to allow a lot of time to read through story after story but instead be able to flip through and find pieces of information that you need.

This is one of the possible features in the magazine. I wanted to have just one big image on the cover because it is eye-cathing, and also goes with the color palette of the magazine. "The Breakdown" features a variety of vegetables, that could give different information about them, including tips on growing/watering them, fertilizer to use, interesting facts about them, etc.

I have also been working on designing the iPad stuff, but it's not 100% completed yet. So you all will have to wait patiently for next week! :)

Can't Miss This: 40 Insanely Creative Anti-Smoking Ads

I'm aware that I am not a Strategic Communications major, but I find advertisement designs so fascinating. They're so similar to magazine designing in many ways because they also tell a story visually.

So we all invested a lot of time into our cigarette rolling stories. So when I came across this article "40 Insanely Creative Anti-Smoking Ads" it (naturally) immediately grabbed my attention. We all spent so much time trying to think of creative ways to tell the story, some of us branched out more with doing cool stuff in Photoshop and Illustrator (which I did not) but looking at these ads prior to would have really inspired me! Take a look...

http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2011/08/anti-smoking-ads.html?

This one's my favorite. I love the smoke coming off of it. And I'm thinking they traced the shape of a lung in a pile of cigarettes but I'm not really sure? If I had more time I'd try to recreate this... buttttt I don't!

Enjoy looking at the rest of these!

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.