Graduation Invitations

So I wanted to design my own graduation invitations.
I'm thinking postcard style, with lot of typography treatment. I always hated high school graduation invites with huge pictures of the graduate. NO ONE WANTS TO SEE THAT.
So I'm trying to make a nice one, but lacking inspiration/direction. Here's what I have so far:

Which font looks best?
Will it confuse my older relatives to have type turned sideways?
Is the bottom type too spread out?
Do the columns look ok?
Do I need to incorporate a graduation cap/scroll something of the sort?
meh.

Can't Miss: AceJet's Uncommon Knowledge

Another cool feature of the AceJet's blog, is Uncommon Knowledge.

I think this is a really great idea for a blog feature, and something I might adopt.

They are general guidelines learned in design, though ones you might not be taught in school. Or as AceJet phrases it, "Things I wish I had known much much earlier in my career."

Check it out!

Photo inspiration

You knew it was coming. Photo inspiration is from #thundersnow2013

Meredith Design- Stir

So for our Meredith project, I am in the young entertaining/cooking magazine group.

Here's the Working Mission Statement from the publishers: the magazine strives to create a platform on which young readers and new entertainers can build their knowledge of everyday cooking and hosting. We share simple tips and current trends that will enrich the everyday lives of our readers. Filled with startup projects, ideas for hosting, and recipes that cater to an array of skill sets, the magazine reaches young entertainers through a variety of platforms, which are accessible beyond the print product. 

Their Working Titles: Steep, Host, Stir

I went with Stir.

my cover. i didn't want to go with a lot of sell lines. i may have to fight publishers on this, but i'm willing to. I think this is much more appealing for the audience we are targeting, and will look completely different from all other food magazines.

masthead is bodoni font, at a 15 degree tilt. 

Here's a sample dept page. This was difficult, because I had really great art idea for this piece, and didn't just want to create a template for a dept page, which I think was the point of designing this page. I may perhaps design another page, just a template, that would work for the magazine month to month. 

Feature spread. I would like the features to have a different design every month, so this is just an example of types of art we would use and font styles. 

Body fonts are din and else.

I also mistakenly thought we were supposed to design a TOC, but I guess we weren't. whoops. here it is.

Lastly, here's my color palette.

True/False covers-take 3

 After the tuesday critique, I made one more round of edits on my designs. Here are three more versions of the Intruenza theme.

T/F covers-take 2

We were asked to come up with three new ideas, because Thursday's ideas "underwhelmed."

For this one, I wanted to play with the idea of True/False festival bringing out a different side of Columbia. So this whole idea of a secret identity and the true and false within a person really appealed to me. 

One of the theme suggestions was Intruenza. Here I wanted to work with the idea of feverish seeing spots, and measleish mumps.

Lastly, with this being the 10th year of True/False, I was looking for a big way to incorporate the number ten. 

Honestly, I never really know what to say. Here are the visuals, what more is there to say?

Photo inspiration !

I wanted to do an ambigram for the T/F cover, but things didn't quite pan out like that. So it has a second life as my photo inspiration of the week!

True False covers!

So it was my turn to do covers this week! Lucky me, I get the week of T/F!

8 BIT ART, Y'ALL.

Going with the idea of stone/early/year ten ideas, back when roman numerals were used. 

this idea was from an assigning memo. they described this art exactly, and I executed to the best of my ability what they described.

Response to a poster

I've noticed people LOVE redesigning movie posters. Makes sense, you love movies, you love design, combine the love and make yourself something nice.

But there are far more bad ones than good ones out there.

For example, this one.

Sorry I don't know how to rotate photos on blogger. 

I love Inglourious Basterds. It's a great movie with lots of memorable moments you could create a minimalist poster with, such as one of its actual posters. Or this one. Or this one. Or this one, or here or here. As you can see, I think there are a lot of effective ways to make a poster for this film. The above poster is not one of them.

This poster ends up looking like the Kill Bill poster, another Quentin Tarantino movie. Perhaps there were purposefully trying for that, but I don't understand why. It's confusing two different films from different genres. While they are both Tarantino signature violent, they don't have much else in common, and it makes this seem like lazy and senseless design.

Vox Ads Critique

This week in class we designed ads for the Vox Talk blog and the Vox Calendar. We first brought in 10 sketches, had everyone in class vote, and then brought in the top five in final versions.

Here are my five.

These first two need background colors, especially since they will be print designs.

This was my favorite ad I designed, and by the voting, everyone else's fav as well.

I don't know why, but everyone kept voting for this. It was literally my least favorite idea in my first draft, but people voted for it. And then in the second round, it came in second. Ridiculous. 

I love this color combo, but I know there isn't much going on. It was a rushed effort. : /

 I have to say, I didn't particularly care for this assignment. I didn't feel like I had enough instruction, and really felt like I had no idea what I was doing the whole time. I create online ads at my internship, but I'm given more of a concept to work with instead of "Here: make an ad for this thing you don't know anything about or who you are targeting. GO!"

le sigh.

Photo inspiration

My photo inspiration this week- this turtle from the Mardi Gras parade in Soulard. It was a turtle on a bicycle! Neat bit of sculpture.

Can't Miss: AceJet Found Type Fridays

My favorite recurring segment on Ace Jet is Found Type Fridays. A good name, I'm all for alliteration.

This blogger finds type, usually unique and incredibly old. She then either attempts to reproduce them or at least posts a clear picture of them.

This is a must-see for lovers of all things vintage and/or funky.

App recommendation

So I have to recommend this iPhone app. I'm an avid card player, and sometimes I can't scrounge up paper and pen. So I started looking for score keeping apps, and I found Scorekeeper XL.

It's beautifully designed and super easy to use.

excellent typography and color choices.

If you need to keep track of numbers for anything, I recommend this app.

I don't usually take the time to rate apps but I gave this rave reviews in the App Store.

Response to magazine I found in the j library

  

I found this magazine in the j lib!

Had some great art so I thought I would share.

The Communication Arts typography annual. I love CMYK inspired palettes.

Interesting way to tie in the TOC and feature.

love this headline treatment.

Photo inspiration of the week

A fabulous gift card I found at Starbucks. #baristaproblems

I'm super in love with the silver/grey, grey and white color scheme right now.

'S Wonderful - Illustration Inspiration

Bonjour!

So I was watching the movie Funny Face with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. In the first number, "Think Pink" they do this fun thing where the dancers run and pose, and then it turns into an illustration. The illustrations are a perfect example of magazine illustrations from that time period.

wish i had seen this before designing the spring preview...

I loved this cross over moment from two of my favorite things, film and design. So I just had to share!

Spring Preview Cover Process

Like I said in class, my spring preview cover design was a long process. I wanted to share that process here.

This was my original design. It is meant to be a detailed, close-up of a bicycle wheel. The feedback I received was that it wasn't clear that it was a bicycle wheel, it could be any wheel. So I played around with adding a bike pedal, a chain, and the parts of the bike that attach the wheel to the body. But nothing really quite looked right. So I decided I would just have to show the whole bike.

I decided to go with the idea of an old-fashioned bicycle, because 1) it looks nicer as cover art and 2) it's easier to create in illustrator. The problem was that I could figure out what to do with the bicycle after I created it. Having it ride down a spring scene road seemed BLAH, but it was getting to be too late at night and my brain was creatively exhausted. So I went home for the night.

The next morning I made this. I had initially steered clear of anything to do with plants and flowers because I thought it would be too overdone for spring. But I also felt like this was a different take on the idea. The problem with this spread was that no matter what type treatment I used and what color I used, nothing made those words on the wheels readable. So I had to come up with another concept.

Here I went for a steampunk/industrial theme. I sent this in for feedback, and was told the gears looked a little flat, and to select a different background color for a more cohesive theme.

which is how I ended up with this,  the final product I turned in. I added gradients to the gears, went for a darker background color, and added some color variety to the gears. 

After the class critique, I wish I had gone with an earlier version of my design. At lot of the things that were critiqued were things that I didn't originally have in my design. I wish I had went with the orange cover with the flat gears. Orange is brighter and creates more of a spring feel that everyone wanted in the design, and I was specifically told to make the gears look flat.

Next time I will go more with my intuition.

You Can't Miss, Ace Jet 170

Another can't miss post from Ace Jet.
This time the book is called Structure and Substance, by Ken Garland. Soon, it will be a film as well!

Garland played a huge role in modern British graphic design. It looks very swiss type influenced, with a very 70s feel.

you can especially see the swiss type influence here.

I feel like this is where I see the 70s style.

ccccheck it out!