You Can't Miss: The Meaning of Color and "The Cutest Wedding Invitation"

The Meaning of Color:

David Benjamin Kopp blogged about color. He walks through how color can be scientifically dissected and identified by technicalities, but he also notes that science can't predict how people will react to color.

Color, Kopp says, triggers emotion. When choosing color we can choose what kind of feeling we want to evoke or communicate to our audience.

The Cutest Wedding Invitation:

While I had heard of StumbleUpon, I had never really used it. The other day I used it to look at design sites. I found a lot of really cool things like painted walls, art made out of the tape strips from VHS's and this: the cutest wedding invitation.

I love, love, love the typography on this. It seems like such a simple idea, but I am sure it took hours and hours to complete. Reading it is like an activity, and the thought process is absolutely adorable.

Response: The September Issue

1. The creative director's role.

There were several responsibilities that the creative director had throughout the creation of this issue: helping develop ideas for photo shoots; preparing for, facilitating and producing those photo shoots; providing a lot of feedback through the photo editing process; choosing clothing and themes to be featured in the issue; communicating with all levels and departments about various tasks, and being present for several meetings and trips.

2. Critique of one feature.

As beautiful as the feature was on the 20s and as lovely as some of the color blocking shots were, my favorite was the shoot that she incorporated the documentary crew in. It was a really fun idea that she developed around her experience, and it took a lot of thought to be able to envision what the final product would look like after being meshed together. I also love that she tried to keep some of the reality of the photo. I feel like that brought some integrity to the shoot. (versus when they were talking about manipulating Sienna's neck - by the way, she was a hot mess in this film.) The plain drop cloth in the background created a fantastic mood and space for the photos. It also allowed a good contrast for the simplicity of the set up and the intensity (and technical complexities) of the subject's actions and poses.

3. Relationship between creative director and editor.

Well, the creative director interacted with several editors and I felt that a lot of the relationships were strained. While they may get along in a professional sense, I think it was easy to see that the creative director took personal offense when her photos were being edited down. (Don't get me wrong, they were beautiful; and some of the cuts seemed super harsh. But, in reality, I feel like this process should get old and tired after awhile. However, she seemed to be just as passionate as she most likely was years and years ago.) I think both women mentioned that they understood one another enough to know what they liked or didn't, what they would say or wouldn't, how they would react, and that stubbornness was a shared quality. Each woman, however fought for what they wanted. It just so happens (as it was mentioned several times throughout the film) that the editor's opinion carried the most weight.

4. The job of the creative director.

I am sure this position looks different from publication to publication and probably incorporates a wide variety of responsibilities and dedication. What surprised me was the amount of work that the creative director did on her own. She mentioned she was probably one of the last directors to actually help the models dress and prepare for the shoots. I am sure that is the case for several of her activities throughout the preparation of an issue. I was really impressed with the amount of passion (for lack of a better word, I know I already used it) with which she acted. She threw herself into each task and really stood up (or spoke up, rather) for what she believed would be best for the issue. I think it is hard to go through the editing process and find out that parts of your design are being thrown out, and for her, this happened several times on a much larger scale than I have ever dealt with. She's tough, and I think the creative director needs to be tough.

Critique: Modern Midwest Redesign/Presentation

Modern Midwest redesign: Handout for Presentation

Apparently I missed some memo about what information should be included on this, but for the purposes of this entry I felt like this showed a decently-organized grouping of my designs.

(And... I misspelled the word "drunken," though you may be unable to tell. This just goes to show the importance of proofreading - especially for the sell lines. Yikes!)

For my redesign, I tried to really focus on the feedback that I received from the group. I removed the cut out image to fully show the nameplate, which I reorganized so that the positioning looked more purposeful. (Basically, the words meet each other but do not overlap. I also moved the tag line to below the logo.) Other changes made include the sidebar becoming more user-friendly and inviting, the headline font changing for the department, the size of the department tag shrinking, the opacity of the white box on the feature being spike to increase readability and the caption intensity being brought down to a less frighteningly-bright-white color.

I also created folios (something I had forgotten in my previous draft) and reworked my color palette (to include a better combination of tones – I hope).

P.S. I stole that arrangement from Mary's first handout because I liked the way she used her accent color and organized her color blocks in her palette.

You Can't Miss: Colour Lovers app and the sum

colourlovers app:

Colourlovers created an app. It is actually pretty nifty. It has a lot of interesting features that are offered online to be used on a whim. So, you are on a walk and take a pretty, scenic picture. Taking that photo into the colourlovers app, you can turn that into a color palette. Awesome, no?

the sum: they're good. just ask their moms.

A print and digital design team working on projects that span websites and brochures (I think I mentioned earlier this semester how cool it would be to design brochures) and the like, thesum.ca has a really neat online portfolio of recent designs. While their blog hasn' t been updated since December, its Q&A reveal a lot about the personality of the company.

There is an interesting variety of work that is highlighted on the site. From signs for wildlife parks and aquariums to logo development for Monstroyer Studios (quote: "the uglier, badder brother of the sum."), the designers have created insanely diverse products that show their skill and adaptability within mediums.

It was just a site linked from a former entry while I was looking around, and it was really fun to see what people are doing. You know, out there in the real world.

Response: Judging

Making choices is hard.

I thought the process of selecting the top magazines was fascinating. Having a group of people make decisions based on their individual preferences and then forcing the group to reach a consensus is almost cruel.

I (and probably others, as well) felt like a lot of really great spreads were discarded.

Personally, I feel almost responsible for not properly sticking up for a few of them, and of course not representing one I really love well enough to convince anyone it deserved to stick around. I tried to be super honest, though.

After going through the process of explaining and defending my own designs, I found it extremely difficult to defend someone else's work.

1. Because there were a few things I felt could be changed to make it better and

2. Because there wasn't any way I could know exactly what the designer had intended.

It is nice to have the opportunity to tell one another what our thought process was and what effect we were going for. Readers don't have that luxury. There's no sticky note on the page cluing them in to why we placed that line there or why we chose that typeface.

So, design becomes art. Left up to the interpretation of its audience regardless of its creator's intent. Scary. I think this is making my prototype project even more intimidating.

Critique: Magazine Prototype

Modern Midwest:

Referring to the plans the team had created, I wanted to steer away from the typical set up for covers – essentially, no wreaths or white plates of food. I wanted it to reflect what the magazine was about: cool places to go, things to do or see, etc in the Midwest. And two covers down (here and here), I realized sushi makes for a truly horrible cover.

For my color palette I chose five colors I was pretty excited about. They were bright and a fun combination of colors not typically associated with the midwest. Because while this magazine is about the midwest and for the midwest, it is also about breaking stereotypes of the midwest. (Do you capitalize Midwest?)

I created a cutout version of each cover and played around with the typeface on the cover. I think it could be pushed a little more. Right now, I am really liking the idea of having the words just bleed off the page. I just don't know how much each can be pushed and still remain legible.

(Here's a link to my department, which needs a lot of spicing up, and to my feature, which needs more focus.)

You Can't Miss: Blue Holes and thedesignwork.com

Blue Holes of the Bahamas:

Colourlovers has once again found an interesting way to pick color schemes. Looking at the Blue Holes (areas of water that are different, usually darker, shades of blue than the surrounding water) in the Bahamas, the site posts color combinations of bacteria, cave shrimp, and of course the two blue holes pictured above. I find the inspiration for these palettes to be so beautiful and specifically unique to the natural sea life.

thedesignwork.com:

This website is a really large collection of posts featuring photos, demonstrations and tutorials as well as links to other design blogs. Some really excellent examples include the entries covering typography, 3-D animation in Photoshop, and blog designs.

It is a really fascinating variety of work that is being showcased. Work by design studios offer links to their website as well as visual representation of their site and current projects.

Response: Historical Magazine Designs

Drawing comparisons: For this assignment we were supposed to find covers or spread that had taken inspiration from past designs.

I found this cover design to be similar, but definitely different. The obvious similarity is the use of cut outs. What I think is the main difference is the size each photo is played on the page. Clearly, the historical example of this montage of past covers uses a variety of sizes for the objects in the design. In "Entertainment Weekly's" review cover, there is very little variation in the size of the people.

I think these have different effects due to the basic way that we view pictures, but I also think those effects are intentional. Each issue has itsown purpose and its own desired outcome. The historical cover comes across as more of a personal reflection of stories covered that year while EW's cover is more of a collection of people the magazine has featured in some way or an

other.

I chose this example (also from EW) that highlighted "typographic expressions" with an illustration. They are pretty similar (and yes, the spread about Hunger Games is backwards). Some difference can be seen in type treatment - "Hunger Games" is set apart from the rest of the title in color and bleeds to the edge of the spread. Also, the body text has a more traditional layout on this spreadthan in the historical example. All in all, it is a little less abstract than Herb Lubalin's (the designer for the "Pleasure Painter") and more structured to fit the EW style.

In this last comparison, the way that text is displayed in this historical design is quite interesting. (It actually reminds me of the "Daily Prophet" from Harry Potter. If it was moving...) Like the blocked type that provides structure and segments the spread, this more recent spread from "Good" uses thinner lines along with varied text sizes and fonts to organize the information. Even though all of the text in this spread is horizontal, the contrast between black and white is still very clear.

Critique: First Group (2) Cover Contest

(first) Cover: I really liked the photos for this competition a lot better than I the photos for the pageant story, so I chose to make two covers with photo choices. For the three different covers, I used the three different headline options. For the headline Butts, I had thought of using a photo illustration, but this photo of the girl's hand and her cigarette. I placed the headline near the butt of the cigarette because my original thought was to treat it like a label. This is the cover that was chosen for me to work on.

The other two designs:



To explain the sell line treatment on the cover with the second photo, I was thinking that if I was a "social" smoker (so, someone who didn't really consider themselves a smoker), I wouldn't want my face on the cover of a magazine engaging in a habit that I don't feel like is a huge part of my life.

The third design was based off of a facebook logo that I found online. I created the logo in Illustrator and added the cigarette. For the font, I used futura because it looked the font from the movie social network. (I had also thought about using a font that looked like facebook's.)

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What's next:
My updated cover design is due in lab, so that is my current project. For class we have the logo designs coming up and, of course, the Meredith projects. I will be working on the Modern Midwest design, and I am looking forward to learning more about that publication as it develops.
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You can't miss: Dribbble.com and Seamless

dribbble.com: Dribbble.com is an online gallery for designers to share projects. "Shots" (or small glimpses of designs) are uploaded to share with "spectators" and "players." Players are recruited by current members.

This site has a really interesting variety of

work. I really like the fact that the people

developing these designs can get

feedback on their work and some

publicity at the same time.

colourlover's seamless: Seamless is a program people can use to create patterns.

Users choose from a huge-mongous list of shapes and objects to manipulate the size, placement and color in a design. Users can then share their designs, tweet about them and "love" (similar to facebook's "like" function) or comment on them. Designs even receive ranks based on views and ratings.

The pattern can then be broken down into a list of colors used. (This is like the color trending I referred to earlier. Where the exact color information is listed. So, if one likes a color, one can

pull that information from this program to use in the future.)

Colourlover's blog recently highlighted a lot of

patterns created by users this past December. Many of

them were made using the "color a pattern" feature

where users can manipulate the colors of an existing

pattern. It's cool to see how different the templates

look when different color schemes are plugged in.

Response: Department Design

I designed the BOB section on Sunday. After being walked through the process (which was super helpful), the designing didn't take very long. I really appreciated the organization of everything. There was a learning curve to figure out where exactly everything was and what resources were available, but everyone was very helpful and patient as I worked through the first page.

I would say the redesign took more time than my original design. Because the BOB section recently underwent some small changes, I had to reformat some of the content from the template to keep up with the new style.

Nothing I did for that page was very impressive, but I did get a brief overview on text-wrapping (something I had rarely used in the past). It was a great refresher. I am glad we will be using InDesign so much, so when I graduate, I won't have as much to catch up on. It will all be fresh.

Critique: Spring Preview

Cover: I had a hard time getting my cover together. The computer I was working on really couldn't handle more than one adobe program running at a time. I did find out that photoshop has a really neat 3-D effect that would've worked well. I ended up just making copies of the text, changing the color and placing them behind the white text.

Splash page: I couldn't get the idea of these little toy binoculars out of my head, and after placing them on the page, they really looked like birds to me.

Spread: I created different corner designs for the spread below: puddles, trees, flowers and bird feeders. There was a lot of information to place on this spread, and I had a difficult time trying to organize it so it was readable and not too hard on the eyes. I used lines to separate each date and the colored boxes to help the stories/reviews stand out from the rest.