You Can't Miss This: Pritzker Prize

Every year, an architect is awarded for an incredibly constructed design with the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The winner receives $100,000 and a bronze medallion inscribed with the Vitruvian ideal of "firmness, commodity and delight."

This week on Unbeige's blog, they posted about this year's winner: Wang Shu from Hangzhou, China.

Anyways, I was scanning through Unbeige's blog and stopped when I came across this post. I was completely in awe of these beautifully constructed buildings.

 Above left, you can see the Library of Wenzheng College at Suzhou University. YEAH... that's a LIBRARY, sitting in the middle of this lake. Gorgeous.
The planning must have been absolutely extensive because the architect had to choose strong, stable materials that could also stand in water AND look chic and modern at the same time.

On the right is the Ningbo Contemporary Art Museum. I really like the long bridge leading into the glass-enclosed building; it looks like a gateway into history. I love it.

I'm a big fan of how these two buildings were constructed and designed. I have been interested in architectural design ever since I took a class here at MU about the topic. For those of you who haven't even thought about architecture as being artwork or creatively designed, you should definitely check out this blog post. Better yet, take a look around the building next time you are in a big city's art district. They are inspiring.

Response: Historical Perspectives

This past Tuesday, our class presented their historical perspectives for their magazine and era. Unfortunately, I did not present mine, but I'm pretty excited to show the class what I came up with next Tuesday.

I loved everyone's presentation. It was interesting to see how my classmates could turn a simple "powerpoint" presentation into something well-designed and informative too. Considering that I will probably have to make a number of presentations in this career, I found this to be a very useful assignment.

When I started my assignment, I had problems with coming up with sources. After some help from classmates and Theresa, I was able to guide myself in the right direction. I wasn't happy at all with the design of my presentation, strictly because I had to maneuver something in powerpoint. Maybe it's just my opinion, but I felt awkward leaving the Indesign comfort zone.

Since I don't have to present until Thursday, I'm going to switch it to Indesign and spruce it up a bit. I don't know about y'all, but I have a huge issue of showing my work to someone if it's not completely up to my standard. I only like showing my best work that I could be proud of.

Critique: Department Pages

This week, I designed the the department pages for books and back of the books. I would post a .pdf, but I forgot to personally save them for my portfolio. I'll update this post later when I get it.


Anyways, I noticed a weakness of mine when I do the department pages. Since I'm in News Design this semester for the Missourian, my designing becomes very standard. There is a template for what seems like everything from type to infoboxes. With magazine design for Vox, I've noticed the same issue.

I'm scared to stray away from the templates. I want to be more creative within the department pages, but I'm struggling to figure out how. This is great that I figured this out now, because this is what I plan to do with the rest of my life: design... which means designing department pages.

Something Theresa said stuck with me. It's that bit that she said about how employers are looking for designers who can design within the templates, but do it in a creative way.

Well, I guess I still have another half a semester to work on it!

You Can't Miss This: Wood Shop

This week on Unbeige, they posted a follow-up on David Stark's Wood Shop. I previously commented on his unique creations made out of wood and odd objects. Because I have a weird fetish for carpentry (I like to build furniture), I was immediately drawn to this blog post. Plus, this follow-up included plenty of pretty pictures.

This exhibit has a wide variety of vases, necklaces, pillows and even dessert. Check them out!

  

Shown in the picture above, you can see all the intricate vases. As a carpenter myself, I can fully appreciate how he was able to get the vases so smooth using poplar wood. From my experience, poplar is considered one of the softer of the hardwoods and probably one of the best for painting. The fact that David Stark decided to leave the wood naked and in its natural state, shows his own of his characteristics for design.

 

Okay. This is by far my favorite piece out of the pictures he's shown. It's a little slice of cake made completely out of Smartply. This particular type of wood is usually used for roofs, floors, etc. and comes in large sheets. It's less expensive than plywood and is formed by woodchips and waterproof glue. I've worked with this type of wood plenty of times and let me tell you, it's really tricky.

One, it's completely not supposed to be used to make decorative pieces because of it's rough texture and high density. (But it creates the different layers to this slice of cake!)

Two, it's made through bonded woodchips, so when you take a circular saw or jigsaw to it, chips tend to fly EVERYWHERE. I can't tell you how many times these little flying chips has gotten in my eye or pierced my skin. Plus, unless your blade is super sharp, it's hard to make smooth edges. From what I can see in the picture, it has been sanded down to create smooth, but still defined top and edges.

Okay now that I've completely shown the masculine side to me, you can understand why I love David's Wood Shop exhibit. As a magazine designer, I have complete respect and understanding for product designers. They use their hands, while I use my mouse to make designs. It's the same aspect. The whole dessert made out of wood was a completely kooky, creative and adorable idea that probably took a LONG time to come up with. That's exactly how it is for magazine designers. It may take a long time or a short time to execute the design, but it could take twice as long to come up with the concept.

I guess what I'm saying is to put as much effort as you can into the concept. Take risks and do the unthinkable.

Response: Prototype Presentations

So we had our magazine prototype presentations and I realized that I really need to work on my speech skills. I think it's because I have major problems in believing that my designs are up to par. Therefore, it's hard for me to speak highly of them. Oh well. There's always room for more improvement right?

Anyways, it was very interesting to see how the other designers came up with a design for the same magazine. All of the concepts were completely different and I loved it. It's always inspiring to me how each designer has their own little traits and visions. For example, with Brittany's, she went for a minimalistic approach. I've never really been a fan of the fashion-forward type designs, but I really liked how she executed it. Not to mention, the ice cream was really adorable and eye-catching.

So overall, I love constantly learning from the other designers. They came up with designs I have never even thought of or seen. My regret is the same as the previous other assignments. I need to take more risks and I love that the other designers are constantly motivating me to come up with more creative designs.

Critique: Prototype Redesign

Hey everybody! We're done-ish with the second round of prototypes! Also congrats to Nick Williams in my room for winning the whole thing for our magazine.

Anyways, really glad I finished the magazine prototype. Overall, I'm really proud of what I came up with. The critiques really did help me with the redesign. I decided to go for a clean and organized route. For my redesign, I tweaked the sell lines on the cover and added one more.

I changed a lot for my department page. I took the advice from Theresa and blew up the picture. I also cleaned up the page and went for a different color palette.

For the features, I started completely from scratch. I made a two spread feature about mooncakes. Based on what I heard from the publishing capstone group, they wanted a segment on having recipes for different skill levels. I actually found an article online that offered recipes for different skill levels (hence the random mooncake recipes).

Well here is my design! Let me know what you guys think and I can tweak it even more for my portfolio.

Cover

 

 Department Page/Standards

 

 Feature Opening Spread

 

Feature Inside Spread

 

Color Palette and Type Styles

Response: Magazine Prototypes

Well, good job everyone... we survived the first round of many, many more for designing the magazine prototypes project.

I love when we have family critique time. It's so helpful hearing from other designers, instead of my roommates, because y'all actually know what you are talking about and are completely unbiased. And call me a design snob, but I really only listen to the opinions of other designers (yeah, I need to work on that). I enjoyed hearing each individual response. After spending a month with all of you, I've kinda gotten a feel on all of our strengths. Some really excel in typography, while others are amazing on illustrator. So having a class full of designers who are talented on such a wide range is probably one of the best tools I could possibly have.

Anyways, with my magazine prototype, I worked really hard on the logo, design and personality of the magazine the entire weekend. I'm not going to lie, I thought it was pretty boring. The critique really helped me to figure out the weaknesses and get myself to believe that it wasn't as bad as I thought.
(So thanks everyone for the motivational push)

Before I started designing, I wanted the magazine to be innovative and completely different from the rest of the cooking magazines. Still haven't accomplished that, but I'll try to rework my design this weekend to see what I can come up with. Nonetheless, I'm pretty satisfied with the end result.

You Can't Miss This: New Kate Spade Design

Okay I'm going to have a girly moment (which doesn't happen often for me) and say that I flipped out a little bit reading Unbeige's recent blog post.

Kate Spade has released brilliantly designed homegoods AND her 2012 fall collection filled with "polka dots and painterly prints." As a personal follower of Kate Spade since I was 11-years-old, I can't help but be super excited about these.

All of the patterns in her fall collection were designed by Brad Goreski and the homegoods were designed in a tribute to Australian textile designer, Florence Broadhurst (1899-1977). The home goods will feature the colorful and decorative FloBro patterns on cushion covers, luggage, dish sets and wallpaper.

Here's a little sampling:

I'm in LOVE with these new prints. After reading this blog post, I had to take a gander on who exactly "Florence Broadhurst" is. Literally had a love-at-first-sight moment with her style. No clue who she was before reading the post, but I can tell you that when I move into my new place, you can bet there will be some "FloBro" pattern in it. They are just so retro, chic and excellently designed.  I love the china set (pictured above right), and I'm really tempted to go out and buy it tomorrow. For interior decorating, I have a thing for the black and white, minimalistic approach with using spots of color to make it more interesting.

Even though this has everything to do with fashion and product design, I'm not going to lie, it's pretty inspiring looking at other sources. Picture if I made a print similar to that for our Spring Preview? EXACTLY.

Critique: Lonnie Barker Cover

Last week, I worked on my Lonnie Barker covers, Wilderness feature spread and my magazine prototype. For News Design, I designed a photo essay and the front page of Thursday's Sports page... in other words: overload of design.

So I've decided to include all of the design I did.

For the final revision of my Lonnie Barker cover, I couldn't decide what direction I wanted to take, so I made three different versions. My favorite would have to be the first one, because it is simplistic and gets the message across. I listened to my classmates about how important it was to include his face, so I photoshopped his face into the second cover. With the third cover, I decided to go with a graphic/illustration route and use a CD image to highlight the teaser (probably my least favorite).

Here they are:

In addition, Jordin and I have been working on the Wilderness feature spread this past week and last weekend. It was actually pretty easy and fun to work with the photos. The collaboration part was interesting, because we could critique each others ideas at the same time. I thought working with two designers would be difficult, but thankfully it was a breeze! (Thanks Jordin) So this week we worked on making the design less "girly" and more masculine. We also reworked the photo selection and tried to make the layout less top-heavy. Let us know your thoughts!

So here's the second edit to the feature:

Opening Spread

Second Spread

  

Third Spread

Fourth Page

ANOTHER thing I've worked on this week was the magazine prototype for the magazine: "Eat Now"

Since this is only my first draft, it still needs lots of work. I'd like to fine tune the logo and adjust the department page with the critiques from class. Right now, I think my design is pretty boring and just needs some more spice to it. So we will see what I come up with this week/weekend! 

Here it is:

Cover

 

Sample Department Page 

And for fun-sies, I decided to include what I did in News Design. Please don't judge too hard... I completely forgot about the assignment and made the three pages in an hour and a half. 

Well I think that's enough of my design. Until next week!

You Can't Miss: Functional Design

This week I bring to you more product design.... but this one has to do with a smoke detector shaped as a bird.

In a blog post made by Unbeige, they featured "Cheep and Chic: A Bird-Shaped Smoke Detector."

 

Designed by Dutch designer Louise van der Veld, this cute, plastic bird is able to detect smoke with an impressive 85-decibel-alarm. Not only is this bird completely functional, but it "also bring(s) a new and dynamic approach to design." This little design wonder has traveled all the way from Europe and was introduced last week at the New York International Gift Fair.

The smoke detector will be offered for $75 with a battery that lasts about 1.5 years.

I don't know what it is about these past couple of weeks, but I've been intrigued by design that both aesthetically-pleasing and resourceful. I love the idea that design doesn't have to be restricted to just painting or layouts, but that it can be completely functional. I feel like functional design would attract a wider range of audience; and in the end, would sell better than just a painting that decorates a wall.

This post reminded me of one of my favorite stores, Speranza Design Gallery, back in my hometown of Dallas, TX. Although the products tend to be on the expensive side, they are very well-designed and use high quality materials. Created by real designers, the products are completely functional and designed to be completely different from anything you have ever seen before.

I've included a few of my favorite products:

David Weeks Gorilla Pink Ashtray, $28

 

Alessi Anna G. Corkscrew Blue, $60

 

"Tape" Tape Dispenser, $24

Haha. So as you can see, this store offers completely cute and functional designs too. With May just around the corner, they make great graduation presents for designers. Just saying!

Response: Vox 5 App

I'm pretty pumped for working on the Vox 5 App. I think the whole concept is really innovative and potentially helpful in my future career. It's a new challenge that I can't wait to participate in. I think the trickiest part for me would be to create the design in both a horizontal and vertical format.

Right now, I think the Vox 5 App is at a great start. However, I would like to see more out of it. I looked at Esquire's innovative app and I pulled a few ideas that I thought Vox could eventually adapt from. I think Vox could eventually have interactive animations that the user could have more fun with than stagnant pages.

First idea is that Esquire uses illustrations in their app to explain different stories.
For example, in this certain issue, Esquire uses an interactive animation to show the future reproduction of the World Trade Center.

In this animation, they had an illustrator draw the blueprint of the building and the user could touch different parts of it to show exactly what that is.


In another issue, Esquire uses a 360 animation to show men's fashion.

I feel like this animation would be easier to accomplish because it uses photos, rather than an illustration, to give the app a little more oomph.

Esquire also uses videos as stories, such as the one David Granger showed us of Ryan Gosling when he came to visit the journalism school.

I think the combination of animation, interaction and videos would give the Vox 5 App a little more excitement and attract more users. I understand that this is probably easier said than done, but hey, we could always use a little challenge, right?

Critique: Lonnie Barker Cover

Happy ALMOST Friday! Geez. This week flew by with all the designing I had to do.


So let me recap for you all the craziness that has been my past week. For my magazine design capstone class, it was my turn to compete designing the three different covers for the February 16th issue. The cover featured Lonnie Barker, a gospel rapper.

I planned way in advance for this project because I wanted to make sure that I had the right focus this time and to take risks. I can proudly say that I'm pretty sure I achieved that with these covers. They are definitely not complete yet, but I think I got to a good start.

Here's what I came up with:

"Rapper of Reason"

For this cover, I tried to personalize the story by featuring his albums. At the same time, I wanted the cover to be ambiguous to who exactly Lonnie Barker is with the exclusion of his picture and the headline "Rapper of Reason." That way, the reader is enticed to pick up the magazine and figure out who exactly this man is.

This is probably my favorite of the covers. I thought that not a lot of designers would think to feature the albums and music is a key element to the story. It still has a lot of work to do, such as throwing on a catchy deck, spicing up the headline and playing with the color palette.

"Hopeful Hip Hop"

I really did like this cover, but from the responses today... I'm assuming others didn't.
At first, I wanted to manipulate the image by leaving just Lonnie in color and the rest in black and white to make him stick out from behind the crossed bars. I didn't like how that turned out because the photo was already pretty dull in color. Then, I tried to go for neon to resemble grafitti and the hip hop culture that includes bright colors in wardrobe. 

I played a lot with the color palette until everything was spaced well. I also created a grungy border in photoshop to further emphasize on Lonnie. The grungy border was made to dull the bright colors to show the roughness and struggles of Lonnie.

Overall, still love this cover... probably more on the computer than how it came out printed.

"Hip-Hop Music with Meaning"

I made this cover into an illustration. Not going to lie it could've used a lot more work. I wanted the text, "Hip Hop Music," on a classical music sheet to show the contradictory of how Lonnie raps about the gospel, as opposed to the obscenities of other rappers. The cover could have been executed better if I took more time on the concept and showed more contradiction other than just the headline. Originally, I wanted to put words that described him in the placement of lyrics, but it just looked like the song was written in fragments. I'm still going to play around with it when I have time because I know I could make it look so much better than how it does now.


Anyways...  I also designed the front page of Sports for the Columbia Missourian's Thursday issue (Feb. 2). Pretty proud of that because I had more leeway to be creative. Not to mention that the design and stories are based around DGB and the national signing day. I'll try to upload that design, as well as my other newspaper designs on here once I can get them scanned. Either way, check it out and tell me what you think!

You Can't Miss: Event Design with David Stark

Anyone who knows me really well, knows how much I love wedding planning and decorations. 

This week on Media Bistro's blog, Unbeige, contributor Stephanie Murg talks about "Seven Questions for Event Design Master David Stark" and his unique style in event design. The post goes on to discuss David's latest creation, WOOD SHOP. For this production, he combined with Nina Freudenberger's Haus Interior in New York.

David has taken things such as "Post-Its, paint chips, bundled newspapers" and recreated them into  masterpieces that brides can use as in their weddings or others can use as decoration pieces for events and around the home.

Here is a sample of his reused and wooden wonders:

Personally, I didn't know that there was such a thing as "event design," but apparently it's just as intricate as designing a layout spread or making a painting.
 
This is one of David's responses that stood out to me the most and described the process of "event design":
"We make sure that the planning process, the logistics, and the flow are as buttoned up as possible so that our clients don’t need to worry about a thing, and at the same time, we create environments that elevate party décor to the realm of installation art. Thus, my art background really does inform my work today. I don’t see any real difference between making a painting, creating an event, or designing products. My approach is always the same: make art."

This blog shows how a designer can take a simple material and turn it into true pieces of art.  His designs are all very playful and cutesy and would make any event's decorations look unique and original. I loved that these decorations were created and designed out of things you would never expect. Personally, I'm a huge fan of recycling and reusing items to make into something else.

If you are interested at all in event planning or even decorations, this blog post is a must-see.

Response: The September Issue

So in class Tuesday, we began watching the movie, "The September Issue." The documentary featured Vogue's hectic and crazy journey to publishing their biggest issue of the year in 2007. The movie starred the fashion queen and editor-in-chief of Vogue, Anna Wintours.

I've never seen the movie, but I'm glad I did. I found it personally interesting because my aunt and godmother was a former fashion stylist of Vogue back in the late 1990s. My aunt used to tell me stories about her experience with Vogue, but seeing it in the documentary made it more real. I knew that working in the fashion world was crazy, but I never realized HOW crazy it was.

As for the design aspect, wow. I think Vogue takes design on a much more personal and intense level. Anna had the complete and last say over the photographs, tone, design and layout order. It made the journalism world more realistic after seeing the staff and editors put their heart and entire soul into the production of the issue and then just to have their vision slaughtered. Anna had a high standard for design and made sure that the every aspect followed suit.

My favorite part of the documentary was seeing all of the factors that Anna took into mind with the design and photograph choices. For me, the documentary was a huge eye-opener. It showed me the hectic day-to-day routine and how the process of designing for a magazine actually works.

Loved the documentary and I hope to see the rest of it!

Critique: Spring Preview

Hello blog followers!

So this week in my capstone class, we had another competition to design Spring Preview.  I really did have a lot of fun playing with Illustrator and Photoshop for this assignment. Overall, pretty pleased with how it came out.

So here's how I came up with the design. I had been stumped all week, even asking my roommates for ideas. I had played around with a music/blues theme, but I wasn't satisfied at all with the outcome. Last Wednesday, I was sitting outside on my deck searching for theme inspiration. I was starving and really wanted a freshly grilled burger. My thought process then went like this: burger, grill, barbeque, outside... picnic! I then decided on a picnic theme, complete with the trademark red plaid table cloths and marching ants.


Here's what I came up with:

Cover

 

Splash Page

Sample Layout

I had checked out other Vox Magazine previews and I decided that I wanted my entire design to match. In my opinion, I think having a unified design makes it easier for the reader to find certain stories and packages. This is why I utilized the plaid pattern and ants throughout the spread.

For the cover, I decided to go for a magnified, large illustration of a plate and fork to show the picnic theme. I think the picnic theme exemplifies spring perfectly; it shows the outdoors, games, family gatherings and most of all, it's fun.


With the Splash page, I depicted as if the page were sitting on top of a rustic picnic table. I included some teasers to the spring preview on a napkin (typical picnic accessory). My favorite design would have to be the splash page.

Lastly, for the actual inside layout, I wanted to have a clean design that adapted the theme as well. I wish I could have been more creative with the text and if I could do it again, I would do it differently.


Overall, my biggest regret is not taking more risk. After seeing the other designs my classmates came up with, I realized that all of my designs are safe and predictable. I believe that will be the one thing I will strive to work on. This class and my peers are constantly pushing me to make better designs— and I love it.

As for new designs, I have been working on the cover competition for Feb. 16 featuring Lonnie Barker that you all will get to see tomorrow! I'm also working on some other design projects out of the class, such as the front page of the Columbia Missourian's Sports section tonight and I'm redesigning the Wellness Ambassador packet for my internship with Healthy for Life. Whew. Talk about a lot of design.

Keep up the good work y'all.