Tuesday's discussion with our guests from the Meredith Corporation was full of interesting anecdotes and perspectives on the design decision-making process at Better Homes and Gardens, for example, and the discussions and debates that stem from these decisions.
My time in the Magazine Design course last semester taught me a number of things about editorial design, but what was truly the one of the most important lessons I took from that was the concept of content-driven design and being able to fight for your work. In doing so, each placement of text, photographs and visual elements needs a purpose. However, it wasn't until our discussion in Advanced Magazine Design on Tuesday where I realized how this transfers over into the real world. I had no idea the extent to which a design or concept would need to be fought for, until we were told this story:
Nancy Hopkins, senior deputy editor and food brand catalyst for Better Homes and Gardens had a particularly entertaining story on her debate with the big wigs of the magazine over the art direction and concept of a piece on homemade birthday cakes, which according to Hopkins is a recent trend. Hopkins struggled to win over the powers that be with her simplistic, chic take on a homemade birthday cake because they seemed to think that there wasn't anything interesting about the photograph of the birthday cakes on the cover. "Well, why is there only one candle?" The editors asked. "And where's the decoration?" Hopkins explained to us that what they seemed to be missing what the concept of a homemade birthday cake, and the idea that the photographs of these homemade birthday cakes needed to be believable. Her answer to the one-candle question? She says that putting just one candle on the cake would allow the piece to resonate with the greater majority of their 40 million readers – yes, that's 40 million, and would avoid trying to suggest a particular age. She also mentioned that she wanted these homemade cakes to lack any elaborate, overdone decoration because that just wouldn't be realistic for what most homemade birthday cakes would look like.
So in the end, Hopkins' perseverance proved to be successful, and the in the February 2011 issue appeared a beautiful piece on homemade birthday cakes. The design and photographs were chic and best of all, realistic. (Photo or screenshot of the BHG birthday cake feature to come, I just am having trouble locating it at the moment.)
[[ YOU CAN'T MISS THIS ]]
Wine on the Web
Despite my experience in the area, I am constantly looking for new and innovative Web page designs (I have a pretty extensive list of them bookmarked), so it seemed only fitting to include one in a "You can't miss this" post. This one actually comes from the blog I'll be carefully following this semester, designers-who-blog.com. This one – a website called Good Grape – was posted by one of the designers as an admirable, inspirational Web page designs. This one in particular had a unique way of organizing the links at the bottom of the homepage. I thought this site's design was full of all kinds of clever details that fit the contents of the website. See what you think!
"The Great Amazon-ing of Starbucks"
Imprint, one of my favorite design blogs (from Print Magazine) is full of all kinds of beautiful, creative and inspirational design work in all mediums. Now I know most of us have already heard of Starbucks and their new logo coming out later this year to mark 40 years and "a new chapter" for the company, but I enjoyed this interesting take on the re-design and its real purpose. It explains how this "new chapter" is really going to be about expanding their brand even further, beyond the coffee.
See the article here.
