Response: New design idea for ads

Cosmopolitan


Thank you Alex for getting me stuck on the Cosmopolitan website. This new ad design that she showed me today is awesome, I like the ingenuity of it and I think it's unique. The ad falls into the site and a box type thing. With all of the advertisements lately, it's important for an ad to stand out and this Aussie ad is a great representation for this idea. To the right is the main page of Cosmo and below is what the ad looks like and you can see the homepage that falls into the website for the advertisement to display. 
-AMA

Online Portfolio Critique

My logo is just the "ama" in the center, but I like it. 

I can't believe it's been three months and bam, this semester is gone it's time for our online portfolios to be completed. Below are some snapshots of my website. Obviously, I'm changing the color scheme, but I also have decided on my logo, which is pretty basic, but I like it.

The homepage will feature a smaller picture and a different color scheme. I'm going to keep the "About Me" section and the interesting little blurbs about my favorite things. This is just something fun that I think would help people get to know me better. 

This is my projects page and it's
really interesting because it has a
slider tool to go through my work.
It also brings the images up to a
bigger screen when clicked on. 

Photo Inspiration: Thanks to Ashleigh

The photos to the left are all from a photo shoot that I did with my cousin Chase. These are some of my photos that turned out perfect in my opinion since the shoot was entertaining and fun. This is what all photo shoots should be, yes, they do need to be professional, but why not both. 

Can't Miss: CALENDAR GALORE

Just a little something...

     I don't know about anybody else in the world, except my good friend Ashleigh, but I like making lists. Something vital to making lists is that you need to know dates and times of when things are happening and when things are due. An interesting something I found, would be a calendar stamp. I don't mean the normal calendar stamps from the library with due dates, but it's a little month calendar.
     For designers, we always have things due and recently I've started making notes on flash cards with when things are due. This is the perfect addition to my note cards, one side with the calendar and a red mark circling the date. Just something nice I though y'all might want to see.

One Martini, Two Martini, 3 MARTINI Critique

The "Three Martini" covers were interesting to work with. I decided that I wanted to use the silhouette photo illustration because it had the Mad Men feel completely and I furthered that with the colors (black, red & white). I think this cover would have worked really well; however, I think it would have been better if I put the Vox Magazine logo behind the head of the silhouette. Andrea, that's a great idea. The sell lines are at the top and in bar form because I think they don't actually affect the the photo illustration or take away from the photo. Since they are red and white it enhanced the cover. The fonts don't actually do anything for the cover, but I put them on there because I thought they worked well as Mad Men fonts.

Photo Inspiration: Ft. Pickens comes to life

To the left is a staircase at Ft. Pickens on Pensacola Beach in Florida. This picture was one I liked because it just has a rustic feel and everything about it shouts, old to me. However, I also really like history, so going to this fort was awesome.

You Can't Miss: Apple Design Tips

We all design on Apple computers, so I figured, why not let y'all check out some design tips from apple.

My favorites:

• Keep it Simple
• This is so true, sometimes we just overdue our designs. Sometimes we just think we should keep going and going and going. We want to make everything so intricate and when we have a design in mind we can get a little carried away. This helps us remember, we gotta KEEP IT SIMPLE!
• Sweat the Small Stuff
• Oh boy, oh boy. Keeping in mind that being a perfectionist isn't a bad thing. Sometimes we have to SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF to make everything look the best it can. 
• Make it Friendly 
• Erica and Andrea always remind us of this one, but we need to keep our readers in mind and making it user friendly is very important. 
• Be Consistent
• Wow, this is definitely something we have had to learn working on the Meredith Project with so many different designers. I am interning at Anthem Publishing this summer and having different designers it's going to be important to be consistent and try and make our designs co-mingle. 
• Create Beautiful Custom Icons
• Illustrations aren't my strong-suit, but I decided that I was going to put illustrations on my list of "things to get better at."

That's all for now, but I didn't think y'all should miss this.

Response: Quick to judge

The New Yorker wrote an article called "The Saudi Marathon Man" and this article I really thinks makes journalists think twice. We are always thinking, "be the first," "get the story out there," but something journalists had to think about after this story broke, is what if the story isn't the right story.
A young man, marathon runner, and Saudi Arabia native was harassed and his reputation torn to shreds when police destroyed his house and image, accusing him of the bombing. Why did they do this? I mean, it's quite obvious to me and The New Yorker, it's because of his race, his beliefs, and his culture. As Americans, we should be accepting of all foreigners, our country was founded my immigrants, but as journalists we have to be knowledgable and understanding of different backgrounds. I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I think journalists forget we have to step back and analyze the situation.

Response

Art Director. Creative Director. Designer. I don't care what I get, I just want a job and I think everybody feels the same. It was crazy hearing about all the different magazine and the ages of the art directors. It's good to see the advances at different magazines and the industry overall. Wired magazine has definitely changed over the years, and of course, seeing these presentations, is hopeful. These different magazines helped me see that even within one certain industry there are many trends different magazines choose to follow. Paper. Colors. Typography. Covers. The list can go on, and on, and on, but I'm ready for next week to see the rest of the presentations. 

Photo Inspiration

It's getting warmer outside and, I love a good spring rain. What is crazy is last summer I started my interest in shooting firework photography. This was one of my first shots of a fountain going off. Persistence and determination, that's the key.

Critique

Mini Portfolio

We all have to make one for class, but I had to accelerate my production for an internship interview. This made me thrilled, yet anxious at the same time. While making it, I wanted it to represent myself in the pages. The cover went through many different revisions, but the main body of my portfolio is organized with identification bars to the sides and then I have introduction pages with quotes. I chose my favorite quotes and decided to place them on section pages, so Sara Steffens (AD at Anthem) could get a little sense of my personality. 

I think I chose nice colors throughout, but I think when I get the bound version I'm definitely going to adjust the layout and make things a little more uniform. Below is a little "taste" of my portfolio. 

You Can't Miss: Swiss-Miss

Ok. Okay. I don't know how much easier things can get for kids these days. Yes, I'm aware I sound like an 80-year-old grandparent. But when I was young if we were going to have a bake sale, lemonade stand, or any other way to increase our piggy bank's weight we had to make posters for "advertisement." It was real "homemade" looking, but it was my childhood.

That being said, I will now step off my soap box.

Ikea thinks of everything and now they've done it again. While this cardboard stand is meant for play, it is definitely a way for kids to have a business with a professional look. It's wonderful to see the different items that appear on Swiss-Miss. This is what I posted from my blog this week because when I first saw this, I thought, "wow, how things have changed." If even a lemonade stand business is changing this much, it only makes sense our field can and will drastically change over the next 15+ years.

Wired's most recent cover, April 2013. 

Wired's first cover, 1993.

Hannah was talking yesterday in class about how Wired has developed and changed so much over the years. And before that, I talked with Sara Steffens about Anthem Media and KC Magazine doing a redesign this summer and how she things digital magazines are becoming bigger, I just keep seeing change everywhere in this industry. I had another interview with Steffens and she kept stressing all the different programs we use constantly developing and it'd be really hard to ever know everything about them.
-AMA

Response

I could respond to many things, but my main response would have to involve our Meredith presentations. First, I don't want to sound mean, but working with a group of people who don't seem as interested in getting things done as you can be a little frustrating. When we were working on our designs we didn't have over half of our content and the only thing I can say is sometimes we have to realize people think our jobs are easy. Talking with somebody outside of school and telling them what I am majoring in, they think it's a joke. I take offense to that and you designers out there should too. I think sometimes we do such a great job (yes, our class has some pretty talented people) that people begin to think it's the easiest thing in the world and it only takes minutes. Well, we all know that's not true; while we can bust out good designs in hours, I know I prefer at least a day to prepare. I don't know, just something quick I thought I would respond to.

• What do y'all think? 
• Are you having problems with you Meredith groups?

-AMA

Photo Inspirations

FLORIDA...

When I was on spring break, I actually did a lot of homework, but also wanted to boost my photography skills. I took this "artsy" type photo of the bridge crossing over the Missouri River in STL. I like the old-timey bridges Missouri has and I think the rust along with the colors help to add an old kind of feeling.

So this photo is to remind us all [journalists] that sometimes we deserve to 

be apart of actual life. We should some times, step back and remember we

should capture ourselves in the moment. That's why I took this photo, it's

my trip too and I wanted at least one picture of me on Spring Break, even

if it's a picture of me in the car through the side car mirrors. 

You Can't Miss

Farmers Markets Friends

As journalists we are turning more and more to digital ways to provide the news and keep our readers updated on what's new. With spring here and farmers markets about to be in full swing this new app called Farmstand is a great way for shoppers to help other shoppers at. I think this is genius seeing that we as journalists are wanting to give our readers the best ways to get local food for great prices and the best product isn't always easy and timely. This is going to be great for the new going "green" trends. Check out the link above.

Floating Vases

As you may very well know, I am working on Debut magazine for our Meredith prototypes, I'm very excited to say that I have found something I think would be perfect in our magazines. Floating vases look really cool in my opinion and would definitely be an interesting decorating element for any outdoor party somebody may be hosting. I think these vases would make something so simple as displaying flowers, elegant and interesting to your guests. 

What the vase looks like out of water, 

this would work perfectly in pools and 

other bodies of water near the parties

you are going to host.

Critique

While I did have some time to relax on spring break, I spent a lot of time working and designing. Over break my men of Stephens feature design was published. Overall, I don't really have anything to critique on this feature seeing as we revised it 3-4 times before it was sent off to print. My only critique was on myself and like I said patience is a virtue. I received everything for the story the night before the first draft was due. While this has happened before with the covers, it was a little more nerve wrecking for a feature. 
 

The Friday of break I found out that I was designing the "On the Map" feature, it was interesting working on that considering it was several vignettes. I wanted to include an element throughout each of the vignettes that could tie them all together, so I added a sliver of the map behind each title. I was really interested reading the stories and wanted to have a cool way to display all of the stories on one page and draw the reader in. I'm not sure if Hayley's cover was chosen, but I kind of played with her idea of having the collage. I thought if hers was chosen it would be the best way to have a correlation between the print and digital versions. Also I liked the leads of most of the stories and thought that would be a great way to draw the reader in, so I paired them with pictures and made them into the table of contents. I really like Abadi (font) right now for it's clean, thin look so I paired that with Baskerville on the pages. I'm gonna save my 3 Martini Lunch covers until next week, as well as my department pages for 04.04.13. That's all for now. Hope you had a great break and Easter holiday.
-AMA