I don't know what week it is. But the sun is out!

A heat wave as finally hit Columbia! Timing couldn't have been more perfect either. I think all of us need a little sunshine right now, especially my capstone! We have all been working meticulously on final projects; hours and hours into the night. Last week was a long and stressful one, but this week is turning out to be much better. I am officially considering myself in the homestretch to graduation! Only 3 more weeks!

CRITIQUE:
I couldn't be more excited to share with you what I am about to share. Last week and beyond I have been working with Jena and Abbey on the criminal justice feature, which will be on newsstands tomorrow. This was a 9-page feature story profiling three of Columbia's "justice" workers; the chief of forensics, an entomologist (aka "bug guy"), and a police officer. It was a great collaborative effort and extremely exciting to see our initial ideas make it to the end. Our main inspiration came from Shepard Fairey's soviet posters with his sharp lines and bold colors. We incorporated representational icons with each profile in order to signify what each person is involved with. Here's the VIP view at tomorrow's feature:


Ah, I'm in love.

Next, the Storage.com team has been working extremely hard to get our web site up and going! I have not posted any of my designs for the site yet....until now. Here is a page I designed for the "digital" homepage. Basically, when getting to this page you can click on either, "Buyer's Guide," or "Move Your Tunes." The buyers guide will take you to a scrolling list of external hard drives available and tells you which one best suits your needs. In "Move Your Tunes," you will be able to click through a slideshow that shows you, step-by-step, how to move your iTunes music files onto your brand new external hard drive. It has been a lot of trial and error, and there is still much to tweak and design, but I am happy with the progress. Anyway, first I will show you my "Digital" homepage for Storage.com (by the way, if you want to check out what we have done so far as a group, the website is http://web.missouri.edu/~mmst2d/index.html):



And here is what you would see if you clicked on "Buyer's Guide" (keep in mind that this would be continuous however.....I could not figure out how to get a screen shot of the whole page continuous)
I'll post more as I update and finish more pages!

RESPONSE:
Yesterday, instead of having our usual class, we watched judging for SSND college design contest (in which all of us entered at least 1 piece). It was interesting to see how quickly the three judges were able to make a decision on who was the "clear winner," who should be tied for an honorable mention (or, as I said as a child, "Mom, they gave me a horrible mention....").
I submitted the photo essay I designed for Global Journalist, but I think it was disqualified because the date it was published was unclear. It simply says, "Spring 2009," and I was unsure of the exact date :( so that was a bummer.
It was exciting to see some of my classmate's work being judged however, as well as see Meredith's win (good job!!).
The atmosphere as a whole was a neat thing to be a part of. I was pleased to find that many of the things that the judges were critiquing, I thought many of the same things. Certain pieces had wonderful opening spreads, but then lost it in the other pages of the story - this got the judges attention at first, but then ultimately were cut from the pile. I think I was able to pick up a few tips and learn a few things about how designs are judged for when I enter contests in the future. And, of course, I will make sure to get the date right.

YOU CAN'T MISS! BLOG.EYEMAGAZINE.COM
I checked out some of the archives and found this article about the tense times in the magazine publishing industry. That's depressing. But I promise the whole article isn't a downer. Even though some say magzines are a dying industry because of the internet, pring pagazines are still a specialized product and eye magazine doesn't see them going anywhere because of that specialization. The article also does a case study of different magazines such as "New York," "The Arthitect's Journal," Make," etc. The atricle says, "At the heart of the magazine is the relationship between words and pictures and the way they are used to tell a story. That can be anything, from the New Yorker with its small headlines, long texts and cartoons to the English celebrity weekly Heat where the photographs and shouting type are the story. And it’s these kinds of editing and design choices – why something looks the way it does – that the following case studies explore."
The article continues to go in depth into each of these magazines and tell us about the art direction and other influences to that publication. With "New York Magazine," it talks about the different techniques used to tell a story - from infographics, photos, boxes, illustrations, etc. Covers are usually the result of a group of people woring together. It also "has the editorial energy of a weekly combined with the art direction standards of a monthly."
The article goes on with the case study in many other magazines, so I urge you to check out this cool article from the archives of eye magazine!

END PIC:
I was bored...so I painted this and hung it in our kitchen :)


Have a great (sunny) day!
~Christy