Response: Websites

I just loved looking at my classmates' websites this past week. Since they are all being made through CMS available online for free, such as Cargo Collective, 4ormat and Wix, I was surprised to see how individual they were able to make each of their sites through their logos. I had never really considered using one of these sites before because I bought my own domain in 2008, and I have been using a website I had created through iMac and Dreamweaver. But I really am loving how all of these looks.

Some of my classmates have used slideshows to showcase their work, others pop-out windows and some just scroll-style. I think I prefer the slide show formate because it feels like it is using the web capabilities and making it easier to look through quickly. I love websites with lists and slideshows. And when they are together - total perfection.

I will give kudos to my classmate Blair because I love her logo and the overall look of her website, although I think she should take my green ribbon idea!

Here is her logo:

The logo design is both fun and classy, which is definitely how I would describer Blair. I like how she was able to take her initials and play with them without using a funky font or outrageous colors. She said in class that she often sees people as having a color, and I think she is spot-on with hers. Feminine without being pink, classic without being a standard black and white.


About my website. ... Ugh.

That's really all I have to say about it right.

I am going to build mine in a template online because I just can't get my Dreamweaver site to do what I want.

You can't miss this: Steamy book (covers)

Book covers seem to be a theme this week for my blogging because when I was perusing imprint I came across an article about romance novels and an interview with an art director who has been creating these guilty pleasure covers for 13 years.

Naturally, I clicked to read more.

Here are some examples created by Claire Brown.

Notice anything about them other than, ahem, their seductive poses and titles?

They all use wispy/calligraphy/Victorian typefaces. I think this goes back to that idea (a la Midnight in Paris) of nostalgia, where everyone thinks living in another era would make them happier. Romance does seem more romantic in the Victorian age, possibly because of those corset pushing up your you-know-whats. I mean, look at "Treasure Me."

It's a short article, but I thought it was interesting that Brown says the office is filled with classical art books, contemporary high fashion, architecture and interior design. She also said it helps to have a knowledge of history, classical art, architecture and furnishings.

Some of the challenges that come with designing these books is their small size.

Like any other publication, you really have to know your audience and keep them in mind when designing. These readers like kilts and, of course, chiseled abs.

Critique: Book covers

Final book cover (maybe?):

Well, I have been working on my cover design this week, and I decided to incorporate some old features. This type design should look familiar. You all ranked it as one of your top 3 designs I did from the original designs. (Remember: it was orange with this type) I was really glad that the university press employees liked my type cover, but I was not sure how I was going to attack the redo when they said they didn't want the state of Missouri. I agree that it was too obvious and limited, so I tried to get a little more imaginative without being to "atypical," since that is not really my style or the press', in my opinion.

I decided to start small with changes. The first was that I placed the title inside of the words from the book that describes the brothers since the brothers are at the center of those descriptors. I also took the map idea from one of my first designs and decided to apply it in a non-traditional way. I created a river like design, but I also put in the lines from the typographic map to add some texture. I am a little worry if the blue lines look like a river. I would appreciate any feedback. Of course, I wanted to leave my mark by using my favorite color one last time for the semester - so this is an ode to tangerine, which, luckily, has kind of an earthy look to it.

While I still don't think it is SO exciting. It's no red, white and blue lips at least. I am pleased with how it has progressed since the first designs. This is not at all how I imagined it at all, but I think it is less safe than what I would have designed it at the the beginning semester. I probably would have used the one that kind of looked like a textbook definition of literary/history book. I think this one will jump out on a shelf more than the brown color that I created during the first round.

You can't miss this: Reportage

Through my blog of the semester, Imprint Magazine, I came across this cool new project/website through the University of the Best of England. It is designed to report through visual journalism, including documentary drawing and illustration. It even includes emerging technologies. It is called Reportager.

Right now the website tells mostly what it will do in the future, but go ahead and check it out. This is something really innovative and interesting. It reminds me of an earlier post I made about a graduate student in California who created a poster for the top headline of the day. Words say a lot, but as we know, so can images.

Here are a few from the website as it stands now:

Dave Sparshott’s South East Asia sketches
"Dave Sparshott has recently returned from travelling for six weeks through South east Asia, documenting his experiences through location drawing. His primary focus has been upon documenting the places, people, and journeys he experienced whilst backpacking through Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

The images here are a small example of his sketchbook work made on location and which he intends to use as material for an extensive, self-published illustrated travel journal or guide with drawn maps and annotations.

Find out about and see more of Dave Sparshott's work on his member's page, or by visiting his previous travel documentary work in his Visual Journal in the projects section of Reportager."

Matthias Beckman: Artists Studios in Berlin
"On June 15, 2012, Matthias Beckman's series "Artists Studios in Berlin" will be exhibited at Columbus Art Foundation in Ravensburg (Southern Germany).

The Columbus Art Foundation intend to publish a catalogue with text by Andreas Schalhorn, curator of the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin (Collection of drawings and prints).

In November 2012 the exhibition will be shown at Fruehsorge Contemporary Drawings in Berlin. Other venues to be announced.

Matthias Beckman's series about Vietnamese Life will be exhibited at the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin in 2013. There already exists a booklet of drawings published by the artists residency programme "Lichtenberg Studios", curated by Uwe Jonas."

Seven Thirty Eight
"Steven Wilkin, Course leader in Illustration at UCLAN has been drawing his fellow commuters on his daily journey between Hebden Bridge and Preston over the last ten years. It has become a fundamental part of his drawing practice over the last five years. He has collected over twenty sketchbooks of drawings.

Last week Steven published a newspaper called ‘seventhirtyeight’ a tabloid that records over seventy of these commuter drawings.

“It is effectively a travelling exhibition. I handed out the paper on my commute to my fellow passengers”. The newspaper also made an appearance at the International Drawing Project"

Review: Book covers

Today we had three employees from the University of Missouri Press come to our class to look at some book cover designs for some upcoming books they will be publishing.

I will probably most my designs at a later date, but I thought I would share some of the interesting information the publishers shared with my class because I didn't really know much about book publishing world.

The most interesting thing we learned was that books get returned - AFTER people read them because they can be returned until it stops being published. One of our guests says that means sometimes a book will be published for 20 years, so people can keep bringing it back.

Because of this return rate, publishers stray away from really dark book covers because they show the wear more than lighter ones. For example, they get finger prints on them, but the biggest problem is that the dark colors show scuffing more than the lighter ones. I find this surprising because I feel like white cars always look dirtier than black cars. I thought the same logic would apply here - wrong.

As with everything else, the Internet is changing even the world of book publishing. Because of uploading covers to sites, such as Barnes and Nobles and Amazon, they don't like white covers because you can't tell it's a book cover. If it is white, they would like some kind of border somewhere on the cover, so that it shows up better online.

Those are just three highlights and just about the cover of the book.

I found these 8 tips on The Book Designer's website for creating a killer book cover, so I thought I would share (Number 3 should look familiar):


Top 8 Cover Design Tips for Self-Publishers

1. Establish a principal focus for the cover—Nothing is more important. Your book is about something, and the cover ought to reflect that one idea clearly.
2. Make everything count—If you are going to introduce a graphic element, make sure it helps you communicate with the reader.
3. Use the background—Avoid white backgrounds, which will disappear on retailer’s white screens. Use a color, a texture, or a background illustration instead.
4. Make your title large—Reduce your cover design on screen to the size of a thumbnail on Amazon and see if you can read it. Can you make out what it’s about? If not, simplify.
5. Use a font that’s easy to read—See above. There’s no sense using a font that’s unreadable when it’s radically reduced. Particularly watch out for script typefaces, the kind that look lacy and elegant at full size. They often disappear when small.
6. Find images that clarify—Try not to be too literal. Look for something that expresses the mood, historical period, or overall tone of the book; provide a context.
7. Stay with a few colors—If you don’t feel comfortable picking colors, look at some of the color palettes available online to get a selection of colors that will work well together.
8. Look at lots of great book covers—You may not be able to mimic all their techniques, but the best book covers are tremendous sources of inspiration and fresh ideas.

Critique: M-word revisited

After this weekend, I am pretty sure my group mate/creative director for our class assignment where we make a prototype magazine has another letter to put in front of -word. I don't think it takes too much imagination to come up with the letter/word combination, but the good news is we're almost done.

We met Monday with our publishing group members and the teachers from both the classes. I think it went really well. LeeAnn did a great job getting us organized. I think we each designed 12-14 pages for the magazine. I had one feature, which was 4.5 pages, 4 departments and the TOC.

Since we are done designing, I wanted to show my final designs (note: we made a few changes, but I don't have them in my files) with a brief explanation.

Feature:

I had the garden feature, which I was really happy about (the other feature was about fish - yuck). I had a lot of fun designing this spread. I wanted to try and break out of my usual style, and I think I did that by using the arrows going from the skill to the place in the recipe where it wants you to use the skill. Although we used a set color palette for this issue, I liked it because these are not colors I would have picked. They would have been more pastel, but I love how they really pop. They feel very summery and fun, which is what we wanted for this summer issue. I also liked breaking up the intro into the two pages. I think it worked well. 

Departments:

I started with the "In my fridge" spread, but this final one is way better than the first two drafts. However, the one I think shows the most improvement is the first page in this group - Sweet treats. Originally, I was thinking very simply. I was given one image, so I was going to put it in the top right-hand side of the page because that was what we were told to do, and I am excellent at following directions. I wasn't thinking very creatively - although you could argue that the final version isn't that creative but trust me, it is so much better than the first draft, which I might have already posted. I was glad I broke the image up. Now it looks like the icing is being piped on the baseball brownie. Again the curved arrow was used to add playfulness.

I think the one that needed the least improve was either the Meals by the Minute or the 3 ways Ice Cream. The former one because I initially proposed a very similar design, and I just added the elements that went with our style sheet - colors, fonts, etc. The latter because I think I was in the groove of the magazine by the time I designed it. It just fell into place. If I had started with that, I don't think that would have been the case.

Last but not least: TOC

I was honored to get to do the TOC page and that the publishers specifically requested my design. You all have seen this before. The only changes was the organization of where each story went and the fonts. Looks pretty good!

Response: M-word presentations

Our big M-word project is in its final weeks. I realize those of you outside of my classmates have no idea what this all means. But, basically, my advanced magazine design class has been broken up into four teams that work with a publishing class at the university to create four magazine prototypes for a company. In just over two weeks, we will be heading up/down/over there present these.

This week, we did a small presentation for our professor, the publishing class professor and the TA for our class. We presented the table of contents and all the department pages. Although we still have some work to do, I was glad to get some feedback on what we have done and the changes we have made. The comments were very constructive, which is what we needed.

I have been working on a chart this week, so I thought I would post it on here for you: