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.

Response: Magazine Prototype Presentations

We're almost there guys! Just like everyone else.... I've had a ridiculous amount of things to do design wise.... It's crunch time.

Anyways, we just had our second round of presentations and I'm not going to lie... I'm pretty proud of our group and how far we've gotten. We still have some work to do but at this point we just have to make sure our photos have a high enough resolution, add advertisements and some nit-picky design things. So I'm hoping we don't have TOO much intense things to redo. I've noticed a lot of my problems have been with the images... whether it has to do with finding high resolution photos, photos that relate to the story/recipes and hierarchy. I think it won't take me too long.

Well this is my "good luck" post to you all!

Critique: Magazine Prototypes

Hello fellow designers.

This week, I will be critiquing my updated magazine prototypes. For my revisions, I found them particularly fairly easy once the publishers cut down on the text and gave actual links to photographs. I still need to work on some of the image's resolutions before tomorrow.... but nonetheless, here they are:

In This Kitchen Department 

Splash Page

In This Kitchen Department 

 In This Kitchen Department 

 In This Season Department

Party Supplies Feature

Splash Option #1

Party Supplies Feature

Splash Option #2

 Party Supplies Feature

Wines by J.O Department

Option #1

 Wines by J.O Department

Option #2

You Can't Miss This: ASME Awards

This week on Unbeige, The American Society of Magazine Editors have announced the finalists for the 2012 Magazine Awards!
Here they are:

Design: Honors overall excellence in magazine design, including the use of illustrations and photographs.
Bloomberg Businessweek, GQ*, Interview, New York, Wired
Photography: Honors overall excellence in magazine photography.
GQ, Interview, National Geographic, Virginia Quarterly Review, Vogue
News and Documentary Photography: Honors photojournalism and photography that documents news, sports, and entertainment events and news-related subjects.
Harper’s Magazine for “Juvenile Injustice,” October
Harper’s Magazine for “Uncertain Exodus,” July
National Geographic for “Too Young to Wed,” June
The New York Times Magazine* for “From Zero to 104,” September 4
TIME for “Birds of Hope,” January 17
Feature Photography: Honors portraiture; fashion, travel and nature photography; and food, shelter, and other still-life photography conceptual photography; and photo-illustration.
National Geographic for “Taming the Wild,” March
The New York Times Magazine for “Touch of Evil,” December 11
TIME for “Portraits of Resilience,” September 19
Vogue for “Lady Be Good,” March
W for “Planet Tilda,” August


I thought the finalist list wasn't too surprising... especially because I went to New York and visited a majority of these magazines. I hadn't paid too much attention to Bloomberg Businessweek prior to my trip, but after... wow. They have the most amazing designs and it's no surprise they are on the finalist list for the design category. However, I am surprised that Esquire did not make the cut on this list at all. Maybe it's because I've put Esquire on a pedestal, but I do think they deserve to make the design category.

Anyways, check out the list and tell me what you guys think of the finalists.

Response: 20/10 Critiques

This week, I decided to critique the 20/10 presentations. I really wish I had more sleep the previous night and didn't have a running fever to present my designs more enthusiastically... but I did like them a lot! For the presentations, I was kind of glad to see that my fellow classmates had some creative designs for the last of the covers. I was a little worried about mine looking a little ridiculous....

I think the one that stuck out to me was LeeAnn's "missing person" cover. I really didn't think it looked like it. I thought it was the most creative one I've seen. Okay, I lied. I also loved Katie Landis' American colored lips. If I saw a book cover that looked like that... I'd pick it up and check it out. I might be a little disappointed though to find out that the book was about an old woman.

Anyways, I can't wait to see what y'all come up with in your redesigns on Tuesday!

Critique: Book Covers

Hello fellow designers.

So this week, I decided to critique my Suzanne O'dea book covers for the 20/10 assignment. After seeing everyone's covers, I wish I could've made more illustrations or had more photographs of Mary Louise Smith to work with. Either way, I'm pretty proud of MOST of my covers. It was a pretty interesting trying to create 20 completely different designs. I typically create a ridiculous number of design options anyway, but this assignment really pushed my limits. My favorite would have to be the first one. I'm going to combine some of the gimmicks and see what I come up with!

Anyways, here's what you all voted for me to redesign:

You Can't Miss This: The Knot

As everyone knows, I have a love for wedding magazines and I aspire to work for one... so this week on Unbeige, I decided to talk about their post on touring The Knot, the famous wedding planning website. The just got a new space in lower Manhattan and it's absolutely gorgeous. This also attracted my attention because I recently visited and fell in love with New York. So this was the ULTIMATE Andrea blog post.

Check out the video here:

Since you all didn't get to come to New York with me, I decided to include this video to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what a New York office is like. It's very similar to the ones I saw at Conde Nast and Hearst, but with a few twists: They have a bar with a kegerator and a giant screen projection for xBox Kinect.

Man, I love New York.

Response: Magazine Prototype Presentations

For this week, I decided to make it all about our prototypes... considering it's the project that is consuming all of our lives. I thought it was appropriate.

Anyways, as I have said before, I love hearing y'alls critiques. I especially took to heart what Jordin said about my party supplies feature. I never noticed that the page didn't flow well or give any hierarchy to the photos. Now that I've seen my groups' pages, I think I have a better understanding on what to do now.

better cook: The pops of color and vivid pictures really bring out the personality of the magazine. Our team was inspired to make our magazine with the pops of color too. I loved the consistency and I can't wait to see what y'all come up with tomorrow.

The Modify magazine: REALLY impressed what y'all were able to come up with considering the circumstances...  Really great job. Katie, I feel like you've really got to push for that first cover. It's really beautiful and different... which is what they wanted right?

Home Canvas: Not going to lie, after seeing Krista's work, I've fallen in love with what you could do with cutouts. I think y'all were off to a GREAT start, but I'd love to see more of those cutouts throughout!

Good luck to everyone. Can't wait to see everyone's magazines tomorrow.

Critique: Magazine Prototypes

Hey everybody! Hope everyone had a great spring break. This week, I decided to critique my magazine prototypes for Eat Now you saw on Tuesday. Here they are:

 In This Kitchen Department

 In This Season Department

Get This Party Started Feature

Overall, fairly proud of my work. I still have a lot to revise as of right now. I have to basically cut down the In This Season department in half. Nick also worked really hard on standardizing the typography, recipe formats and tip formats... so I have to update those. My biggest struggle was trying to make the few/large amount of text as visually appealing as possible. I think after our team's discussion, I've got a better idea on how to revise it.

Well it's going to be a long night!