Critical Review

Not Working


I didn't design anything this past week except for my cover draft so let's take a closer look at what's not working about this cover.

Starting with the obvious, the illustration is terrible. Confused on how to represent the topic and unsure of photo opportunities I took another stab at an illustration. It's not too bad, considering my limited skills, however I knew going into this that there would have to be considerable redesigns. Secondly, the colors, though on the screen seemed representative of denim, printed almost black and made the image even more difficult to distinguish. Thirdly, the concept itself doesn't really work. The story is all about glitz and glamour, and as Jan and Jen said, jeans and a T-shirt aren't the first things that come to mind when you think luxurious.

I tried. I don't think it's total crap, it was a starting point. As Michael Grinfield would say, "Everyone has shitty first drafts."

Meredith Take Two

Response to design presentation

Today's presentation of our prototype designs to the Meredith group went really well. After not touching my Poised designs for almost a month, it was refreshing to give them another look over and get feedback from industry people about possible improvements and overall thoughts.

I was honestly surprised at how pleased they were with the designs. They might have just been overly pleasant, but I expected there to more criticism of our concepts and final products. I got some great suggestions about things that could have worked better and a considerable amount of recognition for the designs I produced.

As a designer, I feel like I don't get too much positive reinforcement. Maybe it's because of my generation and all those theories that our parents boosted our confidence too much so now we all need to be told we're doing well in order to feel good about ourselves. Either way, it was nice to get some recognition and a bit of encouragement as the semester brings itself to an end and I continue to debate running into oncoming traffic.

Check it Out

Beowulf and beauty?


Just seeing this cover brings back nightmares of having to read Beowulf in high school. I've heard great things about it. My mother is a history professor and could talk your ear off for hours about it. I still have no desire to ever pick it up.

However, the critics had some great things to say about the embossed graphic and the success of the fwis covers blog. So if you've ever wondered how the business side of blogs work or if you just want to read commentary about the Beowulf cover design you should check it out.

Designs in the Making

Luxe List


This is my first draft of the design for the May 10th Vox cover. The story is about ways to live luxuriously with and without riches in Columbia. I feel like this is a really difficult concept to represent. I was hoping to go for an illustration, but the overall consensus was that a photo would be better. The problem is how do you get one picture to incorporate all of the items or the concept without it just being a photo of a huge ring.....maybe that's a better idea.
When I think about luxury and lavishness I think of diamonds. If we just got a great studio shot of a blingin' diamond ring and paired it with the title and a great coverline that talked about all that glitters and gleams or something with blingin' in it, then it might work.