You Can't Miss this Illustration

This illustration was done very well. It reminded me of Carra's VoxTalk ad. I think this is a really cute illustration and very simple and elegant. It almost has a modern feel to it, with the spaciousness and clean, sharp lines and dimensions. What's awesome about it is if you click the link from Swiss-Miss or go to the website for Every Last Drop it goes into an even more detailed illustration website about how much water is being used in daily settings. This website is similar to one I found last year Slavery Footprint [which has smaller illustrations] are really fun to check out to get some ideas for some basic items that we see everyday.
-AMA

Photo Inspiration [#CoMoSnow]

Well, like many of you, I have chosen #CoMoSnow for my inspiration for my photo inspiration this week. However, I'm taking it to a deeper meaning. Below is the picture I took, and I kind of related the people's reaction to the snow, to me. Not in the sense that there's a lot of it and it's heavy, but in the sense that once there is too much you just shut down. A little at a time, is good and the city doesn't get overloaded. When I have a little on my plate at a time, it's not bad; however, being a procrastinator, my workload becomes Snowpocalypse- too much to actually get anything accomplished. Just a thought, because as journalists, I feel like many of us are huge procrastinators.

Critique

Stir

When I found out I was working on the Stir prototype, I was ecstatic. However, when we turned in our prototypes for our class the first time, I didn't show my best design. Then when we turned in and presented our designs to the publishers I was very proud. 

I made my department pages tie into our feature in some way. I think the new product is very clean-cut and professional. I'm proud of the final product. That being said, I think I would take off the bottom sell line; mainly because I hate sell lines, but also because I think there should only be one strong sell line for the feature. The department page is definitely more professional and much more pleasing to the eye.

Response

InDesign Type: Drop Caps

     Since I didn't have Internet until Tuesday afternoon, I looked over InDesign Type. Lately, I have been experimenting with drop caps more and more, in different ways. While reading the book, I came across a chapter on my new experiment. These elements can obviously hurt a design if not done properly. In my Stir prototype I used them to help the readers see where the story began because in my designs there were different sections in one story. I also used them if I started in a different start spot than normal. I don't think I would ever use a drop cap with a photo in it, but it was really interesting seeing how it's done.

Response: Random

Well, since we don't have any specific reading I went Pinteresting. Being able to use Pinterest for my homework is a rare treat, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Below are some pictures I downloaded from there and a couple from Swiss-Miss blog...

The thing I'm most inspired about is the fact that this portrait was done in inspiration for others to participate. This is something that as journalist I feel we should take to heart. We should always be striving to get our readers more involved. As a designer, working on the iPad was a thrill because I was able to design something that readers could be apart of, and that made me happy and very proud.

All of these uploads have something intriguing about them, something to offer me and all of us in the future. Just wanted to show y'all some pretty cool ideas, that struck my eye.
-AMA

Photo Inspiration: Valentine's style

 

 

Valentine's Day is always filled with such beautiful colors, mainly from the flowers. We have been working on our prototypes for Meredith and I was intriguingly inspired by the flowers that my roommate and I received. They're so bright and vibrant, perfect for my young entertainers magazine design. Needless to say, I'm excited for this project and I'm seeing inspiration in everything!
-AMA

You Can't Miss: Swiss-Miss

“If you look at the careers of great entrepreneurs and you look at the moment they took their plunge, the plunge is rarely a great financial or material risk, it’s a social risk. At the moment they started their new businesses, everyone around them said ‘you’re an idiot’.”

— Malcolm Gladwell

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

I am always so concerned of looking like an idiot, especially in this class and field. 

This makes me feel very inspired and helps me realize that I can do my own thing, crazy and dumb as it may seem to others, it could be the design to win me my dream job. Just thinking to myself, have never doubt yourself. 

-AMA

PS: I just like this photo for the simplicity and the colors. It's ominous with a touch of inspiration. Plus, if you actually want the helmet, check out Swiss-Miss blog.

Critique: Cecil Estes

"King of the Court" is the title I gave to the story. I think
this photo is nice because of the shadows and not being
able to see the kids faces. I think the sun being near the title
is a nice touch as well.
This was probably my favorite design.

Stoked. That is the feeling I had when to do my cover designs. When I first started, I didn't know where to begin, then I just started and I'm glad about how they turned out. The designs are clean and professional, in my opinion. I stuck with the simple color palette, mainly because the photos are black and white and it was an easy complement. Also, during revisions I decided to go a little bit further with my concept idea, I'm not sure if it is exactly perfect. Well, I know it's not, but I think I further advanced my concept when I added the colors and made the basketball lines thicker. Overall, I am happy with the designs and I was definitely bummed that I didn't win, but next time. It's good to be in such a competitive environment, it drives us even more in our field, that's the thing we need. Drive.

Photo Inspiration: International love

International love struck me almost 3 years ago, this summer. Therefore, again, I have chose a picture I took in the past, but also while sitting in my room this week I noticed the windows in the photo. There was a reflection of my fan, it may sound idiotic, but architecture has been motivating and seeing the reflection of the fan, it was like I could see inside the building. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that at first glance when I took this photo 3 years ago, it was just cool architecture in a foreign country that I never wanted to leave. However, after looking closely at something after some time, you can see something you missed (or something you never thought possible).
When looking at Swiss-Miss this past week I saw a cool link to "Windows of New York," it's a website about the different windows that have inspired Jose Guizar. He has made illustrations about these different windows that have inspired him. Then I went to his website and looked at his illustrations and other work, you see, he's a graphic designer. It's kind of funny, the windows on my wall inspired me to write this post, and I saw the windows that inspired Jose Guizar and that led me to check out some of his other works. I definitely suggest checking some of his work out. The links are below.

http://www.joseguizar.com/

http://www.windowsofnewyork.com/

Response: Modern

When thinking about most things with art, we look at the past. To be honest, I had never considered that for design. I mean, yes, I have looked at past designs to get inspiration, but is it naive of me to say that I never actually looked at the past design inspirations as coming from a certain genre and time period? Well, if it is, don't worry. I'm maturing and I think it is about time my designs need the professional, mature look...while maintaining a fun and classic look.

The modern era is something that is timelessly classic in my opinion and I think it's nice to remember where designs come from. The modern era had a wide range of illustrations and they typically always had people in them. To me the strike me as a great comic strip in early newspapers, with elegance and a real message to get across. Not just serving as a funny section for the kids, below are some pictures from our book illustrating what I mean.

You Can't Miss: Fun typography

Typography-schmaschmography, or is it?

Typography is one element key to any design. The text, if fun and inviting, can be the piece of the design that draws people in and keep them wanting more. Below are some pictures I found on Swiss-Miss and they are fun and inviting. On the "I'll just have a salad," the letters have tips that look like letters and it just adds to the idea of the salad theme, which pairs quite nicely to the green background.

I like the Mimosas text because it is a subtle text that, again, goes perfectly with the colors. As for "These Heels Don't Hurt" I think this font is very cute and very good for the message especially with the drop shadow because it adds some height (like heels, see what I did there?) to the text.
-AMA

Critique: VoxTalk Ad

 

 

VoxTalk

So, as it is apparent above, I need to improve on my Illustrator skills and my illustrations in general. This was a great project and entertaining to do something different. I was able to expand my options for how to design and do things. It was interesting to design something new and designing an ad was, I have to admit, fun. It was like designing an entire spread in one 1/4 page, this assignment was tricky, but fun. 

My use of color was not done properly, mainly because it was just so boring and flat. I think I could brighten them up big time. Colors are more important than I thought, as I learned on this assignment. 

-AMA

Response: Thinking with Type

This may be weird to others not in this class, but you guys will understand. I loved this reading! It was nice seeing some of my favorite fonts in this book.
Baskerville is a font that I like for it's simple, classic professionalism. Reading the history behind it was intriguing because I actually got to learn about something of interest to me. Writing stories and editing stories, may not be my favorite thing, but I do them because I know it will make me more marketable and a better overall journalist. Reading the history of these fonts and typography in general is something that specifically pertains to my designing aspirations.
It was also nice seeing the part about writing your own texts and designing your own typography because I have really been interested in figuring out how to do this. Seeing Chelsea do this the other day, I can't lie, I was really inspired especially after having read that section. Below I have attached a photo of the sketch f handmade designed typography.
-AMA

Photo Inspiration: with a twist

Not the normal (probably correct way) photo inspiration

I am switching things up for my Photo Inspiration, by that I'm using an old photo I took when I was overseas in Bruges. Some of you may have seen the video with the young boy giving us a Pep Talk. Well that was a huge inspiration for me, yeah it may be cheesy, but I don't care. Then it made me think about design and I want my designs to change the world and make people dance. Well, at least make them smile and enhance a story. I mentioned that I have really been excited by the 90s lately, but also architecture has really been something striking to me. I also love cooking and food in general, dream job would probably be to work at a food magazine in the future. 

This may look gross to whomever sees it, but it was delicious. I just really like the look of the food and the colors it possesses with the pop of the green and oranges, it was just something that really intrigued me when I was looking at past vacation photos. 

The above photo is from Bruges and again the colors are amazing. I am, sadly, ready for a break. Looking over these old photos has been a great break from the day-to-day schoolwork. I have also done a photo color change of this photo where the buildings on either side of the orange and yellow, and the road are plain grayscale. This photo just makes me think of my colors in a different way, typically I think each color needs to have a specific purpose in my designs, but sometimes it just makes it look cool. Sometimes the colors just need to add emphasis in a certain area and it doesn't really matter what color it is, until you're playing around with your design. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gQLqv9f4o

Above is the link to the pep talk, check it out because every journalism major needs a pep talk every now and then. 

-AMA

You Can't Miss, Swiss-Miss

Blogging away: read and write

Swiss-Miss has truly been a great blog to read, so thanks for forcing us to do this, Erica. There are always quotes that are important ideas for us, me, whomever, to read. It has interesting pictures and videos that are fun and truly make me excited to be in the field I am. 

Typography

In the past week on Swiss-Miss, I have seen a wide variety of intriguing ideas, my favorite you ask? Well, I'm not completely sure, by I want to by a book I saw on there called Little Book of Lettering by Emily Gregory. I mentioned in my critique for this week that I'm awful at drawing, that only truly leads to one other option, my typography has to be kick-butt. I want to have the perfect typography to go with my designs and advance and enhance the look and style that I hope one day will be called great. The book goes into the different styles and types of lettering that have a "diverse range of talent in gorgeous, eye-catching" fonts (according to the book's review on the link below).
http://www.chroniclebooks.com/new-releases/little-book-of-lettering.html

Advice

The quote below is taken off of Swiss-Miss as well, and it hits-home the idea that Will, Erica and Andrea have been trying to get through to us, me in particular (at least from my point of view). It's weird, but it took advice I read on Swiss-Miss advising me to listen.

Critique: Spring Preview Competition

My Cover

For my cover, I was trying to make it fun and entertaining. That being said, I'm awful at drawing, which is apparent if you saw my sketches. I am really trying to get better at typography designs, so I thought, "well, I suck at drawing- just make it a type-cover." That's what I did. I like how it turned out, except it looks kind of cluttered and way too busy. I think it was a good idea, but I possibly just needed a better editing eye before saying it was completed. 

Feature

I continued with the theme of the title for the first spread. I chose to do February, mainly because it had the most events to work with, but I think that definitely made it interesting and helped give me one great headache. Kristina had a mix of typography this past design competition on the feature "Heartbreak to Hope" and I really liked how it looked, so, I tried it out. The headline at the top of the page, looks pleasing, but I'm not sure if it's big and grand enough for the splash page, which is what I would change about the feature. Something that I had fun doing and I think is a different way of color coding, was the dots corresponding with the correlating headline color. It was something fun and something new that I wanted to try out. My only regret about the spread is how crowded it looks, that I think would be my only complaint- no white space.

Vox work

While I don't have the links for my designs in Vox Magazine and the iPad app, those print and go online on Thursday. It was really interesting and fun, plus really beneficial to get my first department page done. My piece of advice when you are going in to do your department page, if the ad size on the board and the space they blocked for you doesn't match- ASK SOMEBODY! I finished designing and then went to get my layout checklist on and had to redesign, it was totally awesome (yes, I said totally awesome) working with the editors there and Andrea. I was originally really scared to ask any questions or to do anything because I didn't want to screw up. In the words of Will, "If you get crazy, I'll pull you back in." That is going to stick with me from now on because it really takes to much time worrying about doing something wrong than doing something crazy and toning it down. Thanks Will. 

-AMA