Critique: Spring Preview

I thought I was going to struggle with this assignment since it was unrestrained creative freedom. I kind of freak out when I don't have some kind of guidelines. However, I ended up having more fun with this spread than any other design I've done in the past. And I'm pretty darn proud of how it turned out.

When I think of spring, naturally I think of bright colors. Bright colors make me think of the 80s (a decase of which I'm not very fond of ironically). The 80s make me think of 8-bit video games. And voila. There's my theme. For once, my wavering stream of consciousness worked out for me. 

I wanted to originally illustrate actual video games like Tetris and Space Invaders and turn them into a spring setting/theme. For example, the Space Invaders would be like little umbrellas because that's what they look like to me and Tetris shapes could be falling down like rain. But, I wasn't sure if that was considered stealing or not, so I just went with a simpler layout. 

Simple works here for me because that's what 8-bit is about: flat graphics made of pixels. I also think it worked well because it's not a stereotypical spring thing, but I worked it into being part of a spring theme. Here's what I came up with for the cover:

I wanted to make it look like a Spring Preview video game start screen. I was really happy with how my illustrations turned out since this is the first time I've actually made something totally original as far as a graphic. I think the Vox box also worked nicely since it's like a big pixel. I know that it's simple and not visually complex, but I was happy with the aesthetics since I was finally able to envision something in my mind and make it happen on paper (or screen...).

I could have played with my splash page a little bit more since it's really similar to the cover. I was having trouble grasping how different this page was supposed to be/how much info was supposed to be on it.

I tried to add a visual difference with the green "screen" at the bottom. My video game geek friend said that was a nice touch since in 8-bit you get these random error messages and loading screens in the middle of the game. So I tried to emulate that effect, like these announcements/features were trying to load into the game. 

I wasn't happy with my spread until I really looked at it. Usually it's the opposite: I really like it until I stare at it too much and nitpick at everything until it changes completely. Because I'm neurotic like that.

I had trouble trying to lay this out with all the freaking events we were given to put on the pages. I could have done a better job picking and choosing information for sure. Or maybe just featuring one story on the spread instead of two. But there were also a lot of those and they were short, so I wanted to do two for the spread I turned in so it didn't just look like a boring calendar entry while people were judging which design to pick. 

I thought it looked too simple and stupid when I first did it but I had no idea where to go from what I had. Then I just got frustrated and said "F-it, I'm printing." Then after I got it all cut and mounted and was able to study it more and figure out why I did what I did, I enjoyed it a lot more. The color bars kind of mimic the up, down, left, right motions of 8-bit games (I think at least...that may be me just trying to convince myself I did a good job). 

My coins turned out kind of wonky and I definitely could have developed it a bit more, but overall I'm pleased with my use of color and white space and sticking to a theme/being able to emulate it fairly well. But that stupid orange line on the left side of February can fall off the page now. Kthx. I don't know what I was thinking there.