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.

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.