This week from the Daily Heller

I thought this would be an appropriate post with True/False coming up this weekend. 

This is a documentary about objects and their design. I think it's really cool because it shows that design is all around us! Take a look and let me know what you think!

Portfolio reviews

I'm really impressed so far with everyone's portfolios. I think the process of deciding what to include in the portfolio can be really challenging, and I'm glad we're all working together to help each other have awesome portfolios. It can be really confusing when you hear different things from different people about how to present your work.

Does anyone have any past experiences/stories about taking a portfolio into an interview? Maybe some advice from previous employers/jobs?

BUSY WEEK!!

This past week, and weekend especially, were cram packed with design!

Over the weekend I worked on the True/False Film Festival feature for VOX with Maggie. I'll wait to post this one because I want you all to see it tomorrow! It was really fun working on this feature...a lot of work...but fun. Maggie has a lot of great ideas, and I think our design vision for this feature really came together well. Meredith also helped us figure out how tho make the feature come together as a whole package. 

I also worked on a two-page spread for Global Journalist this week. I had a bit of a tough time figuring out how to be content-driven with this one. The story is about journalists in Haiti and how they are treated poorly by the police and government. I decided to work with the typography to help tell the story. This is what I came up with...

After meeting with the editor on this story, I'm going to make a few changes: I need to work on balancing the spread. I also need to rework the typographic headline because it is changing to just Standing Together. It wouldn't make any sense to have the tall "T" any more. Any ideas??  Check back to see the final result. 

I forgot to post the link to the web design I did for the Missourian last week. Check it out! The photographer did an great telling the story and the slideshow is awesome! Click here!

I worked on VOX covers for the March 5 issue too. It was really interesting to see that all of us who worked on this cover came up with a lot of the same ideas! I think Jena's cover is going to look great...her post-its worked really well. 

      

With the first two, I was trying to work with the idea of an agenda or a to-do list. I think the first one (the one that looks like an iPhone calendar app.) would have worked best with our audience. I was trying to make the last one look like a post-it on a mirror. Whenever I need to remember something for the next day...I leave myself a not on the mirror the night before!! Any thoughts on these??

Reaction - Wordle.net

OK! I might be really behind here, and you all might already know about this. But, have you heard of Wordle? (www.wordle.net) I think it's so fun. It's this cool site you can go and create word clouds! I think it would have been really helpful a couple weeks ago when I was doing a typographic headline for the Missourian. 

I just thought it'd be interesting to share since we've been talking a lot about typography lately. 

Check it out! Look at the posted word clouds...and create your own. It's fun!

"You can't miss" - The Daily Heller and Obama

Everyone has probably seen and/or heard about this in the news: Shepard Fairey being sued by the AP for using their photo for his Obama/Hope poster. Now, Fairey is suing AP because he doesn't want to pay for using their photo without permission. Meanwhile, the photographer, Mannie Garcia, says he owns the rights to the photo. 

We talk about this all the time. What do you think of all this? Who owns the rights? Should Fairey's work be considered its own thing without the photo? How/when is it OK to use photos for illustration/art without having to worry about copyright permission? Or is it ever OK?

What I've been up to this week

This week, as you all know, we had our prototype ideas for our Meredith publication due. I'm in one of the Mixing Bowl groups and we're creating Mix magazine. I'm really excited about this project. 

Our magazine is for a younger audience of cooks, but they still have that classical/traditional side to them. The look I see for the magazine is modern, yet clean and sophisticated. Not too much flash. 

Here are my ideas I've been working with. The first photo is of my logos. I wanted to show food and friends coming together without coming off too literal. I chose the color palette because I think they're very vibrant colors, and they kind of remind me of colors of food (peppers, tomatoes, etc.). I also thought the color palette could easily be carried throughout the magazine- certain colors for certain types of food, certain colors for certain types of cooks, etc. 

I carried the same ideas through to my department headings (second photo). I think the recipe card tab is going too literal, but I think the blue bar running on the left side of the page subtly mimics that concept. 

The last three photos are the covers I came up with. I think I'm going to go with the final one. I think the lines in the logo mimic the lines created from a whisk, and the color concept is still there. 

Let me know what you think!! I would love feedback on this one since it's a big project. 

    

Weekly Response and plans

For my response this week I just wanted to comment on everyone's hard work with VOX and advanced design. I don't know about you...but I'm exhausted. With all the work, stress, etc. of this semester, I'm surprised I'm still fully functional. I'm stressed, but not on the verge of tears...it is just making me work harder. That's a good thing right?! I'm really proud of and impressed with everyone's hard work. Sometimes I get really intimidated! You're all so creative and talented...it's inspiring and makes me want to improve as a designer. I know we are going to have some really successful designers from this group. Keep working hard with those creative juices flowing...and for some of you...remember...May is coming soon!!

My to-do list for the week to come is overflowing. This weekend I plan on working on the history paper of class and a super bowl photo spread for newspaper design (Jenn and Aimee know what I'm talking about!) Next week, I'll be working with Maggie on the True/False Film Fest feature. We were up at the office for about 4 hours working on some ideas to present tomorrow. We had fun and I hope you all like or ideas. It's going to need a lot of work, but I'm really looking forward to working with Maggie next week and creating a really awesome feature package!!

"You can't miss" - The Daily Heller and Tropicana Orange Juice

I came across this on the Daily Heller at http://blog.printmag.com/dailyheller/. I kind of agree with Steve...this makes me sad! The memorable orange with a straw is gone, and frankly, I think the new design is boring...awful. I think people are going to get confused when shopping for their orang juice and think that Tropicana isn't there. Do you agree? 

Weekly Critique

I didn't have anything to work on this week for VOX, but I thought I'd post some of my work from the Missourian. 

The first page was a really fun story about going gourmet with eggs: new organic farming techniques, cooking different kinds of eggs (blue eggs, ostrich eggs, etc.), etc. I designed a really fun headline for this story, but it got changed last minute. It said: "The incredible, edible, OSTRICH egg??," and "ostrich" was emphasized with a different color and style of font and with a screen behind it. I was changed on deadline (I was out of town at this time) because the photo next to the headline wasn't of an ostrich egg. I thought about this problem for a split second while I was designing it, but I made the mistake of not saying anything. Through designing my first newspaper page, I learned to pay attention to everything!! I also made the mistake of not keeping a copy of the version I designed, but let me know what you think. 

I'm not sure how I feel about this second one. The story was about how among everything else in this economic crisis, debt has slipped into peoples lives through an unavoidable expense: medical expenses. There wasn't any art for this story, and I really liked the idea of a sort of work collage of words pertaining to debt surrounding the word medical. I was having a lot of trouble concentrating last week, and I think I could have executed this page better. What do you think?

the week to come

This week I'll have a little bit of a breather from VOX, but I have plenty of work to do.  I'll mostly be working on the redesign of the Feb 29 VOX cover and the history presentation for class. I'm going to catch up on sleep first because sickness+busy semester= not a good mix!! Everyone's been working really hard though and I'm looking forward to catching up on everyone's blogs!

You can't miss

I came across this post on the blog http://blog.printmag.com/dailyheller/. I haven't come across any signs like this, but the post made me think of my family. I have a couple of grammar freaks in my family (my mom and oldest sister), and they always find signs with misspelled words, crazy sayings, etc. 

Anyone have any crazy stories or photos of some of the things people will put on signs?

What I've been working on this week

Here are the covers I worked on for the February 5 issue of VOX. The one with the flower and the one with the raindrops are part of the group I turned in last Thursday. The two with the circles are the revised ones I turned in this Monday morning. I decided to add the word event to the cover after we talked about the phrase "Spring Preview," in class. I guess "Spring Preview," does make me thing of fashion. For the colors on the final two I turned in, I just googled "spring colors 2009," and a color pallet with those colors in it popped up. I like my redesigns because I brought some of the event/entertainer's names out on the cover. I do think I need some work on cover designing though. I feel like I'm always missing something...I just don't know what or what I can do to improve. Redesigns are always hard for me! Any advice?

I've also been working on my redesign of the February 29 cover, and I will be posting that by the end of this week/weekend. 

I designed the VOX department page for tomorrow's issue, along with a couple feature paged for the Missourian that I'll be posting later. 

There was a big cartoon thought bubble with a question mark in it over my head when I saw this street sign. I was just confused at how this happens being so high up! Must have been some strong wind. 

Photographic field notes day #3

I took this photo on our trip to Meredith. I know! Of all the things to take a photo of...children's books? I was just excited to see these books among the photo props. These were my favorite stories when I was a kid, I never see them anywhere, and no one else my age ever seems to know who Beatrix Potter is! I was just excited to see them. 

Photographic field notes day #2

Hey guys! I'm a few days behind in my photographic journal...but here's my next entry. This bumper sticker was just so random and made me laugh really hard!