Critique: Food Feature

So my apologies, I can't get on the server from my laptop so I don't have the PDFs to show you now for the food feature. But you can see it tomorrow! I'll get them up here tomorrow at some point in case you want to see non-newsprint versions.

I was really proud of the way it turned out. Since the photos weren't like totally stellar or anything, I wanted my typography to be subtle and the crops to be bolder to add some oomph to the photos. I think my fish one is the favorite. Those colors.....yum.

I tried to take the detail shots and make them just like nice scene setters or backgrounds to the main photos of the people in the farmer and the garden stories. I also tried to use some nice spot colors to give a nice tone to the package. It's very earthy and natural feeling.

Helvetica Neue Ultralight is my weakness. I've been wanting to design a package with this all semester long so I figured I'd take this as my last chance to try to sell it. I think it worked really nicely with this particular package because the stories are about eating healthier, knowing where you're food comes from, etc. so it's not like a gluttonous food package. I think the lightness of the type also helps the colors in the photos pop.

Also, props to Kathryn for her wonderfully done salt charticle using the style I set up. Looks really good!

You Can't Miss: Postcards and Star Wars

Grainedit had a very fitting post for us graduating seniors this week. It's a series of postcards that are supposed to represent "everywhere and nowhere at once." It kind of reminded me of an updated "oh the places you'll go" sorta deal. It just made me smile because we're all going to be going on hopefully exciting journeys after graduation and the cards just reminded me that it's ok to get lost :)

For my last random find, I've got some hipster-esque Star Wars posters - as if Star Wars wasn't geek chic enough. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the popart one; that whole thing kind of seems overdone and a bit of a copout for commercialized design (people know it will sell to the general public). But the rest of them are pretty nifty; I especially like the last ones that illustrate the vehicles or whatever they are and the ships.

Response: World Wide Web of Opinions

So I think we've all learned the lesson that websites are a lot harder than we think. It's hard to put yourself into the mindset of an average web user and then make a design that can play to that "skill set" if you will. Everything should be an average type size, a web safe font and easyeasyeasyeasy to find. This limits your creativity on the web immensely.

I'm of the mind that people are not dimwitted. And that people who are hiring designers will respect a more atypical layout (LeAnn's comes to mind obviously). While I respect the right to be awesome, you also have to make the website usable and accessible. You don't want someone to turn away because they think you can't code correctly. I think we've all learned this semester with Vox and the book covers that compromise is an inevitable part of design.

I do like that we've all come into our own though. The comments are so much more critical and on the flip side, people are standing up for their designs a lot more. It was great to see the push and pull in this critique. From that kind of conversation usually comes great ideas, whether they're completely new or a brilliant solution to an old one.

I think the most important part of web presence is to stay true to who you are as a person and a designer. Don't make a standard site just because you think it looks more professional and clean. If you're bold or whacky or classic or contemporary, emulate that in your site. You want to be working for someone who wants YOU as a designer, not someone who wants the predictable, templated person that's on Cargo.

You Can't Miss: GD Books, Air Jordans and Pantonemania

This week on grainedit they featured a coffee table book that looks gorgeous and a couple of graphic design must-haves. I'd like to check out the social change book because I think it's awesome when graphic design can make a real impact and incite change.

From thedieline.com they featured the design for the new "Year of the Dragon Air Jordans." While the shoes are quite ugly, in my opinion, the design is simply lovely. I like the way the designer was able to incorporate the modern AJ logo with the elaborate traditional Chinese design. Near the bottom they also have pictures of the original sketches. Pretty cool to see the process of doing a complex illustration. I'm thinking this designer also had to hear a lot from marketing execs since it's one of the most recognizable brands today ;)

Also, Pantone announced 336 new colors today. How do they do it? Rather than show you shades of nonsense, here's an adorable photoshoot of tarts that are presented as Pantone swatches.

Critique: The Drama, the Drama!

I hope at least some of you got that Apocalypse Now reference twist ;)

So this week was one of miscommunication and frustration and eventually resolution. I didn't even think my cover was going to get chosen. Honestly, I just thought of the idea randomly and decided to execute it because I thought it was fun and made me chuckle. I mean, it was content-driven, but mostly I was just having fun with it. I was happy with what I turned in and apparently so were the editors because they picked it.

So I spruced it up on Sunday and all was good. The illustration was supposed to be cartoonish because it was supposed to be comic book esque without being overly Lichtenstein as to mimic Brittany's feature. I was pleasantly surprised to become attached to the idea as it shaped into a more complete concept.

Tuesday I got word that some people didn't like the cover at all and that they wanted a photo cover instead. To put it bluntly, I was peeved. Tuesday is not the time to be completely reconceptualizing a cover. Especially when the suggestion is to put 9 photos on the cover when they're already on both the splash page and in the feature itself. Talk about repetitive. So I fixed up the illustration a bit and added rings so it wasn't like fists butting heads or something. I wanted to get across that it was about powers uniting.

Getting a call at 9 am to come into Vox to change the cover on production day when you're at work trying to make money so you can move to Austin is slightly infuriating. However, at least Jen was on my side and apologized for all the mix ups and miscommunications. I was under the impression that I was supposed to try new ideas and if they didn't work, then we were just going to go with what we had because obviously there was something about it that made them pick it over two other choices. While walking I had an idea to cutout the basketball girls and put the same stroke around them as the one around Dynamic so that I could keep my typography. I tried that and gave options without the stroke and the full picture as well. We went with the full picture one because they said the stroke one made it look religious or something. Whatever.

I'm actually pleased with how it turned out. The colors work well with the photo and the pose is generic "dynamic duos" enough to please everyone. Hooray for playing it safe.

Response: Book Cover

Tuesday was fun. I liked seeing everyone's reactions to all the different opinions being tossed around. I think Brittany's might have been my favorite when they told her her design was too "progressive" haha.

I'm used to the marketing kind of criticism from my job and I've learned to work within the parameters that they want me to, but this was different in that I got to start out doing whatever I wanted and now it has to be fit into the needs of the marketing people. I think a lot of people thought that lady was being a bit harsh or too conservative, but really she was just doing her job. Marketing is a whole different medium of design and writing than editorial. I'll admit, I was kind of let down that I'll have to change my white cover, but I totally get that the jacket has to be easily accessible to multiple platforms of usage and has to be able to work in all sizes. It's like designing a logo. You have to make sure it will look good both big and small because it's going to be put on everything.

The one thing that never occurred to me was the authors being involved in picking the cover. I felt like a dummy for not considering that. I can totally see where they were trying to mitigate any disputes that may arise with the authors since the book is their lovechild.

I loved Dwight; he was cracking me up with his soft voice and charged opinions. He seems like a great advocate for us and will get the best, most creative covers published. Good luck to everyone, can't wait to see which ones get picked!

You Can't Miss: Posters and More posters

Grainedit featured a design group from L.A. called DKNG. They do some really cool gig poster work, especially with typography and illustration. I love how they all make you do a double take and realize the complexity of the concept within the beautiful artwork.

In other parts of the intertubez, I found that the 20-year-old kid who got so much recognition for this little number:

got commissioned by Coke to do a poster for them for their "Open Happiness" campaign. I liked that he mentioned that he likes "visual puns" because I like puns of all kinds. I'd like to incorporate this kind of humor coupled with impact into my work.

Critique: Book Covers

Now that we have another couple of days for book covers, I'm excited to continue to execute ideas. I still feel like I'm falling short, but I'm definitely going in a better direction than before. I've asked my southern politics professor to help me decipher the text, so hopefully I'll have an even better understanding of it by the weekend.

I went with the more intellectual side of the story since it's talking about how literacy was held in such high esteem in the south and the development of southern thought/ideas. It also talked about how they were trying to hold on to a "dissolving past" so I tried to play with that idea as well with the grungy American flag in the geek-chic glasses (playing on that past/future idea). The argyle one just plays on that pattern as a symbol of academia like tweed. The dictionary one is obvious (the description talked a lot about "men of letters" so I thought a dictionary entry would be a good way to try and represent that). The last one is one I've been working on as of late. I tried to literally make a man of letters like a typographic illustration. I couldn't get it to work out right though so I just went with the silhouette (which needs to be cleaned up). I'm trying to figure out what to do with the background. Possibly letter stamps/blocks or something or some kind of iconography pattern or something. Now that I have more time I think I can make that one look really polished.

Response: Cover Competition

So since I've been and still am sick (perfect timing right?) and couldn't make it to the M meeting on Tuesday, I will respond to the first round of Dynamic Duo covers on Thursday.

Honestly....I was kind of peeved. I'm usually pretty level headed when it comes to critiques because I know that everyone else can make my work better with a fresh set of eyes. However, I spent a lot of time on coming up with a fresh concept/way to illustrate the idea of "dynamic duos" and I feel like they were received like they were lazily done. Obviously my execution wasn't complete, but I feel like my ideas were there and represented. Maybe they weren't the best ideas, but they also weren't my first ideas slapped on a page. And this is not meant to play down the other designers' pieces, it's just about how mine were received.

I was always told that your first ideas are your first because they're the most generic ones. Unless you're recreating them in a whole new way, just get them out of your head and go forward. I'm not saying that my ideas were profound or anything, but at least I tried to go beyond the 5 minute thought process. I figured since it's kind of an abstract thing to represent and you can't represent a whole group of people with one photo, I'd try to go abstract with the design. We'll see how it improves tomorrow. If I can stop coughing at my computer.

You Can't Miss: Type (duh) and Philosophical BS

From grainedit this week, a type designer from Barcelona was featured: Laura Meseguer. Her work is bold and fun, but still legible. It's not just display type or character type. I love the personality in her work coupled with the functionality of the type. It also feels very geographic to me, like I can totally get Barcelona from some of these.

Look at that freaking n. I want to eat it.

After perusing the webz for something fun, I finally stumbled on (though not from stumbleupon) these great posters that explain philosophical theories like realism and nihilism. They simplify these overly complex theories in a fun and light way. I like the irony of using something simple to explain a complex topic, so maybe it's not that complex afterall if it can be explained with a shape....? I'm so philosophical. Like philosoraptor. Below are some of my favorites, but here's the full post for you to ponder.

Response: So many ideas

So you guys are awesome. But you already knew that.

It was so great to see everyone's 20 ideas. Even though some of them got a little crazy, it was cool to see everyone's whacky side. It sounded like it was a challenge for everyone, but I think we all did a pretty good job of trying not to repeat the same idea in 20 different ways.

It was nice to go around and get to give our input on which ones to work on. It can either be surprising or reaffirming, and we seemed to have a mix of reactions. I know I usually get too attached to an idea and sometimes it's not necessarily a great one, so to get others' input is eye opening and helpful (duh). For some people it was hard for me to pick just 3 because I thought there were several strong ones, but I guess that's not very helpful to say "omgzzzz i totally like like everyyyyythinnnngggggg". It's also annoying.

I'm particularly excited to see the people's finals that made sketches. I think sketching is a great way to start, even if you're like me and horrible at it. It helps you visualize what you're going to do on the computer better and I think aids in execution since you don't limit yourself in your ideas. There's some things I know I can't necessarily do in Adobe, so if I start on the computer I won't do them. But if I sketch and I think I have a great idea, I can push myself to execute that idea on screen. So kudos to you guys; I'll be doing some sketching this weekend myself :)

Critique: ABCD - A Book Cover Drama

So you'd think I'd be ok at book cover designing since as editorial designers we strive to tell the story. Well when the book isn't exactly a story it makes it a bit more difficult. Actually, a lot more difficult.

I picked the book without art because I wanted to push myself to come up with solutions for the lack of visual representation for the book. I'm still pretty confused about what the book is actually about because the description is very academic. Like I said though, I like the history of the South and its politics/development, so I thought I'd be interested enough in the topic to help me figure out a solution.

So since the book is more of a thesis than a story, I wanted to make a nice, clean typographic cover, like a textbook-ish kind of looking, but more visually appealing. I couldn't really figure out a good way to illustrate cultural conservatism, so I tried to think of how my books from the class I had looked and how I like the way just type covers with bold colors look. I realize a lot of my designs were just because I couldn't think of anything, so I just threw some shapes and colors together. But a lot of them I tried to represent southern cultural conservatism in my type choices. Lots of serifs, traditional looking. Reds and oranges. Red, white and blue. I never thought I'd be the person who needed to do 20 more designs to actually get somewhere, but I'm glad I found that out now instead of later.

I need to sit down and re-evaluate my approach because obviously it wasn't working. I need something more representative for a book cover. I have to find the story within this piece of academic work to illustrate on the cover. I wish there was a Google translate for superfluous language (see what I did there...cuz the book is Superfluous Southerners?). Anyway, with that said, I'll probably have 3-5 totally different ideas for Tuesday because I'm not particularly proud of anything that I did.

Critique: Logos are hard

Logos are hard.

I had to say it twice in case you thought I was kidding.

Last week, I got a little commission work from a grad student to make a logo for her grant project that she's working on with the Health Department. It's for something called Health Impact Assessments (HIAs). Basically it's a mitigation tactic for minimizing health risks associated with building new infrastructure and stuff. So like if the city proposed to build a new road, they would conduct an HIA beforehand to evaluate how it would affect people's health (i.e. transportation to hospitals, digging up stuff, etc.).

It's kind of an abstract issue since you could have an HIA with anything. But mostly it's about the community, environment and health. So she wanted the greens and blues, kind of natural colors. I'm supposed to come up with 3-5 concepts by the time we get back from break and it's been gruesome just trying to come up with one let alone multiples. I'm not really good at multiples. I kind of come up with one concept and then either build on it or continue to bend and shape it until it becomes something completely different and hopefully better. So this will be a challenge, but hopefully one that will teach me to expand my conceptual thinking.

Here's what I've come up with so far (this is the first one I've done today so bear with me...is it bear or bare? I like thinking of bears rather than naked bodies so we'll go with that):

I wanted to do a kind of overlapping effect since it involves so many different aspects. Then I attempted for the road imagery in the middle to point to a specific area of what they do and the A can be seen as like a big infrastructure or something. I'm trying to play with the H to make it some kind of community imagery or something. I think the black may be a little harsh in the middle, maybe I'll lighten it up to a shade of gray and add a yellow line in between, but I don't want to be too bombarding with the concepts. I'd rather it be subtle. I like logos that make you go "omg I didn't see that!". We'll see if I get to that point of logo work...but look at that Helvetica. So soothing, yet authoritative.

Response: How Am I Designing? Call 1-800-CS54EVR

There are three people's opinions that truly matter to me when it comes to design: Jan, Theresa and my boyfriend (a graphic designer). Not to say that your guys' opinions don't; it's more I actually get nervous having to show these three my work. 

My portfolio review went way better than expected and that is seriously reassuring. I still feel like I'm in that weird transition period of ex-writer turned designer and thus, still feel amateurish. I'm really going to focus on pushing myself these last few weeks to produce some designs I'm truly proud of. At least I've got some self-esteem to ride out on. 

With the opinions of everyone in the class now mixed with the feedback from up top, I feel like I can finally move forward and have a better idea of what I should improve and continue to develop. This is seriously the first time in four freaking years that I feel like I've learned something valuable from the J-school and that someone really does care about me going somewhere after graduation. It kind of makes all the frustration and nights spent crying on the phone to mom worth it. I'm ready to finish up and get out of here with my head held high. I want to say thanks to everyone for everything so far this semester. It's been the best experience I could have hoped for. /end sappy sentiments 

You Can't Miss: Eye Candy and Display Type

I'm sad to say that I feel like I've been stuck in a rut design-wise. I feel like I'm producing the same content over and over. I needed a good dose of beautiful inspiration to cheer me up and this post from Design Resource Box is helping me get back on track. I found this from the InDesign Facebook page; if you guys don't already "like" them or whatever it's called on fbook now, I highly suggest it. They're always posting cool shit. Like what we're supposed to be doing. Here's some samples from the post that particularly caught me drooling:

From grain edit this week, there's a super cool new display type that was featured called Alicia. I love the mixture of both the mod and the vintage feel I get from this font. While I don't feel like it could work for an entire title or anything, it'd be great for a standout letter or word. And of course a typographic illustration or poster art. Check out the Hype for Type foundry too; some pretty neat stuff on there and some demo versions that are free to play around with.

Response: Heil-vetica and More

Helvetica. Is. Everywhere. See? 


I remember when I first discovered Helvetica (I was a late-comer...so un-hipster of me). It was at my job and they finally gave me a Mac and there it was in all its wonder. I was obsessed with Helvetica-Neue UltraLight. I wanted it everywhere. So I can definitely see why it took off and people used it in mass production the way they did. 


The most interesting part of the documentary, I thought, was the multiple opinions on the font. People either wanted to do everything to stay away from it or praised it for its pure genius. I've never heard so much passionate talk about a typeface before (and the geek inside of me loved it). I believe it was the guy who created Gotham that was talking about how you can say anything in Helvetica and it takes on that meaning. Then David Carson went on the rant about how Helvetica can't possibly be "caffeinated" or "explosive", etc. It was great to see so many different philosophies about typography from such talented people. This was also reassuring that there's no right or wrong way; you just have to be good at what you do. And now some Helvetica hilarity:

The first chapter I read in Just My Type was Chapter 12 about naming fonts you see around you. This chapter spoke to me because I always try to do that and it frustrates me when I can't figure it out or even come up with a guess. It's amazing the little details in each typeface that can giveaway or rule out a guess. I found Marker Felt on a No Parking sign once and immediately sent a picture to my graphic designer friend. Of course, I'm not nearly well-versed enough in the ever-expanding font encyclopedia to have any right to be making my rudimentary guesses, but it's still fun to me. And I'm glad there's a whole community of people who are tickled by the same fancies. 


The next one I enjoyed, coincidentally, was the next chapter (13) that talked about Erik Spiekermann, his fonts and philosophy on typography, and the history of German fonts. I thought it was interesting how he said that he never wants people to pick up an editorial piece and say "what a cool typeface", he wants them to say "what a cool article". I think that speaks true to what we do as magazine designers; we're there to communicate to the reader, not to create arrogant design. I also liked his "messy" approach to creating typefaces. He makes imperfect fonts that work. "We have to create warmth in a digital world," he says. The latter part of the chapter goes into the history of the identity of certain fonts (like the gothic fonts with the Nazi Party) and I thought it was incredibly insightful when Matthew Carter was talking about fonts losing their cultural identity in today's society. He talks about how he could have been blindly taken anywhere and know exactly where he was based on the typefaces on buildings, restaurants, etc. But nowadays in the digital age, a font can cross the world in a matter of seconds and never gets a chance to be associated with an origin.


Chapter 16, which is about pirates and clones, was another one of my favorites. I never knew there was such controversy surrounding Arial. Can you see the differences? I think the book is right about how once you do, you can't unnotice them. 

It was also quite interesting how in order to protect your font from copyright infringement, every single letter in every single weight and form has to apply for its own individual patent (obviously an expensive endeavor for fonts that aren't Helvetica or Arial). I thought there was more protection for something that is used everyday. I feel bad about downloading from dafont now :/ Protect our typographers! 

Critique: Vox5

I've been wanting to do the Vox5 forever now. The iPad means bold colors, big text and luscious photos. When Rachel emailed me about doing it she said that they wanted to start pushing for more typographic/illustrative covers instead of just photos. At first I thought, why start this push for pure creativity with me? I was kind of dreading it because I didn't want to let anybody down when they found out I'm not THAT creative. But then I accepted it as a challenge to my abilities and went in with my chin high and my magic mouse charged.

So I think I've mentioned this before, but I freaking love concert posters. I hope to one day possess the amount of skill it takes to execute one, but a lot of them rely heavily on hand drawn work, a talent which I will most likely never possess (elementary art class was hard). So to those of you artists in the class, if you like music, DO A CONCERT POSTER. Because I'm jealous and you should be using your talents and creative minds to their fullest and I can only imagine great work would come of it.

This relates, I promise. So the music section was about Matt Nathanson coming to the Blue Note so I decided, hey, what's more illustrative/typographic than concert posters? I brought my giant book of gig posters with me for inspiration and began trying to emulate the style. I think it turned out looking like more of an album cover or something, which is ok with me, but I'm happy that I at least tried something different for me.

I picked Futura because 1) it looks great in all caps and 2) it's legible enough that I can have effects going on with it. I always liked the overlapping style and thought it worked nicely to give that poster-like effect. I didn't want to have a whole lot going on with the illustration part since the logo and the text still had to be there, so I just went for a cutout of his hair (and nose ring...a guy with a nose ring?). I wasn't sure if this would make sense since he's probably not that recognizable (like if I did Slash with his tophat, everyone would know what I was doing). So to make up for that concern I tried to create a cohesive texture between the typography and the illustration to give it identity. I like the contrast of the grungy texture with the clean, uniform lines of Futura. I think it creates a nice push and pull with the typography and the art. There's also texture in the yellow background (I don't know if you can tell since it's just a screenshot) which creates another layer of contrast/cohesiveness with the bold color vs. the texture.

I think I could have pushed myself to do something more complex, but I'm pretty happy with the overall effect that I managed to conjure up.

You Can't Miss: Iconography and If Superheroes were Hipsters

This week for you I have a combination of my two favorite things: cute shit and funny shit.

From grain edit, I bring you adorable icons made by Dutch designer Tim Boelaars. These are clean and bold and actually kind of funny. They're just so happy looking. I love the quirkiness of it. This is a perfect example of when flat design works; there's no texture or effects but it's still presenting a message/tone that works. Who knew guns could be so cute?

And now, from College Humor surprisingly, I bring you a wonderful little series: If Superheroes were Hipsters. There are a bunch of these series out there, but I found College Humor's to be particularly hilarious (obvi). I thought they did a great job of interpreting each hero's costume (is that the right word?...don't mean to offend comic book connoisseurs) into a hipster uniform. The PBR Iron Man is cracking me up, but the pose of Spiderman (and the witty Peter Parker photog reference) makes him my instant favorite.

Critique: Black and Gold

This past week I haven't done anything for class besides department pages on Sunday, but I don't have the PDFs for those so I figured I'd shake it up. If that's alright with y'all.

I have a marketing assistant/graphic design position at the School of Information Science & Learning Technologies. It's a division of the College of Education here at MU. Did ya get all that? Yeah. Try putting that name on third of a page info cards.

I generally love my job, but sometimes it can be frustrating. Especially when it comes to the marketing stuff for our services and master's programs/degrees. EVERYTHING HAS TO BE BLACK AND GOLD AND HAVE A STACKED MU ON IT. So. Much. School. Spirit.

It's also sometimes hard to be creative with typography and layout because it has be official looking or whatever. Not to mention I've got 10 different opinions floating around in my head from cool people like my boss and then from stuffy academic professors. I've learned a lot from this job about how to communicate and problem solve to fit other people's ideals with my design style.

So I work in the section of the office with the web guys, who are awesome. My latest project is designing an info card that explains what the web department does and what services they offer. And of course the #1 guideline: it has to be black and gold. So I figure if I have to make an info card about something complicated like computer programming and it has to be a boring color palette, I'm going to make it fun. Because the guys are fun and although what they do isn't glamourous, it's essential and keeps the department running virally. So I wanted to spice up their info card and make it special. We'll see how that flies...Here's what I've got for the front so far. It's simple, but believe me, simple is so much better than the amount of text they usually make me cram on a single side of a card.

I just wanted to make it attention grabbing on the front and then put all the info on the back. I wanted SISLTweb to stick out because obviously that's what the card is about. So it kind of looks like a title to the card, plus integrates into the question. I'm banking on my use of "you" to get people on my side (marketing people love direct address to the customer). I'm hoping they'll be pleased with the freshness of it. Then maybe I can redo everything else in this style so that we have a cohesive theme throughout our materials (which are just a mess of different styles, sizes, layouts, colors, everything). We shall see. You guys think editors are bad...try dealing with one of those bosses that think "synergy" is a real thing.

You Can't Miss: Gorgeous photography and Font humor

So I really love photography. I like pretending to be able to shoot magazine-worthy photos but I am totally ok with just sitting back and letting the professionals do it.

It's kind of sad because nowadays with phone cameras (phonetography) and easy to use high-quality cameras, everyone thinks they're a photographer. Some of my good friends are photo-j kids and my favorite rant they go on is about "momtographers". AKA a mom who got a cheap SLR and now thinks she can professionally take pictures of your babies and families. There are Facebook pages abound for these mommy dearests with kit lenses, bless their hearts.

So this stuff from Patrik Lindell may seem simple, but I've taken photo classes here and holy Batman is it hard to get the exact right composition to make a visually beautiful photo. I mean technically everything is art, right? But you know the difference between mediocre and fabulous. I trust you guys have taste.

I could stare at that grey building forever. Something about it is so....right. His ability to see beauty in everyday architecture and patterns is incredible. Just gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous dahling.

So for some comic relief, I found an article from Cracked about fonts and what they really mean. It's just a good lighthearted piece that actually makes some valid points along the way.