You can't miss: inspiration

This week I don't have a cool design to share from the internet (although I will put something cool on here to keep it visual). Since it is the end of the semester and many of us are going off to find summer work or graduating and looking for real jobs, I wanted to leave you all with some great quotes about design. Therefore I am offering this list of design quotes. I hope all of my classmates' design work takes them to great places and can't wait to hear about all the things they accomplish. And now for some cool design work:

Response: Prototype presentation

This week we finally went to Des Moines to present our magazine prototypes. While Home Canvas had some constructive criticism, we were told that we "hit a home run with our magazine." I almost cried I was so happy. Overall I was really interested in the types of criticisms they gave to groups in general. Since I was on the design side and not the publishing side, I was shocked by some of the questions they asked about publishing such as how they would get people to add them on Facebook and how Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are not actually free media when you need to hire someone to run them 24/7. It's one of those things that I overlook when thinking about what goes in to making a magazine because I have gotten so caught up in making sure it looks good. I definitely need to take those kinds of things into consideration when I'm thinking about the costs of magazine in the future.

Critique: Vox 5 cover

After a long time without having to think about iPad applications at all, it was finally my turn to do a Vox 5 cover. I was pretty nervous going into it. Everyone has made some pretty sick covers and I was worried I wouldn't live up to the standards. In reality, I am obsessed with the cover I produced. Throughout the duration of this class, I didn't push myself to do enough work with photoshop and super crazy typography. I made up for it by making this cover:

I used The Polyphonic Spree as my cover inspiration. While I am not totally familiar with the band, I did my background research and found all their cover art. They use crazy 3D letters and crazy background art. Therefore, I wanted to go all out and make a Vox 5 cover that I could picture as theirs. I am very happy with the final product, although I know that some of the smaller white text is a bit tough to read. It's a small price to pay for this end result I suppose.

You can't miss: Logo chart

This week on LogoDesignLove I found a chart that showed logos broken down by their corporation. Since I am applying for a few jobs at advertising agencies, this chart was very interesting for me. It shows the branding of corporations from the large brand name to it's smaller brands. Here's what it looks like:

It's crazy to think about all the branding that trickles down from one giant corporation. I never realized how much of a relationship there is between the logos and their larger corporation. What do you guys think?

Response: Online Portfolio Critiques

On Tuesday, I showed my online portfolio website to the class. I got some really good feedback with it. For one, I am working on looking for a new layout. I just don't think that I picked the best possible layout for the work I had to present. I've already started looking for new layouts. I also need to go bad and put a stroke around my pages. The pages that are white just bleed off the page and into the background, which does not highlight the use of white space on the pages. I also want to play with text. I tried messing with it a bit, but I want to get my layout set before I edit any coding. Overall, I think sharing my portfolio was a good experience. I got a lot of feedback that I would not have even thought about on my own. Since I'm so familiar with my work, it's nice to get a pair of fresh eyes to look at it and give me their opinions. If you want to check my site out again feel free! (It will probably be changing around quite a bit in the next week, so keep checking to watch it evolve!)

Critique: David Lile Cover

Tomorrow in class I will be presenting a second draft of my David Lile radio host cover. Here's how it looks now:

I went with the image that showed his hands with the soundboard. While I know we tend to run photos of people when we have essays about them as the feature, but I wanted to mix it up. This still shows him and his profession without showing his face. I want the audience to be enticed to go inside to see who he really is after seeing the cover. I'm still not 100% sure about the typography. I tried to do an homage to Saturday Night Live but use a bit of a different font. I thought that would be something that the audience could relate to. However, the typography might change before I present in class tomorrow, although I still have Bookstore covers to do for tomorrow and some more touch-up work for my book cover. I also have an exam in another class tomorrow, eek! But hopefully it all comes together. I definitely like the Lile photo choice, so I'm really hoping everyone else does too.