Dear (design),

Don't miss this...

2010-04-28T23:10:00.001-05:00

So I've decided that next summer (I'm too broke this summer) I really want to go to a music festival. I've never done it and I think it would be so much fun. With that being said, one music festival I would love to go to is Bonnaroo in Tennessee (their line up this summer is really good).

So anyways, I found a promotional video on a blog recently, and I think it's a fun use of crafted typography. The video just goes through most of the known bands that will be at the festival, but it goes through them in a way that is enticing and makes you want to keep watching. The use of handcrafted type is fun, though I think it works better in some parts of the video than others (such as with Phish in the beginning of the video) but I think it's a good use overall.

Check it out!

Bonnaroo - "Titles" from Matthew Achterberg on Vimeo.

Response: mini's

2010-04-28T22:41:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we discussed mini portfolios and what we needed to do to put them together. Jan passed around a bunch of examples from past students (good and bad) so we were able to look through them and figure out what we liked and didn't like. I enjoyed looking at all the mini portfolios, but at the same time it really stressed me out. I just kept thinking to myself "Oh my gosh, when am I going to do this?" I feel like I have no time to put one together that I am actually proud of. I feel like there's so much thinking that needs to go into designing and putting together a mini portfolio. It has to show your personality both as a person and as a designer, and it of course needs to show off your best work. There's all sorts of options when it comes to thinking about paper, the size of the book, how you want to display your clips, categories or no categories...and countless other things.

Anyways, I'm trying to decide which route I want to take to make mine, so hopefully I will figure that out soon so I can execute it in time for finals week!

Critique: FLASH!

2010-04-28T22:34:00.001-05:00

This past weekend I had my first experience with making a Flash multimedia project. My assignment was for the Shelter Gardens story and I had have the map of Shelter Gardens be interactive so when you rolled over different areas a photo of that area came up with a description.

It took a while for me to get all the materials I needed to make this project, but once I did it wasn't too hard to put it together. I went into Vox on Sunday to get help from Kristin and then finished up the project Sunday night. A few minor changes were made on Monday and then I was done. Quick and easy. I'm pretty happy with it and I'm excited to see it on the Vox website tomorrow (everyone check it out!).

I'm hoping this project was something that can jumpstart my Flash skills. Hopefully I'll have time over the summer to work with it more.

Here's the link!!

http://voxmagazine.com/stories/2010/04/29/art-about-town-shelter-gardens/

We are done!

2010-04-23T01:26:00.001-05:00

So I literally just got home from finishing our Meredith Corporation magazine. We spent about 6 1/2 hours tonight just going through edits and getting it ready for print tomorrow (actually today...). I decided I should just put my pieces on my blog now before I forget. There have been minor changes made to these since I made these PDFs, but nothing big was changed. I present to you my pages from DIY Summer...enjoy!

Department page

Feature, page 1

Feature, page 2

Back of Book department page

Well friends, that's it. I hope you like my pages. I'm off to bed.

Response: wedding invitations

2010-04-22T00:42:00.000-05:00

As of now I will be attending three weddings this summer. Don't worry, I am not going to go into weddings, but I do want to talk about my friend Noelle's save the date and wedding invitations. I think you all will appreciate the beauty in them. She is a typographic nerd just like the rest of us.

Here they are:

Save the Date: My friend worked with a friend who designs on both her save the dates and her actual invitations. She figured out what typefaces she wanted and how she wanted it to look and her friend executed. I love the simplicity of this and also the typography she chose. She told me what the "R" is supposed to represent, but unfortunately I cannot remember right now.

Wedding Invitations: My favorite thing about the save the dates and the invitations as a package is the fact that she chose to carry the typography from the save the date into the actual wedding invitation. I love how your eye goes straight to their names, as it should, and how you can automatically connect this invitation with the save the date you received earlier. I just love it.

Don't miss this: ampersand eye chart?

2010-04-21T03:04:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite blogs, if you don't know this about me already, is designspongeonline.com. I'm pretty close to being obsessed with it. Anyways, while catching up on it I found a post on typographic charts, more specifically, an ampersand eye chart. Here it is:

Photo courtesy of designspongeonline.com.

The chart is by Douglas Wilson and is based on the Snellen Eye Chart (duh). There are 61 ampersands included and for each one there is an identification key that tells you the name and weight of each. Love it! The only downfall is it costs $48, but if your willing to pay that much you can buy one here. Nonetheless, I still love this chart. If only every eye exam could be that fun...

Response: websites

2010-04-21T02:55:00.002-05:00

Today we were able to show our websites (so far) in class and get critiques on them. I thought this was a lot of fun because I enjoyed seeing everyone's sites so far. I think that pretty much all of them portray that persons individual design style and personality really well. Since we've spent the semester together and know each others design styles, I think that I could probably pick out who's website was who's by looking at the overall design of the site (not the design thumbnails).

My website is pretty much done, I just have some execution problems I need to fix. I'm having trouble with my navigation boxes (I don't know if it was just the projector or not), as well as some jpeg issues. I also need to work with my magazine portfolio page...a lot.

I think the critiques went really well and I enjoyed reading over all the comments and suggestions people gave me for my site. I'll be honest, I'm more than ready to be done with my website...it's just a matter of finding the time to fix the execution problems.

Oh yeah...here's a link to my site as of now. Enjoy!

http://bengal-vm1.missouri.edu/~jbwp68/designwebsite/home.html/home.html

Response: Meredith, duh!

2010-04-14T21:46:00.000-05:00

I feel as if this post would be much more informative and beneficial to write after our groups present our magazines thus far to John tomorrow but I will offer my response to it all right now.

Tuesday some of the groups were able to show our pages to Jan and the rest of the class and get some feedback. Our group was able to go right at the end and everyone seemed to like everything. The class came to the conclusion on my feature that I should use Meredith photos, which I agreed with.

We met with our publishers after class I think they are happy with everything so far too. They offered small suggestions but nothing too big. I think we are more picky than they are.

So now it's just time to wait and see what John says. I am pretty nervous to be quite honest. I think tomorrow could either go really well or really bad, but I could be completely wrong so we'll see.

Of course this will not be the last post on Meredith so stay tuned. We only have about a week left to finish everything!

Response: LBB

2010-04-14T21:40:00.000-05:00

Tuesday we had our conference call with Miss Laura Bell Bundy about our logos we've created with her so far. She went through all of our logos and told us what she did and didn't like about each of them. I was so surprised and pleased with how much she had to offer for each logo. I expected her to have such a passion for horse shoes, which really showed in her critiques, but I did not expect for her to have an eye for design. It was impressive.

For the most part she liked my logos. Most of her comments for mine dealt with changing the colors, working with the typography and fixing the horse shoe of course. I think I will probably work on the one she said was her favorite and mess around with a couple different color options.

Don't miss this...

2010-04-12T15:01:00.000-05:00

While I've been waiting for my weekly Vox pitch meeting to start I decided to catch up on my blogs on Google Reader. I came across a great typography post that I wanted to share with you all that I found here.

It's a post on typographic experiments done by Amandine Alesandra. She can pretty much make typography out of anything. From shirt sleeves to feet and fingers, she understands the true meaning behind typography being everywhere. Check out some of her work below.

Photo courtesy of typography-daily.com.

If you want to check out more of her work from check out her online portfolio.

Also, I wanted to do something a little different and share a blog with you all that you don't want to miss. It is not about design but I still love it all the same and I think you all will too. It's a blog done by a mom who just recently had a child with down syndrome. She is a photographer and has beautiful photos on her blog of her children as well as other things in her life. After the photo project we did over spring break I've been finding a lot of inspiration in her photos in how she uses different perspectives in a lot of them. Anyways, that's my little speech about that. Check it out here.

Warning: there is music on that blog so if you don't want to here it mute your headphones.

Critique: happiness feature

2010-04-07T22:15:00.003-05:00

This week Erica and I are working on the feature for "The hunt for happiness." I'm really excited about this. We are using a board game theme, taking inspiration from mostly Candy Land. There is no art for this feature because each blurb isn't really "photo worthy" so were working on using illustrations with the board game. As of right now it's a little difficult to fit all the text around the board game without there being awkward white pockets or having it look too clustered. I'm confident that Erica and I will be able to fit everything and make the text work with the illustrations. I'm excited to see how it turns out as we continue to work with it this week/weekend.

Here's the finals for our happiness feature:

I also worked on a department page that same weekend. The anchor story was about Ok Go. I had some difficulties trying to get the story to fit well with the photo, but I think I was able to make it work in the end. The department pages are like a big puzzle, you just have to try and move things around until everything fits

Don't MIss this!

2010-04-07T22:05:00.000-05:00

Hey all! So while catching up on netdiver.net I came across a really great video. First of all, let me explain. Pavel Fuksa created 178 vintage looking matchboxes for a music video by the Navigators. The matchboxes themselves are great to begin with. Each one is unique and fun. The video is for the song "My Place" and the matchboxes have the lyrics on them perfectly in sync with the song. I love it. Not necessarily the song, though it is somewhat catchy, but the video. I love the use of something so simple as matchboxes and having each one uniquely represent that particular part of the song. I think it's an original way to use design and typography to show the lyrics in a music video.

Here's the video. Enjoy!

Response: Spring Break 2010 through photos

2010-04-05T11:38:00.004-05:00

After seeing an amazing blog where a woman documented the birth of her second child, I decided I wanted to share my photos from Spring Break in a similar way. Here it goes:

Saturday, March 27: My flight to Dallas, TX. I am afraid of flying and this was my first time flying by myself. It went well despite the boy behind me yelling "We're going to crash" numerous times throughout the flight.

Sunday, March 28: The Dallas Arboretum. There were so many beautiful flowers, I probably took 100 photos just there alone.

Monday, March 29: Apparently everything is closed in Dallas on Mondays. Thankfully statues are not so we visited the cattle ranch statues in downtown Dallas.

Tuesday, March 30: Since the DMA and the Nasher Sculpture Center were closed on Monday, we ventured back there on Tuesday. The Nasher featured multiple typography sculptures. Above is one of them that was in the lobby. So great.

Wednesday, March 31: After a day of traveling back to St. Louis, I decided to play some basketball with my 14-year-old brother. I am not a basketball player, so it turned into more of him laughing at me as I attempted to play.

Thursday, April 1: My brother's first baseball game of the season (he's the batter). They won 14-4.

Friday, April 2: After driving through a storm at 10p.m., my mom, brother and I finally made it to our condo at the Lake of the Ozarks. It's our second home and our favorite place to be during the summer.

Saturday, April 3: My dad just recently bought a new boat that he is obsessed with. Despite the colder temperatures on Saturday, we took a nice boat ride. Thankfully we have a closed off area underneath so my brother and I could escape the cold wind.

Sunday, April 4: Easter Sunday! Even though my brother and I are considered too old to decorate Easter eggs, we used the excuse of our younger neighbors to reminisce in childhood memories of egg dyeing.

Well, there it is: my week of Spring Break documented through photos. I had a great week with friends and family and I'm ready to push through the final month of school to graduation. What's the countdown now? 39 days?

---------------

Oh yeah, one more thing! Below is the logo I made for the typography assignment we had during break. I decided to take letters and spell out Dallas since that's where I spent a bulk of my break. Here it is!

Don't MIss this! (especially if you have an iphone or itouch...)

2010-03-23T17:55:00.000-05:00

Breanna has recently sent me her favorite typography blogs, and as I was scrolling through typenuts.com I came across these great typography backgrounds for your iPhone or iTouch.

Photo courtesy of typenut.com.

I don't know about you all, but I personally love these. I'm always looking for new backgrounds for my iPhone (I get bored with mine really easily), so I can't wait to download these on my phone. For those of you who don't have an iPhone or iTouch and cannot take advantage of these wonderful backgrounds, I'm sorry. You should purchase one of the two just so you can have these backgrounds...

Response: Meredith so far

2010-03-23T17:44:00.000-05:00

Today we had the opportunity to present our ideas for our Meredith publications thus far. We presented our ideas to the rest of our class, Jan, Aimee, John and our publishing groups. I think that this process so far has been very difficult and frustrating for most of us. We haven't had experience working with publishers as much as we are having to for this project and I think it's something we are all trying to get used to, publishers included. I think there needs to be a lot more communication between the editors and us as the designers. Our group doesn't have much text yet, but once we do I know we will be able to produce some great work. I'm excited to actually get started designing my department pages and feature for this project and to see how the magazine will come together. I'm also extremely excited to see how the rest of the magazines will turn out. I think this entire process will be a great learning experience, both for us as designers and the editors as publishers. It will no doubt have its ups and downs, but I'm excited to see how it will all turn out.

Side note: Sorry if this was at all corny, I just felt like we all needed some encouragement at this point.

critique: dialogue cover

2010-03-23T17:37:00.000-05:00

For this week I had to have my final cover concept for the dialogue story. After getting feedback from my three cover concepts I presented last week (which I wasn't happy with), I decided to take Geoff's idea that he mentioned about a net scooping out dialogue out of a pool of dialogues. I took this idea but altered quite a bit. Here's what I came up with:

I took Geoff's idea and decided to have a group of people shown, with two people standing out and the person on the left looking at those people through his binoculars. I had the deck for the story inside the dialogue bubble to make it more clear that those two people in color were supposed to be talking to each other. I'm not extremely happy with this cover and I think that this concept still could use a lot of work and execution, but overall I feel the concept does show what the story is about in a more abstract and out of the box way.

Don't miss this: Portfolio tips

2010-03-17T21:20:00.000-05:00

While browsing through netdiver.net I stumbled upon a post which gave me inspiration. The post is about a book called Flaunt and it looks like a great book that gives tips on designing effective and compelling portfolios. With my portfolio review I just had this week, I've been thinking a lot about what I want to put in my portfolio, what I want to cut from it, what I want to revise, etc. It's really all very stressful. But your portfolio does need a lot of thinking going into it so that it can reflect your style of design in the best way possible.

As the author of Flaunt says “You should never consider your portfolio finished and you should always be dissatisfied with it.. Your portfolio requires endless work.. This never changes no matter how successful you have become.”

Those are words of journalism wisdom if I've ever heard any.

Photo courtesy of netdiver.net.

Critique: first feature and dialogue covers

2010-03-17T21:12:00.001-05:00

This week I'm designing the Copperstone feature for VOX and also coming up with three cover concepts for the dialogue feature. So far designing my feature hasn't been bad at all. I'm happy with where it's going right now, so hopefully the editors will like it too when they critique it in class tomorrow. The story is about the Copperstone neighborhood and how there's only two houses built so far; the rest is all open lots. I'm trying to play with the idea of the dead space in the neighborhood with white space in the spread. I would love for all of your feedback about it once you've all seen it in class tomorrow!

Here's my feature:

Along with my feature, I'm also coming up with three cover concepts for tomorrow. I'm not all the way done with them, but I'm trying to play with the idea of the dialogues and the conversations that are being had and that they sort of feel like overheard conversations that your reading. It reminds me of the Overheard at Mizzou page on Facebook. Anyways, I'm not going to post my cover ideas until after I present them in critique tomorrow, so look out for them sometime later this week.

Response: Thinking with Type

2010-03-17T21:06:00.000-05:00

This week I finished reading the book Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton. We discussed it in class yesterday, and I must say, I really enjoyed this book a lot more than I did the Sheep book we read in beginning magazine design last semester. I thought this one was more advanced and worked better for people who know more about typography than probably the average person, but is still learning about typography and how to use it effectively in their designs.

Yesterday we also had the chance to sit back and relax while looking over different design magazines. I really enjoyed this. First of all, I didn't know that they even really existed. Now that I know, you better believe I'll be asking for one for my birthday, on Jan's request. I looked through HOW magazine, which I liked the content of, but I wasn't a huge fan of some of the designs in the features and their extensive use of typography. From what everyone else said about the magazines they looked through, I think I'd like to check out STEP magazine.

Second Department page

2010-03-11T19:54:00.000-06:00

Hey all,

I forgot to post this. During the T/F Festival I also designed my second department page for the music department in VOX. Here it is:

This page was a little more difficult to put together than my first department experience was. I had a lot to fit on the page with the anchor story, the See This and the Diva Playlist. I ended up having to cut some of the anchor story and the Diva Playlist. I played with the layout a lot before actually deciding that this was the way to go. Overall I think it ended up working well. I really like the See This section, though I am very tired of seeing Tech N9ne in VOX.

You can't miss this: 27.3 million tweets on twitter per day?!

2010-03-09T23:02:00.000-06:00

So I came across this video on netdiver.net today and it absolutely blew my mind. Seriously the entire video my responses were "WHAAAAT?!" and "That's craaazy!" Check it out:

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

I had no idea how many people use the internet daily, let alone how many people use facebook and twitter daily. This video really shows how much our society relies on the world wide web, and how much our society is starting to turn towards social networking sites more and more. I would have liked to see how many people visit news sites daily (newspapers and magazines) in comparison to how many people visit social networking sites and youtube daily. If anyone knows those numbers let me know!

Response: The September Issue

2010-03-09T22:44:00.000-06:00

Today in class we got to watch "The September Issue," which I was really excited about it. I had never seen it, but I had heard all great things from people who had seen it. I absolutely loved it. For those of you who don't know what the film is about, it's a documentary that covers the making of the September Issue for Vogue Magazine, which is their biggest issue of the year. Here's the trailer:

This movie was so great. I loved being able to actually see what Anna Wintour's personality is like, besides what they portray in the movie "The Devil Wears Prada." My favorite character in the film is Grace, the creative director for Vogue. She's this frazzled looking women who is constantly described as a genius. I love her not only because she produces amazing work, but she also defends her work in an incredible way against the great Anna Wintour. I could learn from her when it comes to this. I also loved seeing all the behind the scene things that people don't get to see when it comes to putting together Vogue. It's such a chaotic but amazing process. I agree with Anna's daughter that the Fashion magazine world is interesting, but still a little to much for me; however I definitely didn't mind living vicariously through "The September Issue" though.

Critique: LBB logos

2010-03-09T22:32:00.001-06:00

Hey all! So this week we had our final five logos due for Laura Bell Bundy, an rising star in the world of country music. Here were my final five revised logos:

For my final logos I tried to draw inspiration from old and new country music albums. I also tried to draw ideas from the 60s, which is where the vintage wallpaper pattern came from on the last logo. With my typefaces I wanted a mix of elegant and countryish style typefaces. I also tried to choose colors that were feminine, but could also be used without being ultra girly, which is something she wanted. My favorite logo is the rose with the greenery in the background. I also really like the last one, which includes my handwriting. Overall, I think this was a good experience because I had never worked with logos before. I definitely think that I have a lot of learning to do when it comes to designing logos, but I think I learned a lot through this whole process and I now understand and appreciate the logo world more.

Don't Miss This: Organic Grid

2010-03-03T12:01:00.000-06:00

On netdiver.net this week I came across a really great website. It's called Organic Grid and it is a flash website created by Michael McDonald. The homepage is made up of strips of organic colors that all fade into one another. Each color is a different thumbnail that becomes visible after when scrolling over it.

Here's what Organic Grid is in Michael McDonal's words:

"Organic grid is a design consultancy dedicated to creating innovative identity and design systems with an unyielding passion to create the extraordinary.
my work is deeply influenced by my intuitive sense of color, form and function as well as my understanding of international design."

I haven't explored this website to it's fullest, but upon first look it is absolutely beautiful. The only downfall: it loads kind of slow since everything is built on flash.

Check it out here!

With my own website design looming in the back of my brain, I've been looking at websites to get ideas of how I want mine to show my personality. Organic Grid is one of those websites that inspires me to do something different with my site.

Also - make sure you have your speakers on for an extra treat while viewing the website. Enjoy!

Photo courtesy of netdiver.net.

Response: T/F film fest 2010

2010-03-01T14:54:00.000-06:00

Ok, so this weekend was the annual T/F Film Festival. I personally love T/F because it's unique to Columbia and we are privileged to get so many great films that have true impact and important issues in them that no one else really gets to see. This past weekend I was only able to see two films, on account of money issues, but both of them were great. I saw "The Oath" and "Those Who Remain."

The Oath

Photo courtesy of truefalse.org.

The Oath was about Abu Jandal, who was Osama bin Laden's old bodyguard but is now a taxi driver in Yemen. The story focuses on him and his life now in comparison to what it used to be. However, he holds a lot of grief because his brother-in-law is in jail because of him. His brother-in-law was bin Laden's driver and was arrested in place of Abu Jandal for having connections with bin Laden. It's interesting to see how much Abu Jandal's views changed over the period of the seven years his brother-in-law was in jail. I don't know a lot about Al Queda so a lot of the information presented in the movie was over my head, but I thought it was great. It showed a side of people who America think have terrorist ties, but really don't.

Those Who Remain

Photo courtesy of truefalse.org.

This was another great film I was privelaged to be able to see. It follows a number of characters who live in Mexico and are all effected in different ways by their family or friends crossing the border into the U.S. for better jobs. The entire time I was watching this film I kept thinking about the story we read in Mag Design about Enrique's Journey. The people in this film talked a lot about how crossing over the border is dangerous, and how crossing through the river is the most dangerous part. As American's I feel we have biased opinions on immigrants from Mexico, but this film breaks down all your stereotypes and you see the true reason why so many people cross the border into America and what effect that has on their families who are stuck in Mexico. Needless to say, by the end of the movie I was bawling like a baby.

Critique: Meredith Prototype and second department experience

2010-03-01T14:39:00.001-06:00

Hello! So this past week we had our prototypes due for our Meredith projects. We had to present our prototype to our publishing group on Thursday, and then our publishing group chose who they wanted the Art Director to be for the entire project based on our prototypes. Here is my prototype (cover, department page and two feature pages):

Our magazine that we will be working on is called Celebrate Summer. It is a DIY summer magazine to help mom's plan summer parties. In my prototype I wanted to capture the idea of the creative, yet busy mom, that our publishing group was wanting to focus on. I also wanted the magazine to portray the idea of it being a DIY magazine from the cover and everything from then on.

I went with the idea of a cork board on a wall for the cover with post-it notes that had the stories that could be found inside as the sell lines. I used this idea because when I think of busy mom's I think of a bunch of reminders everywhere, so I carried this idea onto the cover to show the idea that this magazine would include a bunch of little reminders and ideas on how they can plan great summer parties while also having a DIY look. My department page was on summer drinks with the photo of the drink and then the ingredients/recipe on the second page. The idea for this page was to have short quick reads and also allowing the moms to create their own DIY recipe cards by cutting the photo/recipe out and pasting them together. Finally my feature pages were meant to be short quick reads so that the mom's could skim through and find the things they wanted to make for their parties without having to read through everything.

I really like the way my prototype turned out, however I think that there would have been a problem with my cover since this would be a newsstand magazine that we are pitching and my cover isn't the typical newsstand style. Overall, everyone in my group had great ideas for the design and I'm super excited that Lauren is our art director!

On other news, this weekend I also designed my second department page (photo of it coming soon). I struggled more with my page this week because, as always, there was a lot of text to fit on the page. I had to run the "SEE THIS: Tech N9ne" bigger than VOX usually does. Aimee and I fixed a couple of things so that we could fit more of the text on the page instead of cutting a bunch of it, and I think in the end my page ended up looking pretty good despite space issues.

Critique: Meredith Prototype and final cover idea

2010-02-24T21:11:00.000-06:00

Hey all! So this week I've been working on my Meredith prototype and my final cover idea for Vox. Both are due tomorrow...which means no sleep for me tonight because I'm not finished.

I'm in the Celebrate Summer group for Meredith, which has been interesting because our group wants an abundance of things covered in the magazine. I've tried to apply as much of their requests to my prototype as I can, while also trying to make it all fit my concept and not look too cluttered. I've enjoyed working on my prototype, even though it's been pretty stressful not only because it's a big project, but also because I have so many other things due this week. I'm excited to present our prototypes tomorrow and to see what everyone else in my group has come up with. It will be interesting to see how we each took what they gave us in the pitch and made it our own.

I've also been working on my final cover idea for VOX for the medieval story. It's been difficult because they wanted me to use a real photo instead of an illustration, but there's no photos that are cover worthy. I've tried a couple of things, but I don't like it as much as my illustration idea. Therefore, most likely I will be pitching two covers tomorrow. Both are the same concept, just executed differently.

Well, with all that being said...wish me luck for tomorrow! (and good luck to the rest of my fellow designers!)

Response: Portfolio's, portfolios, portfolios

2010-02-24T20:43:00.000-06:00

Today in class we all presented our portfolios thus far, or at least everything we were willing to show to our class. I actually had a lot of fun with this. It was fun to be able to see everyone's work and what they really excel in. Designing for VOX so far this semester hasn't allowed everyone to really show off what they're strengths are, but seeing everyone's portfolio's today really allowed you to see everyone's uniqueness and individual strengths.

I have to admit, I was pretty nervous to show mine, but it ended up not being bad at all. I have a lot of newspaper design work from two semesters ago, so that is the bulk of my portfolio right now. I'm extremely excited to keep adding on to my portfolio this semester and to make it reflect more of my personal style of design. I want to add more variety to my portfolio by adding more magazine designs.

I loved the clips people had in their portfolio from the infographics class and the fiber arts paper class. It really made me regret not taking those classes, not only because both of those classes seem fun, but they also allowed for more interesting things to put in portfolios that are different from everything else.

Don't Miss This: "Snowgraphy"

2010-02-24T03:04:00.000-06:00

Hey all! So this week on netdiver.net there's a small post about "snowgraphy," or typography made out of snow.

Here' it is:

Photo courtesy of netdiver.net.

I love this! This photo is not touched up, the person who took the photo claims to have taken the photo as is. Can you tell what the snow is making? Its "E!"

First of all, I think it's a true example of how designers start to see typography everywhere, even in things like snow and clouds. Second of all, with all the snow and cold weather we've been getting this makes me want to start looking out for typography in nature. Not that I enjoy snow, or winter for that matter, but at least if it snows again I can have something to look forward to while walking to class in snowy, slushy mush.

3 Covers

2010-02-18T21:48:00.000-06:00

Hey! We had critique today so I can now put up my three cover ideas that I made for the medieval warrior story.

Here's my first cover idea:

Ideally this cover would have a real photo of someone dressed in medieval armor, but since I did not have photos available to me I used an illustration to convey my idea. I'm still trying to get a hang of Vox voice, which I tried to do in this cover. Since the story itself is written in a very sarcastic way, I wanted to describe different parts of the armor in witty, sarcastic and hopefully funny ways too. This was my first idea when brainstorming for covers, and it ended up being my favorite idea.

Here's cover 2:

For this cover I wanted to play with the idea of Columbia being described as"The Shire of Standing Stones" in the "Knowne World" that is talked about in the story. I played with a couple of ideas and then settled on Google maps. Instead of just Columbia, MO popping up in the white box I wanted it to say "The Shire of Standing Stones" as an element of surprise.

Here's my 3rd cover:

When reading the story I found myself thinking to myself a lot that this community of people who reenact medieval times in COMO seems so unreal. Also, in the beginning of the story there's a lot of talk about the noises the writer was hearing while watching these people. It made me think of comic books and the sounds bursts that can be seen in comic books. I decided to go with the comic book idea because I wanted to convey the feeling of this community seeming unreal like things you would read in a comic book.

During critique Jen and everyone else liked my first idea the best, so that's the cover I will be executing fully for critique next Thursday. Stay tuned for updates on that.

Critique: three cover ideas

2010-02-17T21:04:00.003-06:00

So this week I'm working on three cover ideas for Vox on a story about medieval warriors, which is extremely exciting. For the most part I have my three ideas done, they just need a couple of minor tweaks before presenting them in critique tomorrow. Though I do not want to put up my ideas yet, I will put them up tomorrow after critique.

When Aimee first sent us the story and told us it was about medieval warriors I was extremely excited to read the story. The story is very well written. It is intriguing, captivating, funny, witty...and many other adjectives that I don't feel like writing out. After reading through it I started to brainstorm on possible ideas for my covers. Since we have to have three completely different concepts, I started my brainstorm by thinking about things that immediately popped into my mind while reading the story. After that I re-read parts of the story and tried to think of more interesting ways to illustrate what the story made me think of. I'm still learning the art of making a good cover, and I'm still trying to figure out the Vox voice, but overall I think my covers visually portray three different aspects of the story in ways that I'm hoping someone would not originally think of.

In a nutshell, here's what my three covers have to do with (without giving anything away...hopefully...): Google, comic books and armor. Any guesses?

Response: Historical perspectives

2010-02-17T01:17:00.005-06:00

Today we each had to present the magazine and decade we chose for our historical perspective. I had never heard of a couple of the magazines that were presented in class today, so it was exciting to learn about a brand new magazine (at least to me), while also learning about the history of the magazines I admire. I loved seeing how each magazine has changed so much visually, even in just a decade.

Photo courtesy of whodatedwho.com

I personally thought Vogue was one of the most interesting, not only because of how much their design has changed over the years, but also because of the choices they were making throughout each decade. Each decade they were doing great things with their magazine, while at the same time slightly tweaking things in their design style here and there. I also found the presentation of Industrial Magazine really interesting. This is one of those magazines that I had never known about. I was intrigued by all of their layouts and their style of design. I think that Laura said they used Dada and Agha influenced designs, which I loved. A lot of their pages slightly reminded me of David Carson's designs...but maybe that's just me. I remember thinking, "I have to go pick up this magazine ASAP"...until Laura said that the magazine folded last month. Looks like I missed out.

Photo Courtesy of id-mag.com
RIP Industrial Design Magazine

Don't miss this: cameras, music and bracelets...

2010-02-15T14:17:00.003-06:00

Ok, so I found two things on netdiver.net that I wanted to share with you all this week and I couldn't decide which one to post so I decided I'd just post both...get excited. They involve three of my favorite things: cameras, bracelets and music.

The first thing is this:

Photo courtesy of netdiver.net

Photographer, Craig Arnold, broke one of his lens and decided to make bracelets and other pieces of jewelry out of it. I personally love this because I love cameras and photography, and I love bracelets. I'm always trying to find new, unique bracelets to wear, and these bracelets are definitely both of those things. Though everything in a lens of a camera is circular, I've never thought of actually wearing it as a bracelet. I think it's a great idea to take something that makes beautiful pictures into something beautiful to wear.

You can buy his beautifully crafted jewelry here, but do it quickly because I'm pretty sure they're selling fast. Warning: they are expensive, but so are camera lens so you can't blame him.

Second thing that I loved from netdiver.net:

Vanishing Point from Bonsajo on Vimeo.

I love this video. I think it's so great how the cords of the song, and some single notes, are synchronized with the graphics in the video. It makes you appreciate the song more because you not only hear the music, but it's almost as if you SEE the music through the graphics in the video. Just another great example of how design can visually help you see things, even in music.

Critique: First Department experience

2010-02-10T20:44:00.001-06:00

Hey all! So this past weekend I had my first Vox department page experience. I was really excited to finally get started on designing stuff for Vox, but then also kind of nervous in a "i just want to get my first weekend out of the way" sort of way. Anyways, I design for the Music department, so it's only one page most of the time. I love music so I was really excited when I was assigned to this department. The anchor story that I had is about RJD2, a DJ/electronica musician. I wasn't sure how long it would take me to design my first department page, so I tried to go in on Saturday to just get like a little done, but the office was closed. I ended up coming in on Sunday at noon, and was completely done by 2. It was surprisingly easy because there is a template to sort of follow for Vox. Once I got the hang of how Vox does things in regards to dealing with too much/too little text and stuff it was a lot easier. I had some trouble getting everything to fit. In fact one of the stories ended up not going on the page because there wasn't enough room and was made into an online component instead. I had to cut a lot from the anchor story and the "Hear this" section, which features albums that are about to come out. I had a lot of fun designing at Vox also because it was kind of laid back and everyone was just talking while designing, which was great. Anyways, it comes out tomorrow and I can't wait to see it in print. Once I get the PDF for my page I'll post it on here for all to see.

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Here's my department page from 2/11:

Response: Helvetica (the movie)

2010-02-09T19:10:00.000-06:00

So today we had the opportunity to watch Helvetica the movie in class. I was really excited about this, because I had heard about the movie before. Overall I really enjoyed the movie. I'll be honest, I was extremely tired today (I took an hour and a half nap right after class), so sitting in that dark, warm room did make me a little more sleepy than I would have liked. Also, I think the movie may be a little too long for a movie about a typeface. However, with that being said, I still found the movie really interesting and fun. I thought it was interesting how they interviewed different designers, such as David Carson, and got their view on Helvetica. I was surprised to see how many designers didn't really like Helvetica because they thought it was over used and was just a "default" font.

While watching the movie I tried to think about what my views on Helvetica are. I like the typeface, but I can see how some people may think its a default font because it is used so often. It's used for dozens and dozens of clothing companies and other businesses, subway stations, street signs and countless other things we see everyday. Overall, I think I've decided that I personally do like Helvetica as a typeface, but I don't know how much I like it as a type that I'd want to communicate something specific in my design since it can represent so many things. I think that because it is used so often in our everyday lives, people just overlook it and don't even think about the meaning of what they're seeing.

With that being said, I'll leave you with two different quotes from the movie that I found interesting. The first one gives the idea of Helvetica as a default font that can mean many things, and the second quote from David Carson shows what I was trying to get at with Helvetica not being a type I'd want to communicate something specific because of its simplicity and defaultness.

"You can say, "I love you," in Helvetica. And you can say it with Helvetica Extra Light if you want to be really fancy. Or you can say it with the Extra Bold if it's really intensive and passionate, you know, and it might work." - Massimo Vignelli

"Don't confuse legibility with communication. Just because something is legible doesn't mean it communicates and, more importantly, doesn't mean it communicates the right thing." - David Carson

Don't miss this: Valentine's gift idea!

2010-02-08T14:57:00.003-06:00

Hey all! So I was catching up on one of my favorite blogs, designspongeonline.com, and came across something that I just couldn't pass up without sharing. The creator of the world's smallest postal service, Lea Redmond, is altering her world's smallest postal service business to "the world's smallest valentine's packages" with a "cute as a button" theme this valentine's day season. I love this. I personally am not a fan of Valentine's Day, but I absolultely love this idea. It's only $10 to send a custom valentine's package to a significant other, and I personally think it's way more fun than getting the same cliche Valentine's gift.

Photos courtesy of designspongeonline.com.

I am a traditionalist in that I love mailing cards, letters and packages to friends, which is why I think I am enthralled by this idea so much. What a great way to take mailing packages and letters to a new and interesting level. The only thing I'd be concerned about is my package getting lost in the mail...(that's supposed to be a joke, but seriously how do they make sure that doesn't happen?)

Response: Introducing (insert star's name here)

2010-02-02T17:07:00.001-06:00

Hey all! So our next assignment in class is to design a logo for new country singer/entertainer. For those of you who are not in my capstone, we are not allowed to publish her name on our blogs, but you can play the guessing game if you want. I'll give you one hint: she loves Bourbon.

Anyways, in class today we had the opportunity to have a conference call with her and talk to her more about what she's looking for in a logo. We were able to ask her questions to try and figure out more of her personality, her music style, etc. It was really fun to get to talk to her and hear what her ideas for her logo are. Though some of her ideas, and answers to our questions, may not be the greatest, I think we as a class will be able to come up with some great logos that hopefully represent her well.

It's cool to me that she is actually putting her logo in the hands of 16 aspiring college designers. It was surreal because while we were on the phone with her she was driving to her dance rehearsal in Hollywood. I love how she hasn't been sucked into the life of Hollywood and all that it brings yet, and that she is willing to step down into reality and let "real" people design her logo. I hope that she likes what we come up with.

So, we have a "couple of weeks" to come up with 20 possible logos. Oh yeah, and did I mention that she is looking for something vintage, yet contemporary, simple, classic, fun and sexy? My response to that is as follows: "Whaaaat? Hmmmm...interesting...can't wait to get started!"

Don't Miss This: Typography cookies

2010-02-01T19:10:00.009-06:00

So, while browsing through netdiver.net I came across something I personally have never seen before.

Photo courtesy of netdiver.net

That's right, Helvetica cookies! How great is this? It would be so fun to have Helvetica cookie-cutters...but maybe I'm just a typography nerd. I'm not alone because I know that Joy Mayer would LOVE this. I digress. I've noticed that Helvetica get's a lot of fame in the design world. There are Helvetica T-shirts, Helvetica coffee mugs, even a documentary movie about Helvetica. (See trailer below).

After watching this trailer, paired with the Helvetica cookies, I am convinced that Helvetica just may take over the typography world. Seriously, I really never realized how often this simple font is used in my every day life. It is quite clearly the go-to font when it comes to signs and corporation logos. I do not use Helvetica often, but am growing more fond of it the more I see it. I appreciate it's simplicity, and am going to challenge myself to use it sometime this semester at a time where it will work best.

I love cookies and I also love Helvetica, so why wouldn't I want these Helvetica cookie-cutters? Mom, if you're reading this...I want these cookie-cutters, please and thank you.

Critique: Spring Preview

2010-01-30T15:53:00.006-06:00

Hey all! So this past week we had another class competition for the Spring Preview Issue. We all had to design a cover and one feature for the Spring Preview.

Here was my final product for my cover:

After going through a lot of brainstorming for the cover, I decided to try to go outside the box and think of something other than typical spring things like flowers, trees and rain. Finally I came upon the idea of the groundhog and how whether or not the groundhog sees his shadow distinguishes when spring would start. I went with the idea that there are so many great things happening this spring that even the groundhog will want to end winter early. I am not an artist, so I found some stock images and painted them in Photoshop. I put clouds above the groundhog, as if he were looking up at them, with different event categories such as music and festivals. I was afraid this would be too cutesy of an idea, and maybe some people think it is, but I am happy with it. I haven't quite gotten the style of Vox down yet, but I think I could have made it more sarcastic and witty if I had more time to work with it.

We also had to design a feature for the Spring Preview as well. We only had to do one month, or one spread, just to show the kind of concept and theme we would be going with inside our features. I had a tough time with this. I didn't want to bring in the idea of the groudhog or the clouds on the feature pages because it looked too clip-arty and childish when I did. Instead, I took the banner idea that I had the text in on the cover and carried it into the feature pages. I decided each month would be a different color, such as green for March. I also decided I wanted to separate the events by category, but then have a sidebar that had the dates written in more like a calender listing. I wanted to do this so that no matter what type of person was reading the feature they could easily find the events they were interested in. I wish that I could have found a way to somehow have a better concept and theme for my features, but I didn't have enough time to find a way to make the cover work with the feature better. However, though my feature didn't have an overall theme, I'm still happy with how it turned out. I think that even though it's simple and clean looking it works because there is so much information to sort through, so the design is not distracting to the readers.

Response: Me as a judge

2010-01-27T00:02:00.002-06:00

So today we got the opportunity to judge for the "City and Regional Magazine Association 2010 Preliminary" round (as told my Jan). I was really excited about this because I love looking at designs and critiquing them. I literally could have talked about all of them all day. Being a judge was really fun because we got to look at every design and decide which were our Top 5. However, this was really hard because there were so many great designs, which made it difficult to choose five out of a large group.

After everyone chose their five, we had to narrow it down to two. This was really difficult. It was hard because there was a mix of traditional designs and designs that were edgy and different. I love both, but I noticed today that I tend to lean more towards traditional designs. I don't know if it was just because those particular designs really stood out to me today out of all the others, or if I really am a "T-word" (traditionalist). I don't know if I like this idea of myself as a designer because I don't want to be stuck in a "traditional" box.

Either way, I'm happy with the four designs that we ended up with. All of them are unique and different in their own way. Unfortunately I cannot disclose the final four, but I can't wait to see what the judges do with our feedback and choices.

Don't Miss This: El Pino & the Volunteers

2010-01-25T15:04:00.009-06:00

Photo courtesy of netdiver.net

Ok, so I'm following netdiver.net and I came upon a post about a graphic designer, David Pino, from Amsterdam who is also the lead singer of a band. His band is called El Pino & the Volunteers, who I've never personally heard of.

Anyways, they have a video that is pretty much made up of only typography and them playing/singing in the background. The typography involves the lyrics of their song hanging in different areas of the set for the video. It starts out really simple, and the typography itself is a sans serif font, but as the song continues lyrics are hanging everywhere on the set. Overall, it's a straightforward idea, but I love it. I can't imagine how long it must have taken to make this video but I think it works well.

Warning: The song is not the greatest, but I think the video and the typography used in the video makes up for it.

Oh yeah, here's the video if your interested in watching it.

Enjoy!

Week 1 Critique: Competition #1

2010-01-25T14:14:00.014-06:00

Last week was my first week working for Vox, though I haven't really started working on anything that will be printed yet. Our first assignment was to design a cover page and a feature spread for the January 28th issue. We all competed against each other to try and get our designs printed.

Here was my final product from the cover story. We had two choices we could choose from for the cover, and I decided to go with the story that dealt with people personalizing their cars. The story included many examples of how people personalize their cars, such as naming them, pimping them out, or customized license plates. I decided I wanted to go with the idea of people naming their cars. Automatically this made me think of the movie Cars, so I decided I'd go with a more cartoonish look for the cover. I found a stock photo of a Jeep and colored it in on Photoshop. I wanted the Jeep to look like it was talking, which is why I added a blurb to show what it was saying. I am not very happy with the headline I chose. It took me a long time to think of one I was even semi-happy with because I, unfortunately, am not very good at coming up with witty headlines. I decided to go with "Your (CAR'S) Personality" because I felt that the people in the story who had personalized their cars showed their personality off by the way they customized their car. In essence I felt that the personality you gave your car was your personality as well. Overall, I'm not very happy with my design for the cover. I thought it would be easier to come up with a concept for the car story, but in reality it wasn't because it just wasn't that great of a story to begin with.

We also had to design a feature story for a story called "Boys II Men". The story was essentially about how boys in Columbia eventually become men. It wasn't really through things like puberty and beginning to shave, but more like hitting different stages in your life such as having a job and getting married. I wanted to go with the idea of "The Evolution of Man" so I found some silhouette stock photos and placed them in a series that somewhat resembled "The Evolution of Man". The first time I did this I realized that the photos I had pulled were all copyrighted, so I went to one of the sites for stock photos that Vox had given us and pulled some from there. I highlighted things in the feature with blue because blue is often used when adults have a little boy. Blue is the color that typically distinguishes a child as a little boy. I had trouble with this design because the story wasn't long enough to fit on all four pages in a way I liked. After spending a lot of time rearranging everything, I finally decided to devote the final page to photos of some of the guys in the story and the sidebar story. I'm much happier with the first spread of the story than I am with the second spread.

Oh yeah, I did not win the competition, but I plan to go back and re-design both the cover and the feature at some point. Since we only had a week to execute and design our concepts for the cover and feature I was not really happy with my designs at all. As soon as I redesign them I will post them here.

Coming Up!

We have another competition for a cover and a feature story that is due this Thursday (T-3 day) that I will be working on all week. It's for the Spring Preview Issue of Vox. I spent some time earlier today looking at some past Fall, Spring and Summer previews to help get an idea of what I wanted to do as my concept for the design. When I'm done with it I will post it on here too. Also, sometime sooner rather than later I am going to go back to my website I made when I was in Newspaper Design and revamp it completely. Look out for my ideas on that as well.