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.

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.

Critique: Book Covers

This week I finally got my book covers together. As beautiful as my hand drawn covers were (not!), I finally put them together on the computer. Of the three covers that I made this one definitely has to be my favorite, not to mention the one that took the most time:

I had a lot of fun getting to draw the pinup girl. I haven't had much work with illustrating people, and I really wanted to try it out for this. I definitely want to go back and fix up her facial features for next week. I also need to fix a bit of the type placement and will probably choose another typeface. Overall, I think this is a solid start. For tomorrow, I will also have potential radio show covers. I have chosen the photos I want to use but will be putting the covers together today. I also will add more to my online portfolio so that it can be critiqued next week.

Critique: Prototype Q&A spread

This week my biggest accomplishment was figuring out a way to make my Home Canvas Q&A spread work. I think I finally nailed it down, although I have a few more tweaks and touches to add. Here's how the spread looks now:

I am really liking how the two images look on the right page of the spread. I think it really helps contrast all the text in the Q&A. It also helps draw the focus instead of the headshot. While I want to showcase the woman who the Q&A is with, that image is so paling and boring. I wanted to use the two images on the right to really bring color into the spread. I also like how the inset photo looks. I was worried it might look disjointed, but I think the two images pair well together and make it work.
What do you guys think? Hopefully I'm headed on the right track!

Critique: Spring Preview Cover redone and Tiger Hotel feature

Hey all! I have some exciting news. I have a job interview on Monday! I'm really stoked, and I also am freaking out trying to perfect the portfolio I am going to bring. In order to do so, I redid my Spring Preview cover. Incase you don't remember, there was a teaser to the (then) upcoming Eli Young Band concert. So I took a media photo from their website, as suggested by Jan and Theresa during my portfolio review before break, to create a new cover. Here's how it looks:

I'm pretty satisfied with it, although I would like to play with the typography a bit more. If you have any suggestions feel free to let me know!
I also have a second draft of my Tiger Hotel feature for tomorrow. Last time they suggest adding more photos, especially of the inside of rooms. They also gave me another page to work with which is greatly needed and appreciated. I am still loving my huge photo spread to open the feature, although I know it was a concern last time since it took up so much space for other potential photos. I'm hoping that with the amount of photos I added and the addition of the extra page I will be able to keep this spread intact. Let me know what you think!

Critique: Home Canvas Prototype

This week I worked a lot on my Home Canvas department prototypes. I think they're coming along really well now. I want to play a bit more with some of the color choices and maybe adding a few more visuals, but I definitely think they make more sense and are more cohesive now. Here's how they look:






My biggest issue so far is just playing with the Q&A. I really want a different photo (preferably an environmental shot) but I don't think that is going to be possible. The photo just does not work well with the Q&A. I also am still working on the organization of the page. I'm hoping that my publishing group tomorrow will have some suggestions.

For tomorrow I am also creating a masthead/editor's letter page for Home Canvas. I also am creating a first draft of the Tiger Hotel feature for Vox and a potential cover for the ROTC and Fire feature issue on 4/12. I should probably get off the blog and get back to work. Wish me luck!

Critique: Simplicity Cover for print

This past week I won my first cover design competition! My Simplicity (Now "Keeping it real simple") cover will be published for the 3/29 issue. I'm so excited for my first cover!
Here's what the new version looks like. Unfortunately I only have the .indd document on my computer, so the font for the story title and blurb is changed. When I get on a Vox computer next I'll fix this...

I definitely like the color scheme more now than on the version I showed on the blog last week. I also like the fading of the handwritten text. I didn't want to fade it too much or the last few words become completely lost, but I thought this was enough to give it a nice feel. What do you guys think? (minus the font problem os course).

Critique: Simplicity cover

Tomorrow in class I will be presenting my final Simplicity cover. I'm finishing it up in the morning (I need a break just to work on some other things) but I'm happy with how it is going. All that's left is figuring out how to fit the title onto the page.
I took my original idea of using the handwritten piece from the woman on the cover and pairing it with her image. For this draft, however, I cut out the woman and placed the text beside her. This really gave me a chance to play with cutouts and photos a bit more. It also took me a while to literally trace every single letter with the pen tool to extract the text and be able to manipulate it. I think had to place everything word by word to make it fit onto the page. It was a tedious process, but I'm happy with the results so far. Now I just need to figure out the title placement and font. Wish me luck! Can't wait for you to see it tomorrow.

Critique: Softball Covers

This week I worked on potential covers for the softball issue of Vox. I presented three covers, each using a different one of our photo choices. Here were the three options I gave:



This week I started showing my work with cut outs. I did a cutout of the girls arm and leg on two of the covers so that I could put her over the text. The leg cutout turned out successful, but I had some difficulty with the arm. Since she was pitching at the time the image was taken her arm and the ball were extremely blurry. If I choose to put these covers in my portfolio I definitely need to clean up the cut outs. That's what happens when you try to do a cutout with little to no time... They don't look up to your personal standards.
I hope to do more work with cutouts in the future, however, and then come back to deal with the more difficult, blurry image.

Critique: iPad take 2

This week I was back on the iPad. In fact, I am sitting in the Vox office finishing it up right now. I'm just going to give you a preview of the spread I like best from the issue. Next week I'll show the whole thing.




This week I was assigned to do departments, and these images are from the arts section. I ended up doing arts, scene, endnotes and the TOC.
I liked the secondary where I was able to play with text placement a little more than with some of the straight stories we publish. It was more fun from a design perspective. I also just really like the image from the splash page, mostly because I love coffee and she's holding a coffee mug.
I think that I could have found a better way to break up the two stories, although I am not upset with how it turned out. If I had some more space I would have tried to play with some other things, but I did not have that liberty. Maybe even just playing with the color of the line break would work. Maybe I'll run that by Dayne, I don't know.
I think this week went much better with the iPad. Since I knew what I was doing and what to expect I was able to plan my time better. I also had correct templates to use so I didn't spend 3 hours designing the wrong way. That was definitely a plus.
After doing both departments and features, I think that I prefer the features. There was a lot more liberty to play with design which I really enjoyed. I think when I go back to do the iPad again I'll ask to do the feature.

Critique: Wilderness Feature

Let me begin by saying, sorry designers. I am writing this post from my apartment and due to getting a new computer I can't get my laptop to connect to mofiles right now, so I will not be able to upload photos of the feature until tomorrow. But I promise to get online and add them as soon as I have access to the server!

I really do like how this feature turned out. It looks much different than the original feature that Andrea and I created. We found better typefaces to use and a more "wilderness" style color palette. We also made it look less "girly" as the editors had described it. With the help of Timmy, we also came up with a better photo edit. The sidebars also work a lot better now.
The experience of working on the feature with another designer was great. Andrea and I worked very well together and were able to work fast and efficiently. We also had similar ideas on how to design, what photos to use and what typography and colors we liked, making it easy to collaborate. I'm really excited to see how the story turns out in print.

I have a lot of work coming up this next week. Once again I am back on the iPad app. I also have to bring in an updated Simplicity cover for Thursday. Not to mention working on the history project. Wish me luck! With iPad work around the corner I'll need it.

Critique: iPad 02/09/12

Sorry in advance but these feature images are in reverse order, so please bare with me.
Last week I was in the first group of iPad app designers. The app is a weekly version of Vox that is transformed into a iPad application. I was in charge of the cover, TOC and afterlife feature package. Between creating the landscape and portrait versions of each of these I designed a total of 32 pages in 2 days. While we hit a few bumps in the process due to being the first group and some of the templates being wrong, it was a great experience. I really enjoyed the process and that you have a bit more freedom with designing. I have included my features in both landscape and portrait versions on here.
PORTRAIT:















LANDSCAPE















Overall I am pleased with the feature. It was nice because I was able to use the print version as a building block, for example I kept the splash page from print, but I was able to add my own touches. I used dotted lines with new story titles rather than the parenthesis that they used in print. I wish I had done a little bit more with the artwork. On a few pages all I had to use was a pull quote which wasn't ideal for my design. I wish I had time to create an illustration or find more photos.
I am pleased with my sidebars, however. I really like how the clouds turned out behind the text.
While I was extremely frustrated while working on the iPad, I really like the final product. I'm really excited to do my second issue in about two weeks.