You Can't Miss: Clients From Hell & webdesignerdepot business cards

Clients From Hell.

colourlovers.com reviews another book. This one looks hilarious. It almost reminds me of working with editors on deciding what a story needs to look like. There are so many opinions out there, and sometimes we have to be such people pleasers that we have to be.

Check out the business cards on webdesignerdepot.com. They are so creative and useful - great examples of content-driven design. For example, below. Not only are these super cute, but they are useful and really show off the personality of the artist. There are some other great examples of design work on this site as well, but the business cards really caught my eye.

Response: Modern Midwest Prototype

Shindig: I think there are some really great concepts that will come out of this design. It would be easier to talk about if we had been able to see more of it. I think some of the illustrations may need reworked and should accompany photos when possible to keep with the more realistic, tangible designs throughout the book. I think using some of the elements seen in the photos from the blog could make the interview page really fun.

Nosh: Nosh seemed really put together. The prototype was so clean and fresh (not to sound cheesy). I agree with a lot of the comments the team made about the length of the copy being cut. I really like the breathing room that the magazine is striving for. There may be a lot of departments, but I think the entire team (publishers included) should look into making some features that really differ from the rest of the magazine. The pages look great, but they all look so similar.

Cupboard: I really like the bar and the logo, I think that that concept should be carried throughout the magazine as department heads or info boxes or something. I think there was some inconsistency with the design. I also think the font choices are great because they are so simple and so readable, but I think it needs some excitement.

Plaid Dad: I think that this magazine is struggling with the same art problems that Modern Midwest had. I like some of the options that the group cam up with for their logo. I think it can be condensed a bit more and other possibilities should be explored. Some of them looked really great. I think once art is figured out, things will seem much more personable. Adding people into the spreads could also help.

Critique: Modern Midwest Prototype

Modern Midwest Prototype.

Working on our prototype was super tricky. I had a lot of ideas, but very little direction because we didn't (and still don't) have art. So, now we're scheduling photo shoots and working on getting ideas for our features.

Below is an example of a department page. There are a lot of ideas to incorporate into this spread. One I am excited about it illustrating a map of the Midwest and each of the bars - either a cutout of the building or a special drink they are well-known for.

We have a lot of different ideas for our features. The two I am working on – Date Night and Style Blog, will need some adjusting. I think Date Night will expand to a four-five page spread, and Style Blog should be cut to a two page spread, three max.

You Can't Miss: The Smashing Book and Designer's List

Colourlovers' blog is featuring a book review of The Smashing Book #2 and promoting a giveaway of the "super fantastic" book. The review highlights some of the chapters which includes chapter 2 "Visible and Invisible Design."Below is an example (I adore) from this chapter.

Oh, stumbleupon. This site has been great as I have been searching the web for the next fantastic thing to bring to you all. I can honestly say I am excited about this one and have marked it (among few others I have mentioned earlier) as a favorite. Below is an example I found from logofaves.com.

Designerslist.info is really cool. It is essentially a list of links to a crazy amount of websites that are all about design - and they're broken down into categories such as blogs, inspiration, logos, fonts, color schemes, etc. Some of the sites I have already featured like Dribbble and of course colourlovers are listed in a few of these categories. Check out some cool new resources, friends.

Response: Travel Issue

The last two weeks have been a crazy mess. Our team worked on more aspects of the magazine than I think we had originally anticipated. With three features (at least originally), department pages, design elements, the table of contents and calendar to design, we had a lot on our plates.

In some ways it was helpful to have four people working on everything - there was clearly a lot to do and delegation was key. But other times it became difficult to find a time for all of us to be free - especially when we depended so heavily on the editors. Working through miscommunications and often with a lack of content and art, we managed to put together our vision for the issue.

We took on a larger role than our usual designer one. (Huge shout out to Tanya and Nicole! They put in a ton of hours with the department designers and had a lot of set backs with their feature, but they handled everything beautifully.)

I am actually really looking forward to tomorrow to see how all of our work turns out.

Critique: Travel Issue

My feature was moved to an online story to give more room for the Branson photos and story. So check out the travel around the world of MO feature if you want to hear about the ridiculous number of cities that are named for foreign metropolitan landmarks or countries.

I did spend most of my efforts the last two weeks creating the symbols that would replace the traditional VOX design elements for the special issue. I used Illustrator more on this assignment than any other this semester to draw the signs for each department, the info boxes and calendar symbols.

The collection of all of these elements were then given to the department designers for their pages. *I will place a photo here when I have a chance to make a .pdf later tonight.

You Can't Miss: Cut Acrylic and Veer

Cut Acrylic Art:

Lasers cut out the details in the art created by Sandra Fettingis who makes wall art and jewelry. "My primary medium – cut acrylic – is clean, manufactured, and industrial," she says. "However, the patterns cut into it and the colors present stand in contrast to these qualities by individualizing the mass-produced material."

Her recent exhibition featured on colourlovers is full of neon colors and looks both modern and retro at the same time.

Veer's favorite fonts of the year (not this year ... last year)

Veer makes it easier to be creative (their words not mine). With an insane amount of fonts, images, wallpapers and screensavers, and activity books, Veer has a lot to offer a bored designer. Surfing through their site, I found this slideshow of 2010 fonts. It was pretty cool.

I really enjoyed how the typography used to create the slideshow itself. They didn't just make a list or display the font, the slides really showed off the fonts.

Response: iPad Conference

I tuned in via the interwebs to watch most of the iPad conference. I did miss whichever groups were presenting from 11:30-12:45 because I was in class at that time, but essentially, I saw just about everything else.

What I appreciated about the conference was the ability to look at what certain publications were currently dealing with or had dealt with to get them here (not RJI/J-school here, but here and now here: the present).

Several presenters talked about knowing their audience. It amazed me how much they knew or could know. One presenter said he used to decide (along with his editors and others) what he thought was best for the print issues and hope he got it right. Now, with the digital feedback (through forums and data collected from customer use), he can see when he gets it right and when he doesn't. There is a newly intense focus on the user.

I think readers are people we consider when we design, but I don't think we have taken it to that level quite yet. And it may not be possible for us until we have the ability to gleam the crazy amount of feedback that these companies are able to collect.

In general, I found it interesting how different each of the presentations were. From a breakdown of steps that led to the creation of an app and the technical aspects of that process to explanations of why it is necessary and how to get readers interested (if you build it, will they come?) to a practical demonstration (rather view) of the current app. Some of the speakers were really engaging and others were very easy to tune out. (And the mag+ presentation sounded eerily familiar. I think there were some recycled jokes or comments in there somewhere...)

Critique: 20 SJI Logos

I found it extremely difficult to come up with 20 different ideas for this project. I am not really aware of the sports world. I did spend a lot of time looking at sports logos as recommended, but incorporating that into logos without being extremely selective (there isn't really a way to get all sports represented in one logo).

After the voting, I was somewhat surprised by some of the votes. Some people liked what I had created in minutes versus what I had spent an hour on. Though, understandably so - those were quicker reads, more simple designs that related the point of the organization more easily than some of the more complex concepts.

We got feedback that our logos didn't incorporate enough of the diversity factor. I think this is a fair point, so many of us were focused on just blending the sports and journalism aspects (which are hard enough to do without throwing women and minorities and diversity in the newsrooms into the mix).

For my redesigns, I will be focusing more on color choices. I think I am also going to experiment with adding the slogan(s). I think this will more effectively get the point of the organization across than many design changes that I could implement.

You Can't Miss: Design*Sponge and Tea-shirts

I am switching up the order here because these tea bags are just too darn cute! The idea behind this is just so cool. I can't help but admire the thought that went behind this and the eye rolls and the laughs that it must have received. But. Look. How. Awesome!

Reading some of the comments on the site, I can see that it is having mixed reviews for practicality. (Please, if you enjoy tea, read the rather long response about how much room is needed for the leaves to expand. (Oh, I imagined myself saying that in a posh British accent that you would clearly interpret as sarcasm.) It made me laugh.) For design, however, I give it an "A." I just can't get over how clever the packaging is - a closet for your tea!

String Theory (no, just kidding)

I don't even know if I can do justice to this one. A man used thousands of strings to create this amazing artwork. The effect that the lighting and color have is just so fascinating. I would have never guessed at what it was looking at it from far away. It looks like a special effects photo. While colourlovers featured this for obvious cool color-related reasons. The Design*Sponge covered this artist and his work on their blog. (Which is absolutely incredible - you should check it out!)

Response: Vogue in the 60s

Vogue

I am not an avid reader of Vogue now, but I would say that I have a certain impression of Vogue. Looking through the magazine's issues published almost 50 years ago, I experienced an entirely different era of Vogue that I think was drastically different than the current publication.

I don't want to reiterate my entire presentation here; however, I will repeat just two of the things that I noticed.

1. Advertising

It was difficult at first to decipher what was a feature spread or photo shoot and what was an ad. I soon learned that there were two key identifiers: color and typography. Vogue was pretty content with its font selection and it was an almost unchanging design element. Ads were more likely to use different typefaces and place text at odd angles; and while the number of color spread Vogue produced increased over time, ads were much more likely to be in color than fashion photos.

2. Typography and grid

Vogue had a strict grid locked down for the majority of its spreads. The magazine had many full-page photos, but for many of its departments and stories, the design became predictable. Like most magazines (Ha! I say this like I have some sort of authority on the matter), Vogue did have fewer guidelines for features - though it did not go crazy with the freedom these stories allowed. Placement was a big deal. Where a headline was made a spread more interesting. Also, Vogue implemented type choices that I have rarely (if ever) seen. Underlining was heavily utilized - especially in departments - to highlight certain words in a sidebar or blurb. Designers also used boldface type to distinguish text throughout the spread. Occasionally size played its role, but even headlines weren't extremely large.

Critique: Vox Special Travel Issue

Department Pages: Books, Back of Book

This week was hard.

I was the first in my department to design, and this was the only page that I had to work on that week for Back of Book. I blogged about weeks ago.

This week, I had to design two pages: one for the Books department and one for Back of Book (Endnotes). I also put together three galleys for evergreen content.

What made this week difficult was the art confusion. When I designed, the photo for the On The Job wasn't in the folder and when Aaron found it, it hadn't been toned.

So, looking at the finished design, I feel like the blue bars for the department were a poor decision. I also learned (if you look at my first Vox Asks Columbians page) that the people for VAC are supposed to be in alphabetical order.

Another challenge I had was filling the space on my Books page. (Which I am not posting here, because the final design is not mine. Someone apparently had a way better way of organizing this information, and I applaud them. Though I do wish I would have been told ... ) The story and sidebar were not very lengthy and the cover art had to be pretty large to fill in some of the white space. I thought mine worked - I had the art on the opposite side and the sidebar vertical on the right. This layout seems a little less cramped, so I do appreciate that. I am just happy I was, at least originally, able to arrange everything. I know other departments had so little content they had to place house ads on the spreads.