You Can't Miss This: Typographic Dating Game

Alright. I found the nerdiest but cutest game online for designer this week on Unbeige.  Yup, you heard me right with the title... it's a Typographic Dating Game. The online game was created by Aura Seltzer, an MFA student in graphic design at the Maryland Institute College of Art. We all know that typefaces have different personalities, "physiques, voices, and virtues." Combining different typefaces takes skill and comparability... much like dating. Therefore, she's made the typefaces into eligible bachelors and bachelorettes. The game is designed to go through a four strategy process in finding the perfect typographic match.

The game also brushes you up on terminology and history of typefaces. I played this game for a solid 45 minutes just to see the different partnerships of typefaces I could make. Whether the duo works out or not, I found that this can definitely help you (in a fun way!) with trying to figure out a typographic scheme that sends out the message and personality you are looking for your design.

You definitely have to check this out.




Also, on a completely different note for those who like nerd designer games like I do... you gotta check out this typographic guessing game. The game helps you identify and distinguish one typeface from the other. You'll keep playing until you get a perfect score... or at least I did!

 

Critique: Food Feature

This week, I decided to critique my food feature. I'm pretty proud of what I came up with. Check it out here:

I really wanted to adapt Whitney's arrow into the spread and I think I accomplished it well. With the color palette, I had help from Kuler.Adobe.com to come up with an earthy but bright color scheme. For my typography choices, I wanted something modern but neutral enough of a personality to adapt to all of the different stories. This is my secret: it's Flama, the same type Nick chose for our magazine prototype. I love the clean lines and the borders that give the layout an earthy feel to it as well. I tried to make the layout simple enough to transverse for the other stories.

Nonetheless, LOVED your design Kelsey (you are getting a lot of compliments from me this week in my blog entries). 


Let me know what you guys think and what I could've done to change it!

Response: Online Portfolio

Hello all. Well this week has been absolutely stressful for me in both school and in my personal life. Oh well. Because I wasn't in class on Tuesday for the online portfolio critiques, I decided to post what I have so far on my online portfolio. You can find it here. I decided to switch from Cargo Collective to Virb (Thanks Kelsey). I was getting way too frustrated with adjusting the template and I decided to start from scratch at Virb. So far, I'm liking what I've come up with. It still needs some major work, but I could use some constructive criticism.

I wanted to go for a very modern and simplistic look, but now I'm thinking it's too plain. It needs a little oomph to it and I have yet to figure out what else it needs. But I did finalize my logo and I'm in love with it. I decided to bring in my trademark paint splatters in my logo (I also have the exact same colored splatters on my resume). I feel like the paint splatter demonstrates my version of painting... on a computer and through design. This is partly because I have no artistic ability by hand.

Anyways, I'm working on trying to have my navigation bar located on the left hand side of the page. However, I am struggling to have the navigation bar on the left hand side to have the different categories of "Magazine covers," "News Design," etc.

It's just the detail stuff now that I have to work with since I was able to get all of my work pulled from the servers AND into a .jpeg format.

Let me know what you guys think.

You Can't Miss This: Weirdly cute designed clothes

This week on my blog, Unbeige,  I found these weird, but cute mod designed clothes. Designer Lisa Perry selected a few of Jeff Koons' work such as a a mod mix of clothing, accessories and home decorations. She will be showcasing these pieces. One of his classic designs from 1986 features a stainless steel robot rabbit. The shiny rabbit can be seen on the pictured jacket and several other pieces of his work. The pricey clothes range from $150-$4,000 but what can you expect from designer clothes?

These clothes stuck out to me because it looks slightly inspired by Tokyo style but with a mod twist to it. My favorite would be the cherry-topped bodice dress that looks like a cupcake. The bodice has a cherry and whipped cream, then the skirt portion looks like frosting. Absolutely adorable. The dress was inspired by the Trix Rabbit. Check out his work here:

In creating those smashing Roy Lichtenstein shifts, Lisa Perry gave herself a tough act to follow, but when the going gets tough, the tough call Jeff Koons. “He gave us full access to his entire body of work,” says Perry, whose five-year-old label offers a mod mix of clothing, accessories, and homegoods. “It was more inspiration than I could have ever dreamed of!” She selected some of Koons’ greatest hits—including his stainless steel “Rabbit” (1986), the porcelain sculpture that proved to be the Pink Panther’s ticket to Versailles, and the inflatable simian star of “Monkey Train” familiar from Koons-sanctioned beach towels and skate decks—and turned them into a capsule collection of dresses, jackets, handbags, and jewelry. Although a few of the pieces are reminiscent of Stella McCartney’s 2006 collaboration with Koons, a shiny bunny-accented range of chiffon dresses that excerpted canvases from his “EasyFun – Ethereal” series, Perry excels in showcasing details from these same works in fresh ways: the dollop of whipped cream eyed lasciviously by the Trix rabbit in “Loopy” (1999) becomes the cherry-topped bodice of a frothy white shift and pops up again on a colorful bangle. Priced from $150 to $4,500, the collection is now available at Perry’s Madison Avenue shop, which recently moved a few doors down into the corner space previously occupied by the Gagosian Store.

Response: Book Covers

This week, I decided to respond to the book cover presentations that we had on Tuesday. It was pretty interesting seeing what exactly the Missouri Press was looking for and what they liked. I didn't realize how much was needed in the design of a book cover. (Talk about being content-driven!)

I also realized how different it is to design a book cover... and how similar it could be for designing magazines. The whole white cover completely blew my mind. I hadn't thought that the cover would be used for promotion or on Amazon.com. Pretty interesting that the design of the cover has to have that much thought placed into it.

In addition,  I didn't think it would be such a big deal whether the cover is white or that the lighter covers tend to scuff less than darker covers. There's just a lot more to take into mind than designing a magazine.

Overall, I thought it was a great experience. I don't think a lot of the other designers get the opportunity to compete in a design contest for producing a PUBLISHED book cover!

Critique: Book Covers

This week I decided to critique my revised book covers! I came to the realization that I am a very conservative, traditional designer (I'm conservative in my views and life in general). I like seeing books that are traditional in look... but I soon realized that not everyone are attracted to the same aesthetic book appeal as I am and that isn't necessarily a good thing. I really enjoyed everyone's illustrations. It gave me a new perspective on book covers.

With my designs, I looked at how typical covers looked like and modeled my cover after that. Considering that the book was a biography about Mary Louise Smith (an elderly woman) I wanted the cover to represent her and what she stands for. Although after seeing my other classmate's designs, I realized I could've been a lot more creative.

Nonetheless, here is what I came up with:

You Can't Miss This: Bubble Furniture

So this week on Unbeige, I found something that made me cringe, but I couldn't stop staring at it. Maartan, a group of designers from Milan, have came up with a mutated, bubble furniture. Check it out here:

I think it looks absolutely disgusting. I understand it's trying to be "trendy" or something new, but these chairs look like a colorful disease. The designers came up with the furniture series to look like they were formed organically and not by hand. Ironically enough: "They might be the result of a mutation in cells, or the result of a chemical or nuclear reaction. Perhaps it’s a virus or bacteria that has grown dramatically out of scale.”

And that's exactly what it is... a mutation. There is no way that these pieces of furniture are actually comfy. I have a feeling the lumps would even give someone back problems over time. In my opinion, I think that designs have to be both appealing and useful. I don't think these designers were going for that angle.

I can't help but get goosebumps (the bad kind) from looking at these designs.