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:

You can't miss this: Make-up

I'm a traditionalist when it comes to make-up. I have been getting Clinque since my mom gave me my first green lipstick tube in third grade. I remember this remarkable moment for two reasons - I have always been a girly-girl and I wrote about it in my childhood journal, which I reread recently while I was visiting my parents' house. It felt like a momentous occasion in my young life. Make-up was so fun.

Now, when I go to the Clinque counter, it is always just to pick up the one thing I need: powder, foundation. Always the same type, always the same color and always the same packaging: green or clear and silver. When I am done with the tube or compact, I just throw it away. It never seems like there is anything remarkable about it. And maybe, with Clinque, there isn't anything particularly remarkable about its design. But that is not true of all make-up packaging or packaging in general.

An article on Imprint's website this week reminded me of the fun that make-up can be and what we as designers have an opportunity to create even on something as mundane as a piece of cardboard. It was like experiencing a written Sephora. Joan Renner was being interviewed and the conversation dovetailed into a discussion about her more than 500-piece collection of commercial face powder boxes, hair net packages, bobby pin cards, and print ads that she has from the years of 1900-1950.

They are stunning.

See!!

I think this is a great article to give you all inspiration for future projects - maybe your personal logos or even your book covers if you are doing the one about girls, beer and war.

So, CHECK IT OUT!

My extensive collection of over 500 pieces includes commercial face powder boxes, hair net packages, bobby pin cards, and print ads circa 1900-1950.

Read more: Black Dahlia Murder, Part 2: The Victim’s Makeup — Imprint-The Online Community for Graphic Designers
For great design products, visit our online store: MyDesignShop.com

Critique: 20/10 assignment

I am not ashamed to admit it. I have always been one to pick a book by its cover.

Over winter break, I went to Barnes and Noble and picked my holiday reading just by looking at the covers and the titles. Not good sounding or looking - Next! I don't even bother flipping it over just to "see" if the plot might be more impressive than the cover leads me to believe. The method worked. I ended up with two great bookstore finds (Sarah's Key and The Future of Us) through this method and choosing a book from a friend (Bringing Home the Hermes is so funny and excellent. I couldn't tell by the cover design or the writing that it was actually a non-fiction book, which I typically hate).

My mom, who is a librarian at a high school, says she always keeps the book jackets on her books because she knows that is what "sells" them to the readers/students at her school.

Why am I talking about book covers? Well, they are designed by graphic designers/editorial designers, obviously, but it was one of my assignments for the week.

My magazine design class was challenged to come up with 20 different cover designs for a series of books being published by the University of Missouri Press. We were given five book options, and we were to pick one.

I went with a Lewis and Clark type book about six brothers involved in the fur trade along the Missouri River, who were also pioneers heading west. Although I liked several of the other book ideas a little bit better (there was one about Girls, Beer and War and another about Mary Louise Smith), I decided to go with what I thought was a more challenging cover.

It was a challenge to come up with 20 ideas, but here they are:

These are not in the order that I did the designs except for the first "page." While I was skimming the book, there was a quote about seeing the red, white and blue being raised above St. Louis. Not being from Missouri, I had to get the whole "arch-thing" out of my system. I recognize that the arch wasn't even built until the 1960s, but it was the jumping off point.

The next three images on that page are some of my favorites because I felt like they look like real book covers. My favorite of all my designs was the one with the map of the Missouri river faded in the background with the cutout from the image provided. I thought it looked like a "real" book cover while still being design-y and more than just an image. The other two that use the whole picture reminded me of a book about the Melungeons, a group of tri-racial indians from Appalachia - pronounces App-a-latch-a, people, that I got when I went to the Governor's School for Tennessee History.

The next set of four are probably some of my least favorite. I was trying to work with the idea of fitting the six brothers in and trying to create something from, basically, not enough information on my part.

The third set of four has another one of my favorites. I wanted to do more with the fur trade, but all my ideas were kind of gross. There is just something unappealing about fur when its not already in coat format (although I am not a fan of real fur for clothing, so don't call PETA on me). I plan to do more with the trap, which I think could make a really nice cover.

In the next set, I was surprised how many of my classmates liked this map image over the one on the first page. I think I am going to work to combine the ideas a little for the final showing of these to the printing professionals, alliteration intended.

This last page has one of my other favorite covers, which was the orange, black and white type image. Although I don't know if it would work in a book store to draw your attention, I like the graphic element of this one with the different font weights. Also because I wasn't given and image of all the brothers, I thought this was a good way to get around that and tell more about who the brothers were through words.

I welcome more thoughts. Look for the final designs in the next week or so!

Critique: Website time

I am glad we are getting ready to embark on a website development project. I have been anxiously awaiting and fearing this portion of the course because it is a skill I am interested in developing further, but it also seems like a large mountain to climb. I have been playing around with some basic PHP-type coding; however, it has been slow and constantly interrupted by other projects/life/school/etc.

So, I think I am going to use a plug-in for Wordpress; however, I also will be making one in Cargo, too. Because I have been told the plug-in will take a while to learn because of having to use the coding language Ruby, which I am not familiar. This just gives me an excuse not to put it off any longer.

I have been scouring the web looking for other website inspiration.

Here is what I have found so far:

This is photographer Ed Ou's website. While it displays his beautiful photos, I think how you just slide through his photos could be used for layouts. I also like how clean and unassuming it is, which is a perfect backdrop for photos.

http://www.edouphoto.com/index.php?/ongoing/singles/

Another photographer, Allison Smith's website is described as having "more whimsy." It looks similar to some of the ones we saw on Thursday through Cargo and Carbon Made.

This one is kind of fun! It is an editorial design website for Bradley R. Hughes. It is very simple, but it looks nice and is easy to read.

Apparently infographic people are more apt to create portfolio websites. Here is one from David Foster.

I am still looking for more that I like. I will most them as I find them!

Can't Miss this: Typodermicfonts

Ah, Twitter has done it again. Amidst the hundreds of thousands of posts about everything from today's news to new regulations for the EPA about coal power, one of my followers has pointed me in the direction of another font-focused website/blog. I was first intrigued by the post because it was tweeted by a non-designer. An engineer, to be more exact. He posted that he got "lost" in Typodermicfonts, so I figured if an engineer was that fascinated by the fonts and this website (I think he chose the wrong career, except his chances of getting are probably a lot better than others) this was something that you all might be interested in as well.

I wandered over there to check it out first. Basically, it's a website/blog that lists different typefaces and includes descriptions of downloadable typefaces/fonts. It also features an image of each of the typefaces used in sentences and in different colors. While some of the descriptions seem repetitive or unnecessary because you can look at the font in the example, such as Pyrite being described as "angular, heavy metal display font," which would be easy to infer, but it also talks about how this font has been recently updated to include fractions and numeric ordinals as well as that "ligatures have been included for LL and OO pairs." The descriptions also include more fun information, such as that Crystal Radio Kit was the typeface used for the old Radio Shack logo.

See:

Oh, I just love to learn things like this!

I have on several occasion had friends ask me if I know what typefaces stores or brands use. Typically, I just guess Helvetica now that I have seen the documentary, but now we all know that Radio Shack used to use this wild font.

I know most people don't like "cheesy" font, hello Comic Sans haters, but I think all fonts have their time and place. However, I am glad that Radio Shack has updated its look to what we now know and love as its logo:

Critique: Magazine editing assignment

This past week in one of my non-design classes, we got to be creative. So, I thought I would post my design. We were given a story about medicine cabinets and told to give it a title, external blurb and three internal blurbs. I decided to make my pages into a department style set of pages with a department title on the top left-hand side page and a full-page, user-frield graphic on its coordinating page since this is a popular design for service-oriented journalism in consumer magazines. The design also gave me a chance to keep working with cutouts, which is something I think every designer strives for because it is a common skill needed in many designs. This was also a conservative sounding magazine - FDA Consumer - so I didn't want anything too wild. Just useful and to the point.

Here is my layout:

The title is “Storage Wars,” which gets to the idea of both where should you keep your medicine and how to keep it up-to-date. The external blurb, “Keep your family safe and battle your medicine cabinet this weekend,” further explains the title, so that it isn’t too cryptic. The three design elements I used were subheds in the body of the story, a reference box that could be cut out of the magazine for emergency phone number sand a picture/info graphic with the “Top 8” items readers should have in their medicine cabinet. I picked these three techniques because I wanted an element that would break up the text and made it easier to read (subheds), an element that was useful (phone list) and an element that was visual. I think each of these pieces served their purpose and work well together because they allow for reader interaction and provide information not included in the body of the text but that goes along with the text. I really wanted the dichotomy between the text heavy left-hand side page and the visual element on the right-hand page because it provides readers and opportunity to sit down with the story or just quickly get some information. This variety is important for consumer magazines, and I think this article provides both groups something they can enjoy. It is also a design that could be used in each issue that would provide consistency for the readers.

Can't miss this: Naming

I think naming something, whether a person, blog, or nail polish color seems like so much pressure. I don't know much about naming any of those other than blogs; I do dream of creating my own nail polish color and ponder baby names every once in a while (Evelyn and Harrison, fyi). Every time I attempt to start a blog, it is the name that I spend days, even weeks, thinking about. It always feels so permanent. Not as much with a blog but definitely with a person's name. I think we all have meet that person with an awful name - Stribling, seriously, people. It sound like dribbling - that you can't help but think "why?".

This week, I bring you a short article from Imprint about naming the typeface Empire, which I think you will agree is appropriately named. It is not a long-winded discussion but rare reasoned through images. Enjoy!

Critique: The M-word, part deux

Better Cook is really coming along these days.

I was really glad to show-off our designs in class this week because it allowed me to a) see what all the other magazines were doing with their designs and b) give me some inspiration and change ideas.

During break, I worked on "In my fridge," which I think is a great idea. When I was in late middle school/early high school, I used to read this website (I wish I could remember the name of it) with tips on how to do your hair and make-up based on the looks of popular stars. It also had an "In my make-up" section, which I just loved because I was just in the beginning my foray into make-up. I think this will be well-received. The design is preliminary as we wait on the actual pictures, but I like where it is going.

Now that I have seen my other group member's pages, I want to funk up my sweet treats page. It feels very bland right now. Suggestions welcome.

I really like the way the "Meals by the Minute" is shaping up. I feel like it still needs some tweaking and the actual picture of the burger, but I think it is heading in the right direction.

Response: Class presentations

I know this feels like forever ago, but I really enjoyed all the presentations my classmates did about the history of consumer magazines before 1970. We each had to present on a a decade from a magazine of our choice. Presentations included Vogue (pretty much every year), Popular Mechanics, Good Housekeeping, Time (multiple decades).

I did my presentation on McCall's (1953-1963) because I felt like it most represented the types of magazines I currently read (Martha Stewart Living and Real Simple). I also just love 1950s/60s period movies because of the clothes and I also figured these would fulfill that personal interest. I was right, which to any feminists out there is probably pretty sad; the magazine was choked full of a-line skirts and tips on how to take care of a family. I will admit the topics were more housewife driven than most of today's women's magazine; however, there were many similarities. They all impress the importance doing it all and looking good while doing it.

I will admit that I was surprised by how modern the designs were, albeit being considered basic and sometimes funny because of how literal the designs are sometimes (font was often the biggest offender). I can imagine how much harder designing was before computers when everything was cropped/designed by hand, so I really admired all of the creativity.

One of my favorite designs was a chart of dinner meals. It wasn't just that it told the reader what to eat but also how much. And if she was married, which of course she probably was or was at least thinking about being married, how much her husband should be eating. I could definitely see it running in Real Simple.

I also enjoyed learning about Vogue throughout the years. I didn't realize how many different styles of the Vogue masthead they went through during the years. McCall's never changes; however, the title (McCall's) was pretty useless.