WEEK 8

CRITIQUE:
This past week I finalized my cover design for the Nicotine feature, as well as designed an Arts department page. My cover originally was going to run tomorrow, but has been changed to next week. I have decided to not post the design until after it is published in order to keep you all in suspense :) But it will be up on my next post! Overall I am very very happy with how it turned out. It took a bit of playing with fonts, sizes and colors but in the end I think turned out just how I had hoped.
What I can show you, however, is my Arts department page. I got to play with the pen tool and do some fun cuts. Pay no attention to the wonderful ads at the bottom.























In other work, I have been cleaning up my logo designs for a group called Eat For Life. Here are two of the three I am working with (and just for kicks I played with them both in color and black and white)




Upcoming work:
I have a website! It is not fully functioning yet with buttons....but you can check out my beginnings of it at http://web.missouri.edu/~casfg4/solbergdesigns/
I am excited to keep working on it and get my designs posted as soon as I can.
Otherwise, next week is SPRING BREAK (finally)!! So I will be taking a bit of a hiatus from ACTUALLY designing....I will, however, be thinking up ideas for the Criminal Justice feature that I will be designing with Abbey and Jena when we return from break!

RESPONSE:
This week in lab we continued to talk about our logo designs for either "Eat For Life" or "Show Me Dharma". We had our class rate each person's top 3 logos and will turn in final designs for those 3 on Friday. It is really cool to see how many ideas all of us are capable of coming up with for one group. Design is interesting because none of the ideas are wrong; some just work better than others. As the semester continues I have been getting a sense of everyone's own style and am able to point out certain people's work according to that style.
In other news, I completed and sent in my application for the art internship through National Graphic Magazine (dream job, anyone?) and have been researching other potential summer employers. For those interested, Esquire has a position open for a graphic arts intern! I found out about it here: http://www.spd.org/job-board/2009/02/esquire-magazine--graphic-desi.php
I apologize for the short post, but basically I can not stop thinking about London since I will be there within a matter of days! Talk about an inspiring city.....I will make a giant promise to you all that plenty of pictures will be taken and posted upon my return :)

YOU CAN'T MISS! BLOG.EYEMAGAZINE.COM
Are Music Covers Graphic Design? Not according to Peter Saville.
Saville is most known for his punk graphics, such as this one:
Peter Saville's guitar cut-out giveaway for the UK PSP launch; detail of guitar from Arena magazine August 2005

He also created this poster for a 1978 music festival called The Factory:
The Factory eventually transformed into a record label, in which Saville became the art director. He became the main designer for album covers; one of which he even convinced the band to leave off their name and any sort of title. This was for Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures album, which can be seen below:
The most shocking thing that Saville said in reference to album covers was, "‘No one should be designing record covers after the age of 30’, and ‘Music covers are not graphic design, they do not communicate anything, they have no purpose in that respect." And, mind you, he said this to a room full of designers.
For more information/graphics of Saville check out http://www.designmuseum.org/design/peter-saville

END ART:

Have a great day!
~Christy

Learning FINAL CUT PRO....in 12 hours....instead of having a weekend....

Here is my final result from the class I took this weekend on learning Final Cut Pro. It is not as great of quality after posting it here...but just IMAGINE how great the original is. Oh, and of course it is a compilation of London videos and photos set to some great tunes.

WEEK 7 (can you believe it already?)

CRITIQUE
This past week my main design focus has been on the VOX cover for March 19th. The cover story is basically a revisit on the smoking ban that was implemented in Columbia a little over two years ago. Trying to stray away from a stereotypical cover, here are the three ideas I came up with and presented to the class last Thursday:




Supposed to say, "Can Cigarettes Survive in a Town Where They aren't Wanted?" I am not sure why I could not get the "Can" to convert.




The design that I have been working with to present on Thursday is the top one. My idea for the main headline, "Want to take this outside?" is supposed to be a take on whenever people get into a quarrel at a place such as a bar and say, "Hey, you wanna take this outside?!"I just liked the concept of it because it is a double pun of sorts; people have to go outside to smoke in Columbia and there has been a lot of controversy between those who are for the smoking ban and those who are against it. As soon as I get the redesign prepared I will post it! Even though I will not be presenting a redesign for the second design, I still very much like it, mostly because I think it is funny. The photo and the headline work well together as well. For the third spread I played on the fact that cigarettes are indefinitely missing from Columbia's bars and restaurants, leaving the poor ashtrays empty...I like this concept, but not as much as I like the first one. Thoughts/Comments? Stay tuned for the redesign!

RESPONSE
In class this week we have been discussing each person's own creative thinking style. Obviously in a class of 17 people we are bound so have 17 different styles, so it is interesting and inspiring to hear how everyone else works. The majority of people who spoke yesterday defined their first stage of designing as a sketching stage. My style is a bit different from this; the first thing I like to do is mindmap. I make a list of words stemming from the original thought or idea that I have to work with. I can usually do a fairly good job of coming up with a list that holds both the stereotypical answers as well as plenty of non-stereotypical answers. After I have this list I can better picture some of my options. My next step, usually, is to do an image search for some of these words on the internet (stock xchge, corbis, istock, and getty are typical sites I use). This again, helps me to possibly get some different ideas and images in my head that I can incorporate in my design. Sometimes the next stage is sketching, and sometimes it is not. Usually if I have an idea and a plan for execution clear in my head I will just begin to work on the screen. If my ideas are still very scattered than I will sketch out some options. Often I find myself sketching after I have begun designing on the screen. For example, I will piece a few elements together on the computer and then to tweak my design, I will sketch out rough options for other ways to execute the same general idea. Ideally, I would begin this process at least a week in advance from the due date, but this semester that seems to be impossible. If designing were the only thing I had on my plate this semester I know I would be able to do many things differently, and more ideally. But such is life.
My classmates also shared what the environment has to be like or what they would prefer it to be like when they design. Some said it did not matter, some said it has to be silent, and some said they need noise in order to design. While I would prefer to not have much going on around me, that is usually not the case. I am almost always listening to music when I design, however, and attempting to block out other noise or activity.
I found it difficult to explain how my brain works when it comes to my design process, but I think it helped me to realize elements of that thought process that work and elements that don't work.

YOU CAN'T MISS! BLOG.EYEMAGAZINE.COM


Just like last week, I did not find anything too interesting on eye magazine's blog within the past few days. I have decided to update you all on a site that eye magazine notes, however. It is called Lovely As A TREE and it basically tells us how to be environmentally-frieldly designers. The site says, "We list the steps you can take to reduce your design footprint, we take you through the process of choosing a recycled or more sustainably sourced paper, and we show you what to look for when choosing a greener printer."
The site also clears up common rumors such as, "Recycled paper is usually poor quality," or, "By replanting trees the paper industry is helping ensure sustainability of natural forests." The first sentence is a myth. It is now almost impossible to tell the difference between recycled paper and virgin paper. The second sentence is true to an extent. The site says that there is a huge difference between a "commercially managed monoculture that is treated with pesticides, weeded, and barren of wildlife, and a natural forest with its biodiversity intact." However, natural woodlands are supposedly respected and biodiversity is encouraged.
Lovely As A Tree also informs users of the impacts of paper-making, gives tips for choosing paper and printers, offers case studies, gives tips on how to have a more environmentally-friendly office, and more. I think the design of the site is cute as well:

END QUOTE
(something to keep in mind?)

Have a great day!
~Christy

The Code of the Techie

My feature was published today! I love how it turned out, what do you think?

WEEK 6

CRITIQUE: This past week I finished up my photo essay for Global Journalist, as well as my feature about The Code of the Techie (set to be published tomorrow!) To see my final design for Global Journalist, please scroll down to my most recent post before this one. I am extremely happy with how it turned out and gained positive feedback from the GJ people as well. The issue will not be published for about a week, so I will keep you posted (and definitely grab a copy or 12). The main changes I made were fairly minor. I basically wanted to make sure I was using all of the space that I had in order to showcase just how magnificent these photos are. I can't imagine being the photographer and opening up the magazine to find my pictures tiny and swarmed by white space. I am also pleased with the color scheme of the spreads. I chose the dulled blue-gray tones in order to supplement the photos instead of distract from them. Alright, now onto the Tech Feature! I feel like I have been talking about this for weeks. I will not have a PDF of the spread until tomorrow, so I will make sure to post it the second I am able to! If you scroll down a few posts you will be able to see my original design. Prepare yourself - the final version is COMPLETELY different. It is less cluttered and less literal. The only element that remained the same was the buttons as subheads for each section. I changed all of the fonts, took out the "motherboard" background, and several other things that you will see once I post the new version! I am also very excited about a demonstration video that I coordinated to be shot to go along with the story for the online site. It will be a short demonstration video on how to upgrade your RAM by yourself (which, I did, might I add). Overall, this spread was a great challenge to me. It is meant to be extremely service-y, but difficult to design because it is broken up into four chunks of a story, a side-bar, and a large chart. It took alot of opinions from others and trial-and-error, but I am overall happy with the outcome and excited to see it in print tomorrow.

FUTURE PLANS: I have three covers due tomorrow by 11 for the Nicotine feature that will be running in two weeks. Stay tuned for these designs!

RESPONSE: Making logos! Yesterday we became more informed of an assignment that will be due next week. The kist of the assignment is to work fast in creating 20 sketches of a logo and then decide on 10 to execute. We have two options for the logo; the first is called "Eat For Life" and the second is called "Show Me Dharma." I have been brainstorming how I want to go about creating a logo. Sarah made a good point when she said that we should make sure to remember the this logo needs to work both big and small, as well as in color and black and white (thanks Sarah!). I have never designed a logo before so those are little things that will be beneficial to keep in mind. I found some helpful advice from a website for The Logo Factory. Check it out here!

I found this particular tip very helpful: "A logo doesn't have to convey what your company does. Think the McDonald's Golden Arches. No hamburgers. Think the FedEx logo. No trucks or planes (though a cool 'hidden' arrow). Think the Nike swoosh. No sneakers or golf shirts. etc. While sometimes having a logo that portrays an element of the company is appropriate, it's often better to have a logo that's graphically void of detail - a logo that can be adapted to whatever direction the company takes. Think the Apple logo. True, it is an apple. But there's no indication that it belongs to a computer company. That's a pretty cool thing - the Apple logo looks just as cool on an iPod as it does on the top of a Powerbook." The list also mentions to remember that color is secondary to your design, strive to be different, disconnect the icons and the text, etc. I highly encourage you to check it out before beginning to create a logo!

Another website that I found is called Logo Design Love (http://logodesignlove.com) Here are some of their favorite simple logos (all very recognizable too!)

(my favorite.....LONDON!)

This site also provides many resources for not only examples of great logos, but tips as well on creating! Don't you just want to go create your very own logo right now? GO!

YOU CAN'T MISS! (BLOG.EYEMAGAZINE.COM)
Ever thought you would see your work on a beer bottle?
Not much was new at the Eye Magazine blog this week so I decided to dig into the archives. Back in July 2008, a story ran about four recent grads of the Royal College of Art in London who designed labels for Beck's beer bottles.
"From August 1 to the end of September, 27 million bottles will be on sale, with labels by four recent RCA graduates – Tom Price, Riitta Ikonen, Simon Cunningham and Charlotte Bracegirdle"
Check these out!
Beck’s Canvas labels, 2008: from left, Head 6 by Tom Price; Duckrabbit by Simon Cunningham (RCA photography graduate, 2007); Let’s Stick Together by Riitta Ikonen (CA+D graduate, 2008); Pintora by Charlotte Bracegirdle (painting graduate, 2006)

This is just a reminder that in the design world, the different types of mediums available for use are endless! If you could design a label for an alcoholic beverage, what would you do?

END QUOTE:


Encore!
(just because I like this one....)


Have a great day!
~Christy