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.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
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.
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
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
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.
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.
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
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.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
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."
The smoke detector will be offered for $75 with a battery that lasts about 1.5 years.
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:
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?
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?
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