The Portfolio Panic [RESPONSE]

As taxing as it was to sift through everyone's entire portfolio in class over the past week, it's truly been one of the most valuable opportunities yet this semester. Not only were our portfolios reviewed by each and every other classmate, but it was the first chance I had all semester to really look at not only the amount of work I've done in the past few months alone, but also how far my work has come in the past four years. I can't wait to get the feedback from classmates and start looking at ways to condense and strengthen my portfolio, which will involve revising much of my past student work. The task is a bit daunting, yes, but when else will I ever get the opportunity to have my past work critiqued by 18 other people in the field?! Seeing how everyone's work evolves over the next several weeks when we regroup for our portfolio review will certainly be interesting – I can't wait to see how far everyone has come by the end of the semester.

Here are a few of the pieces currently in my portfolio, in addition to some of my work already posted in past blog posts. I'll be interested to see what makes the cut the next time around...

 Starting with a few flier designs I did for the TOMS campus organization One for One, and then a feature photo essay design from the beginning magazine design class last semester.

One for One at Mizzou, Oct. 2009

One for One at Mizzou, April 2010

One for One at Mizzou, September 2010

Feature photo essay design, November 2010

Feature photo essay design, November 2010

Feature photo essay design, November 2010

SJI Logos [CRITIQUE]

During these past couple weeks, our capstone class took a big of a breather from magazine design – okay, not completely true – and switched gears for our 20-5 logo assignment. The task was to begin with 20 initial logo designs for the organization, and then narrow the number down to 5 and expand upon those 5 designs for the following week. The logos were for the Sports Journalism Institute – a national organization that aims to attract talented students to journalism through opportunities in sports reporting and editing, while enhancing racial and gender diversity in sports departments nationwide. Greg Bowers, sports editor at the Columbia Missourian, asked we design the logo with both the sports element and concept of diversity in mind. Easier said then done. This was quite an interesting challenge for someone that's spent the last year designing for pages and pages of story content – it was difficult for me to all of the sudden create a design that was so condense, but still just as content-driven. It had been awhile since I had done a logo design, so I have to say my first 20 are not exactly designs I am particularly proud of. However, having to create so many designs for the first round proved to be a valuable exercise. Once 5 were selected from your group of logo designs, it came down to two final designs for the competition.

Final five SJI logo designs

Final two SJI logos submitted for competition

Top: This logo design uses the mechanical aspect of sports to drive the design and to give it a very unique appeal. I think this logo incorporates the sports aspect of the institute without being too literal. The color choices were chosen because of its appeal to both genders.

Bottom: This logo design has a very collegiate feel, which not only speaks to the institute’s purpose, but it also a design style that doesn’t limit its appeal to a specific gender or type of student. The yellow stroke across the SJI resembles a highlighter, which adds some texture and depth to the logo and also ties the logo’s collegiate look.

ESPN at the iPad conference + A Life of Looking's mini-makeover and VoxTalk!

[RESPONSE]: ESPN The Magazine at Monday's iPad Conference

Monday's iPad conference was a day full of inventive, creative people in the magazine industry, but one of the more memorable panels for me was with the ESPN crew. The presentation was full of interesting perspectives on this new platform for magazines.

ESPN's Rob King compared the expectations of mobile and tablet apps to that of his young son's first experience with elevators. Even after his son returned home and was no longer able to use an elevator, the expectation to have one to use was still there because he had had it once before. King explained that the idea of an app is the time – when you can get it first somewhere, there is an expectation to get it anywhere. 

The group also discussed the idea of "you selling you" when it comes to conceptualizing content for any platform. They explained that all of the successful apps stem from this idea. Many aspects of the ESPN brand are prime examples of this. Take, for example, ESPN's ScoreCenter mobile application. The app is all about customization and personalization to give you instant access to stats and up-to-date scores on your favorite teams and players, based on your settings. The same goes for Pandora, TweetDeck and Starbucks apps, for example – the app's content is all based on your likes and dislikes, favorites, suggestions based on those likes and dislikes, etc.

These two notions truly altered my perspective and thought process for conceptualizing an iPad app and its design.

 
Watch the recorded sessions from the iPad conference here.

[YOU CAN'T MISS]: A Life of Looking's mini-makeover

I decided it was time to give my blog a little TLC. I took out the busy, stock image as the background and opted for a cleaner, more reader-friendly design. I also recreated my blog's banner to add a little more context to my blog's content and purpose, and switched out the previous font for a more tailored and suitable font for the blog title. Ultimately, I'd like to take more time later on in the semester to add even more design elements and personality to my blog's design, but in the meantime, I thought it was in need of a change. What do you think?

[YOU CAN'T MISS]: Blog design of Vox magazine's VoxTalk

I thought I would give this opportunity to make sure you are becoming regulars on Vox magazine's new blog – I have to admit, it has exceeded my expectations. As a web producer for the scene department for the magazine, I spent my entire weekend posting movie reviews to the blog from the weekend's True/False Film Fest, so it's possible that my fondness for it grew simply through hours poured into it over that three-day period, however, its daily presence can't go unnoticed. Not only is their new content daily, but the variety of content and voices on the blog is impressive – so impressive, I thought it deserved a shout-out. But on more design-related note, not only is the blog's layout easy to navigate, but its logo and banner treatment serve as a great visual representation of the blog and its intended audience. The logo itself is very "Voxy" – clever and to the point. See it for yourself, visit VoxTalk here!

The True/False Takeover: Finishing the WHAT T/F Feature Design

[CRITIQUE]: True/False Feature Design for Vox Magazine

 

The design for the 10-page True/False feature evolved from a retro space theme into a much more conceptual theme about the True/False Film Fest's invasion on Columbia. The text consisted of several individual pieces on varying aspects of the festival and a guide to take you through it. The theme for the feature was "What T/F," covering the who, what, when, where, why and how of the fest. My co-designer Allison and I worked to make this feature theme come to life with a strong, compelling visual theme, so we decided that the visual elements would give the text a somewhat retro comic, space theme to make this invasion concept come to life. The combination of font choices, color palette and illustrations created a style of design that was not only appropriate for Vox readers, but was a perfect fit for the quirky, hipster-like vibe of the festival.

Tackling such a large feature with so many separate stories and story elements was certainly a challenge for the two of us. It was clear that we needed to use our visual theme in a way that would also successfully carry out the feature's "What T/F" theme. We eventually found visual elements to take from the splash page (pictured above) to apply to each of the feature pages to create a consistent visual package. I think the elements used like the comic-like headline treatment and the color palette used throughout helped to make this a successful package.

 

 

WHAT T/F: The evolution of the Vox cover design from start to finish

[Critique]: True/False Cover Designs, from beginning to end

Phew, what a last few weeks it has been, but wow, to see it all in print tomorrow morning will really make it all worthwhile. Balancing feature and cover designing was certainly a challenge, but no design challenge comes without plenty of learning experiences. I thought I'd go through the design process for the cover design, specifically, to look at how my initial concepts transformed into what you see in print. So, here we go...

As part of the requirement for submitting cover concepts for the first cover competition, I provided the editors with three very different takes on the True/False feature of Vox. I began with three cover options: an illustration, a studio concept and a concept that evolved from my Spring Preview cover design.

>> From this...

This cover was modeled after my Spring Preview cover concept, using a neon, nighttime theme. If fully executed, the cover would have used photos from actual True/False venues.

This cover concept was done to correlate with the retro space visual theme for the True/False feature that Allison and I were working on. I used the idea of a human invasion that the city of Columbia is faced with during the True/False festival. The city is full of people from all walks of life during this weekend so I thought this human invasion idea would be a nice way to play that up.

This preliminary cover design represented my studio concept. Concepts using a studio shot can be difficult to show in its initial form, so this one requires some explanation. 


I wanted to play up the idea of the ultimate juggernaut, which is a term that the festival uses to describe their superstar volunteers – those that dedicate more than 40 hours to the festival. I wanted to create a relationship between the festivalgoers and the volunteers, so I took the juggernaut idea and made it into a festivalgoer – someone that's just as passionate and dedicated to the festival, but as an audience member. I would deck out the model to in their True/False gear, with a pass around their neck representing a festival pass that would contain the cover sell lines. This ended up being the concept that the editorial team wanted me to take a step further.

The studio concept was the favorite among editors (and here it's merely that, a concept, not a design), and I was asked to further explore the possibilities with this studio concept to create a final cover design with a real photo shoot to submit for a finalist for the True/False cover competition. The idea would be that doing an actual shoot would provide editors with more information on the shoot, and then would allow them to re-shoot if my cover concept was chosen for the issue.

>> To this...

I spent my next weekend finding all of the True/False gear for the shoot, the location and of course, the models. Lucky for me, The Butterfly Tattoo was more than willing to let me borrow a shopping bag full of True/False goodies for the shoot, even knowing the cover might have even run, and for that I will forever be a loyal customer. I decided to create two options for the editors to have when it came time to decide on a final design for the issue, so I convinced two friends of mine to agree to doing the shoot. Of course as you might expect, my models were late, however the outcome was truly worth the wait. The shoot took place just outside my house, with a few wardrobe changes and adjustments along the way. In the end, it was the red and black get-up photos that were really the most successful. The juggernaut idea, again, is used in the headline, and then the issue's theme for the feature "What True/False."

>> And finally... this.

So, here it is... the final cover! I think the most exciting part of it all was having a byline for not only designing, but for the photo as well (editors had a second photo shoot, but decided on my original photo for its more compelling composition). The fact that I had my hands in every aspect of the design made seeing the final product in print that much more rewarding.

Creative Director, redefined

[Response]: "The September Issue"

Tuesday's design class was such a nice surprise - we spent those two hours watching one of my favorite movies, "The September Issue," as a group. Even after seeing this movie for possibly 12th time, I still find new things to learn from the film. This film helps to emphasize that, above all, the creative director fulfills the magazine's editorial vision through all creative and visual aspects: photography, fashion, art and all visual themes that stem from there. They are in charge of all visual interpretation/direction. The creative director of Vogue, Grace Coddington, did one particular feature on the 1920s. The fashion, the setting and even the type of photography and the style of photos were based on a particular designer – John Galliano – and his couture, 1920s-inspired pieces.

The editor takes the creative director's editorial vision and inspiration and edits it in several ways, but particularly to fit the magazine and its mission and also to git the magazine as a particular way as well (size, degree, etc.), and also to  put them in check. The creative director, however, shows the editor how to visualize an idea or concept as part of the magazine.

Vogue Creative Director Grace Coddington and Editor in Chief Anna Wintour

[Critique]: Shindig final prototype for publishing presentation

Shindig prototype cover

Shindig prototype department page

Shindig prototype feature spread

Shindig prototype color palette

I wanted the design overall to appear stylish, modern and fresh, but above all, make the magazine’s content appear “do-able” and attainable to a wider audience, grabbing the attention of more than just the readers who already have an invested interest in learning more about entertaining; This particular type of magazine deserves its own unique and apparent style and in creating a clear sense of style and consistent vision for each issue, the magazine is better able to establish the Shindig brand; Adding textural elements to the design is just one example of ways to make the magazine feel more relateable and attainable to its readers, rather than sticking with the structured, static design of many of its potential competitors.

For the logo, I wanted a young, fresh and inviting for this young professional audience – its casual, playful script help to emphasize this; its design helps to appeal to a large part of the magazine’s mission: to be “for the entertainer in all of us.”

I wanted the cover shots to be fresh and stylish to reflect the type of parties/entertaining concepts that our readers would aspire to have but more importantly, that don’t seem out of their reach; cover is both inviting and appealing; design is stylish and chic without being stuffy – we want to attract even those who might not necessarily be looking to read something on entertaining, but also appear relevant to those readers who do already entertain and want a magazine that serves their needs as well.

Overall, I was pretty satisfied with my final prototype design that I presented to the publishing group (maybe sans the green bar on the top of my feature spread – I realize now that is more of a distraction than an effective design element). In the end, I was chosen as the publishing group's creative director to lead the editorial vision for this magazine prototype. I'm eager to begin work on our prototype's design and work with my fellow Shindig designers to create a strong visual personality and brand for the magazine.

[You Can't Miss]: Paste magazine's digital issues

Designers: Ever feel stuck when trying to find great feature or department design inspiration? Sometimes I struggle to find ways to transfer some of the graphic design inspiration I found when scouring some of my favorite blogs onto my work in magazine spreads. Well, look no further, because Paste magazines allows you to skim through entire issues at a time with their digital issues available at pastemagazine.com. Paste has recently become a favorite for me to find new ways to organize and align text as well as ways to add interesting visual elements to marry with the text arrangement on spreads. This magazine is also a great example of a magazine that truly has a personality and maintains its unique style throughout each spread.

Here's an example of a digital issue of the magazine from June/July 2010.

Paste magazine cover, June/July 2010

You Can't Miss: Mag+ iPad design video & illustration blogger

More on Mag+:



I wanted to be sure to include a video on the Mag+ software so that those of you who weren't at the staff meeting to see the live demo could look at some of the Mag+ features and take a deeper look at how Popular Science has been able to reach its reachers on an entirely new level with their iPad work using Mag+.



Illustration Blogger:

Lately I've been wanting to work more on improving upon my illustration skills with my recent designs, so seeing this particular blog seemed to bring on inspiration for doing so. It's a bit quirky, and her style is certainly not similar to my own, but I do think it's nice to venture out of your design comfort zone to find new inspiration.

See the full blog here.