Critique: EAT NOW. DAMNIT.

I know I haven't presented my prototype to the class yet, but it's the only thing I have that I designed last week. Don't worry, you'll get covers AND the True/False feature next week. Yeah. Get amped.

So I had trouble with this at first because I really had no idea how our team wanted to brand this magazine, especially when they gave us a title like "Eat Now". I honestly didn't hear the demanding tone in it that everyone was talking about on Tuesday, but now I can't stop thinking about it. I mostly just hated the way it sounded in general. Who's going to say that to someone? "Hey Marge, did you read the new issue of Eat Now?" Gross.

I tried to find my color palette and typefaces first since that's what I felt most comfortable with. I tried a million combinations on kuler.adobe but couldn't get something that seemed right. Then, in Illustrator I discovered there was a whole section of color palettes based on food. BAM. I knew I wanted orange, so I modified the Avocado palette which consisted of greens and yellows and tans. Then I threw in this coral-ish kind of color for more pop. They wanted a bright color palette and I think I did an ok job with coming up with something that didn't look little kiddish, but still looked fresh.

For typefaces, I wanted to have subtle variety, but enough contrast to make for visual interest instead of just a bunch slabs on paper. This is what I came up with:

Don't worry. Two of those typefaces are just for the logo. I'm not that crazy.

For the cover, I wanted a full-bled photo because, well, I love food. I also love Food Network magazine but I HATE their covers. They're too full of sell-lines and often use cut-out food items on a white background. So I wanted to steer clear of that. I also wanted to have a bit more play with the sell-lines if I had to have them so I messed with color and size. Oh, and my logo. I'm not really sure what inspired me for that, but I loved the Beimo type for "now" because it seemed inviting instead of demanding and the Airplane type for "eat" because I didn't want something too heavy implying like EAAATTT FATTY. I also realize I should have used a photo where the limes weren't squeezed out, but I liked that it gave a sense of ingredients, thus introducing the readers to the theme without giving away a whole dish.

For the department pages, I listened to what the group wanted from the magazine and designed it so that the recipes could easily be pulled out from the magazine. That's what they said they ideally wanted so I tried to accomodate for that. I also just liked having an excuse to blow up pictures of Mexican food. I took a look at how Food Network laid their recipes out and tried to emulate that kind of organization with my own design elements added. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out as a rough start, but I know I need to work on white space and balancing things out.

I can't wait to hear your guys' critique tomorrow so I can make it absolutely fabuloso :)