Critical Review

Prototype Pill Popping


I wasn't surprised that my feature design for Poise received an abundance of criticism. I should have listened to my own criticisms of the spread and either focused more time to fixing the problems or gone in a different direction completely.
The photo is too large and doesn't flow with the general design of the other pages in the magazine. The quality of the photo doesn't help either, stock photography and I are at war; unfortunately, the stock photography seems to be winning.
The typography is way off. I wanted something that was reminiscent of a prescription type, but looking at it now, not only does the type clash with the story's focus, but the color is almost sickening.
I went against my nature instinct by choosing to use pink pills. It reminded me of Valley of the Dolls, one of my favorite novels, but the harshness of the saturation goes against my determination to make this magazine different from all of the others that use pinks and neutrals.
The body is too text heavy; a result of placeholder text and lack of knowledge about feature possibilities. Next time, I'll take the time to make something up so that I'll have a better idea of how it would really look.
Lots of things wrong with this design. It will be exciting to see how things change from beginning to end.

Prototype Hype

Response to Prototype Presentation


The prototypes presentation was a great experience. I realized this in magazine design, but haven't learned from it. I end up either hating my design or loving it. Therefore I'm either my worst critic or my best critic, so having others' opinions about my designs helps me to reconsider the decisions I've made and forces me to land somewhere in the middle instead of at opposite ends of the spectrum.
I have a lot of redesigning to do before I present my final prototype to Meredith and with thanks to the feedback I received in class today, I have a clearer definition of what my problems are, how to improve them and ways to enhance my existing concepts.

Check It Out

Logos to Look At

Trying to plan ahead for the 20/10 assignment, I looked at some of the logo designs on fwis.
There are a variety of logos for everything from art galleries to lipstick brands and they all provide great examples of how to reflect a product or organization in a visual manner.
I've started sketching out some ideas for the convergence logo, but haven't started executing anything yet. This is a challenging assignment. The sequence incorporates so many different things and figuring out how to represent that with one image isn't easy.

Designs In The Making

Resume Remodel

With the Magazine Publishing Summit only a few days away, I am redesigning my resume to include additional skills and jobs, but also to reflect more of my personality and design style.

I tried to use typography to reflect my serious yet creative side. I decided not to include any graphics, such as pictures, to give the resume an air of sophistication and used color to draw the eye to key points without being overwhelming.

I feel like it's still lacking a certain something, but it has come a long way since I first designed it for Magazine Design last semester.

Critical Review

Wordly Works

Looking at portfolios in class today, inspired me to review the pieces in my portfolio and reconsider the design decisions I made on various magazine design assignments. This was my attempt at a typographic spread. My concept of the assignment and my overall execution of the spread lacked in multiple ways.

My color choices are limited and completely unrelated to the text. In my redesign I will include a variety of colors to tie in the idea of worldliness. I used a frame around the text to resemble a dictionary excerpt. I like the idea of making it seem like a dictionary, since the quiz is defining your worldliness, but the idea got lost in the process and ended up looking unrelated and whimsical.
Next week I'll critique my redesign for this spread and as always, ask for feedback from the other Vox designers.

Check It Out

Tools of Typography

Typography is something that I struggle with when designing. Fwis has some great examples of how designers are using typography in content driven ways. In addition to admiring the ingenious designs, these covers reveal typographic trends in the industry. A lot of designers are pairing script and san serif types together. It's also really interested to read the commentary on the book covers and see what the critics think of not only the design but the designer too. The reviews aren't usually as harsh as some of the critic sessions we've been part to, but they're usually funny and refer to other interesting sites and topics.

Portfolio Procrastination

Response to Reviews

As if the aproaching graduation date weren't enough of a motivator to get my stuff together, today's portfolio reviews made me realize that I have a lot of work to do. In the next few weeks, after the four exams I have this week are done with, I'm going to begin redesigning some of my spreads from last semester's magazine design course. There are a few designs that I'm genuinely pleased with, looking back at them now, I see little things that I never would have paid attention to at the time, drive me crazy.

This is the cover I created for our final project in magazine design. Of all the designs I did, this is my favorite. It's professional and very tailored to the target audience. My favorite part is the logo. I searched for hours looking at fonts that I wanted to use and I knew this type was "the one" immediately. I struggle a lot with typography put this is the one occassion that I was confident in my decision and wouldn't change it.

Designs In The Making

Poise RePurposed

This is one of my covers for Poise, formerly Balance. I'm trying to incorporate a younger audience. I chose a picture of a younger woman in a less serious environment. The picture creates a good sense of serenity and the colors and scene are good for a spring or summer publication. I changed the logo and incorporated more vibrant colors. My biggest challenge is making Poise stand apart from its competitors but be on the same level of sophistication so that it still appeals to their same readers. I like this cover a lot better than the first one. This cover looks more fun and youthful, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, dependent on the editorial direction their planning to pursue. Either way, the mix of typography and color add visual interest compared to other women's magazines.

Response: Color

It's a colorful world after all

Reading Pantone has been a great tool for figuring out color palettes for the designs that I've been working on this week. The back section, which shows color combinations and how they work together to create mood and appeal to senses is my favorite part of the book. Color is an important aspect to all designs. Whether you're using color in a feature spread to communicate the warmth of the coffee shop that the story focuses on; or you're deciding what colors to use on the cover of a soon-to-be launched magazine, hoping to appeal to a target audience; the color combinations and choices that you choose to include make a great difference on the success of the venture.

Critical Review

Java no Jesus

The past couple of weeks I've been designing the CC Coffeehouse feature for the February 15th issue of Vox. Not only did the story itself change by the end of it all, but my design went through multiple transformations. My ambitious initial thought of doing a graphic, seemed to be great until I came to the realization that I know nothing about creating illustrations and no matter how much we tried to get the image of the two coffee mugs to not look pixelated, it still did.

In the end, I think the overall design for the feature is good. I played up the couples love for coffee by titling it "Coffee mates," creating an image that is similar to the creamer. I used warm colors, drawing on the whole idea of the quieter, relaxed coffee shop that the couple now owns.
There ended up being a lot of white space, which I normally like in designs, but I don't think blends in with the overall layout of the magazine.
This is one of the spreads that I will redesign by the end of the semester, hopefully including a fun graphic that works.
(second page coming soon)

Check It Out

Style and Structure

Fwis has some great designs from readymechs. These are for the Geffen/Interscope band "The Pink Spiders." The band has been featured on The Hills and from the looks of their website, they have a lot of fun energy. These readymechs
translate that vivacious attitude, not to mention sell their name, in a creative yet fairly simple way. Plus, they're pretty awesome. Along with readymechs for the band, Fwis has some other readymech designs that give an even greater idea as to all of the fun ways you could readymechs to advertise or just make really awesome cheap gifts. I think I'm going to print out a few of the Senor Valentine readymech as valentines for my roommates.
There are lots of different designs to choose from. You should definitely check this out.

Designs In The Making

The Former Balance

This is a cover that I put together for the Meredith magazine, formerly known as Balance, now destined to be either Polish or Poise. The target audience is a 30-year-old woman who is balancing a relationship, career, healthy lifestyle and friendship, while trying to fit in time for herself. The magazine, though not specifically labeled as a Real Simple competitor, is geared at the same crowd.
I used a script typeface, to appeal to the light-hearted yet sophisticated reader and used neutral colors to create a serene appearance to the cover. My photo choice was based on the idea of wanting to appeal to women ranging from their mid-20's to mid-40's. The woman has a natural fun life to her, but she also looks busy.

Critical Review

Tumbling into a newsstand near you

This weekend I designed the Fine Art department page for Vox. It wasn't the intimidating task that I expected it to be. I worked on getting all of the elements onto the department's page Friday afternoon and then returned Sunday to put some of the final touches on the spread.




I'm proud of the photo decision. I had access to a couple different photos and I think the photo I chose presents the story well. There wasn't much room for other design elements, but I tried to balance the page so that it wasn't too text heavy by adding a pull quote and strategically placing the event info box in the opposite corner of the photo. These elements draw the reader's eyes first to the photo, then the text, then to the info box. I'm pleased with how it turned out but hope that future department designs allow more artistic freedom.

Designs In The Making

Java and Jesus

I'm designing the second feature for the February 15th issue of Vox. The text still has a few round of edits to go through, but the photos have been taken and I've begun changing up my designs a bit.

This is one of the original spreads I designed for this story.


I used an illustration and then flipped it, cropped it, added to it and eventually created this image with the two cups. I wanted to incorporate a lot of color to take advantage of the new printing capabilities, but understanding that it's not the center spread I knew I would have to alter the design so it would work in the magazine.


This is the latest spread design. I removed the background colors of the image and enlarged it to create a separate title page from the text. I know that edits are going to be made to the story, but I'm worried that this design won't leave enough room for the text and the picture of the couple, something I think is necessary in the spread.

I'm meeting with the editor to go over creative ideas and get a better idea of the direction the text is going in, so I'm sure she'll give some great feedback and the new changes will lead to another spread.

Check It Out

Mixing function and faith


Be sure to check out some of the ingenious book covers on Fwis. One of the most interesting designs I've seen have been of book covers for religious publications.
The designers of these covers, most notably the one shown here, have taken the subject of Christianity and faith issues and created covers that push the envelope and present the topic in an interesting way. At first glance, before you're ever given the chance to read the title, use of color and typography grips you. The designs put content driven twists on faith and in the Faith and the City, love the title, the designer used a great Victorian typeface to contrast with the modern concept of the book itself.


Look at what I found

Looking around for background on typography and graphic styles in Ladies Home Journal I came across HowDesign. The website has a lot of great blogs, forums and articles about things going on in the design world. Your Creative Life featured a piece about typography and how older fonts are just as useful today as they were at their conception. For a typographic junkie like me, looking at all the different fonts and learning their history was great fun.

Ladies Home Journal

Response to Historical Perspective Assignment

For the historical perspective assignment I looked at the Ladies Home Journal throughout the 1930s. The magazine, one of many Meredith publications, has been changing since its conception in 1883. It was really interesting to see how much the magazine's appearance and design elements changed just in that decade. The most noteable differences were to the typographic choices of the designers. At the beginning of the decade titles and subheads were all in a loopy script, reminescent of the Art Nouveau era. Victorian frames were used around drop caps and illustrations were the main focus of feautre articles.


It wasn't until the later part of the decade that designers began to experiment with various typefaces and different ways to design feature and department pages.

This assignment was emphasized the importance of content driven design. I'm beginning to develop protocalls for Balance (name still under construction) and this assignment has led to me think more seriously about the types of typography and graphic styles that I want to include in the design of the magazine.