You Can't Miss: Free Fonts and Typography galore

Fonts are my thing. I feel like I have complete control over a project just by picking the right type. If I were to develop a personal style, it would definitely be typography based. Mostly because I'm a pansy at Illustrator and Photoshop. My favorite tool in Illustrator out of all the amazing things you can do with that program: create outlines. Boom. Original font.

I found this site, Lost Type, a little while ago while I was looking for some fresh fonts for my marketing work at my job. They had every kind of type I had in my head. And the best part? You can download for free. It's based on a pay-what-you-want model and all the money goes directly to the designer of the font. Pretty neat. So if you're looking for something a little different, but still keeping in touch with current trends, Lost Type fulfills your needs.

From Grain Edit this week, they had an awesome showcase of designer Jude Landry's work. And it's based a lot on, you guessed it, typography. I agree with the blogpost as it comments on Landry's thoughtfulness on each design. However, you can still pick up on a consistent, clean visual style throughout each piece. I love the layers of the first piece. I was so caught up studying the type that I didn't even notice the illustrations of the apple and serpent at first. Then I was like whoa...this dude is cool. The details of all the designs are ridiculous, but not overwhelming. That's the kind of style I hope to develop in this class. Thoughtful, but not crazy. Might be hard though since I pride myself on being mad.

The aesthetic appeal of this to me is unreal.

Critique: Rolling up my sleeves

This week we had our first feature package competition. Sadly, I didn't win, but the two gals that did had stellar designs.

The story was about a local roll your own (RYO) smoke shop called Roll On. While there was a text story to accompany it, this was overall a photo story. I enjoy photo editing, but honestly I didn't enjoy this particular story. There weren't any verticals and hardly a place for a vertical crop, so everything was horizontal. Talk about static visuals. They weren't bad photos, just hard to work with and to create a story. So instead of a linear story, I decided to try to create a mood/feeling.

The most interesting part of the story to me was the community aspect of the shop. There was a beautiful line in the story that illustrated this perfectly: "...the shop creates a refuge from the "phobia" of smoking, a nod to the stalemate between collective public health and individual rights for smokers." I am still a writer at heart and that line is one of those "holy shit I nailed it" lines. So I took that feel of the story and ran with it.

The first thing I thought of was the Aaron Eckhart mockumentary Thank You for Smoking and thought that was a better title than "Roll on, Columbia". Sorry Vox staff. But apparently no one liked mine either so I suppose we'll agree to disagree. I thought it captured the geniality and lightheartedness of the shop and its owner and nodded a bit to the economic part of the story (thank you, as in, you're keeping us in business, so thanks for feeding your habit here). I led with the shop owner's portrait, of course not without a cigarette in his hand, because he was the center of the entire story.

I can't tell you why I chose the font I did for this design; honestly, it just felt "right". I knew I wanted tall, sort of skinny sans-serifs and landed on Muncie and Arvil. I guess it reminds me of cigarrettes standing in a pack or the warning labels (which is kind of ironic I suppose since it says "thank you").

For the next page I chose to lead with the lighting up photo because the hands cupped around the lighter and the dark contrasting with the light gave me a "safe haven" feel, which is the mood I was going for. The other half, I chose pictures that all had to do with the community aspect of the shop. The relaxed feeling and comfortableness of the shots appealed to me so I wanted to group them all together to create the tone.

I had the most trouble with the last page and trying to wrap it up. I chose to showcase how the cigarrettes were actually made with the top photo (also nods to the diversity of people that come in to roll their own, look at that fancy ass jewelry!) and then end with the owner cleaning and closing up shop because that seemed natural. I also love how he has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth; it just adds to the carefreeness of the shop (not everyday in today's society that you see people freely smoking inside a store).

I wasn't sure what to do with the cover, especially because all the cover-esque photos were pretty cliche and overdone (kid lighting up, hand with cigarette and pretty smoke wafting off, etc.). I wanted to pick something that would highlight what the story was about so readers wouldn't be confused so I settled on the stacks of rolled cigs photo. I really like this photo for aesthetic reasons, but it was hard to get it to work on the cover because of the bokeh and stuff. Once I got the title placed, I realized I needed a place for sell lines, which would cover up the main part of the photo. I opted for a transparent box, but I don't think it worked out too well and kind of ruined the effect of the photo. Aesthetically as far as colors and font, I was pleased, but with the overall execution, I could have done better. And that goes for the whole design. I think with my spreads I got too caught up with "designing" and didn't showcase the photos enough.

I was pretty pleased with my sweet sell lines though, bro. ;)

As for the rest of the week, we've got Spring Preview due on Friday which I'm pretty excited about. Illustrator here I come. I've also got cover concepts due tomorrow for the first round of cover competitions. The feature is all about death and the afterlife. Dun. Dun. Dun. How dramatic.

Sorry for the novel,
KC

Response: Judge not lest ye be judged

So if I'm going to make a cliche (I can't find the accented e...aka I just pressed a bunch of buttons on the keyboard and nothing worked) pop culture reference, I suppose I was a Randy Jackson during the City and Regional Magazine design judging yesterday. No, I didn't say "yo. yo. yo. yo dawg. yo." Looking back, I kind of wish I did though. I was just pretty neutral without being a vodka-soaked "I love everything" Paula Abdul. In short, I kept it real. Dawg.


I'm not sure what kind of qualifications Jan thinks I have to be judging magazines like Texas Monthly and Los Angeles, but I tried my hardest to remember all I could about what makes good design. I know what I like and don't like, but that doesn't necessarily mean I have an eye for design just yet. Everyone looked like they were having fun, but honestly I felt just a tad guilty. I know it was a preliminary judging and all, but still. I've taken one class on magazine design and while I'm confident in my abilities, I don't think the creative director of Texas Monthly is sold. Or maybe he is? Call me, T.J. We'll talk.

I think the most interesting part was how Jan told us at the end how subjective and arbitrary judging magazines can be. I hadn't noticed until she said anything, but I was quite crabby and tired. And I'm trying to quit caffeine/pop so I was more crabby and tired than usual. This probably, actually it definitely, affected my choices and opinions in general.

However, through my disgruntled haze of my new caffeine-free lifestyle, I was inspired by the designs of almost every magazine. Los Angeles was my pick for 1st place because I liked their layout and consistency the best. They also had some awesome graphics about breakfast food and I hate breakfast food, so the fact that they got my mouth watering for an egg sandwich was telling. It also "felt" the most like the city it was catering to; it screamed L.A. to me. Boston had some amazing illustrations and typographic work as well. I'm a sucker for good typography over some fancy photoshopped thing any day. Texas Monthly, aka my future place of employment, was, as always, excellent. Although, I wasn't impressed with their covers as much as I usually am. They were pretty plain and predictable compared to the great illustration and photo work that I've grown to love them for. And their ability to visually communicate wit and humor. If you haven't noticed, I'm a huge fan of wit and humor. Or maybe you haven't because you don't think I'm funny.

All hail Mack Brown. 

Yo.

As the Cool Kids would say, lemme tell you a little bit about myself. Like the Cool Kids, I'm also from Chicago (south side, best recognize). I guess more importantly though, my name is Kelsey Carroll.

I don't really have any hobbies or do awesome things, but I do listen to awesome music, drink awesome shooters and sit around and soak up my friends' awesomeness (Mean Girls anyone?).

I have a sick obsession with music and would much rather finish singing the song that's playing than carry on a conversation with someone.

I have a fat cat named Abbey who, depending on the time of day, is either my best friend or my worst enemy.

If I ever met Lady Gaga I would truly be able to die happy.

I love paper bags (and the song Paper Bag by Fiona Apple).

I have a strangely bad temper but no one would ever know it.

I want to live in Austin and go to a concert every day for the rest of my life.

If you haven't read Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman, I expect you to go buy a copy and start right after you finish this sentence.

You better be going to Barnes and Noble and not reading this sentence telling you to go to Barnes and Noble.

Yeah that's how my mind rolls. A million things at once tumbling after one another. Hopefully I can turn all this madness into design that works. Oh. Madness. That also reminds me: I have a second sick obsession with Alice in Wonderland.

Stay mad,
KC