Critique: Mini portfolio design

Except for my final round of copy editing, I just finished up my mini portfolio. Here's a preview of the little booklet I'll have to send to potential employers.

cover

I created these little bird fellows a while ago, and I knew I wanted to use them for one of my personal projects at some point. They represent my personal design style, which is very much still evolving.

table of contents

 

I organized my portfolio by type of work to help differentiate different design approaches. I found corresponding quotes to fit with each section divider to give whoever is looking at it an insight into how my mind works.

Vox intro

I designed an opener for each new section. I wrote a little blurb to explain the reason for the designs in each section, such as audience and the time frame, etc. Employers outside of Columbia might not know too much about Vox, the Missourian and, especially, our capstone projects. These little blurbs will give them some contextual understanding.

design work thumbnails

Although I originally wanted to format my spreads with a blurb on the left page and an example on the right, I eventually decided to put one piece with a blurb on each page. Each spread uses three corresponding colored dots that pull together the colors on both the pages. I stood by my decision to use black pages, but some of my darker colored designs got lost, so I added a .75 pt white border around each image to help them pop.

Can't wait to see everybody else's final portfolios next Wednesday :)

Critique: graduation announcements

                      front

As our final days at MU come to a close, my amazing procrastination skills are paying off yet again. Graduation is in a little more than two weeks, and I have yet to send out my graduation announcements.

This simple fact of reality is more than fitting given my collegiate career as a journalist.

Anyway, I decided to make my own graduation announcements, partially because I hate imprinted cardstock and partially because thought it would be cheaper.
Anyway, here's what I came up with. Luckily, I was my own target audience so I got to do whatever I wanted without having to worry about anybody else's opinion, haaa.

                     back

The prominent words on the front are from one of MU's school songs. I chose to use them because they're so celebratory and fun. The quote at the bottom is engraved in MU's infamous J-school arch, so I found it to be very appropriate. And of course I included the columns.

While I wanted my invitation to have a more modern, graphic feel, I still wanted to use the traditional format of a graduation announcement. So, this is what I decided to do for the back.

HOORAY. HURRAH. MIZZOU. MIZZOU.

Critique: snack your ass off — final(ish) Nosh production

The following designs are the culmination of my work as a designer for our Nosh magazine prototype.

cover

The publishers wanted some extra covers for their prospectus, so I got a chance to design the autumn cover for Nosh. The cover story is slated as "healthier halloween," and I didn't want to use cheesy autumn colors. I also created the sweet sell lines.

NoshMagazine.com

 This page had a lot of information about the additional content readers can find both online and on iPads. I wanted to show people interacting since this page was all about interaction. Also, we had few opportunities to use photos with people since so many of our pages featured recipes and food histories, etc. I wanted to take advantage of my ability to run a great picture here as big as possible.

Seasonal snacking department page

The content on this page is about combining rhubarb with strawberries to make use of a pretty unique — or maybe just weird — vegetable. I found that phenomenal parfait photo, and Theresa suggested I bleed it to take full advantage of it. I think everything on this page just goes together.

Three ingredient snacks

 This my least favorite of the pages I worked on. I never really liked how that vertical photo fit onto the page, but I just kind of went with it and kept working with it hoping it would evolve into something more interesting. Overall I think the page is too white for my liking, but there comes a time when you have to prioritize and move on with your life.

Feature: International snacks

Coming up with a concept for this took quite a bit of thinking, but I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I even came up with the title, which I think is pretty clever. You might notice the large amount of copy. Even though there was a lot of copy, I still decided to run the photos as big as possible because I thought they really lent to the story, even if that meant forfeiting my only real ability to use white space. I'm ok with my decision, though, because there's a great deal of white space on the splash page that opens the spread.

Packaged to homemade

 The content on this page teaches readers how to take packaged snack foods and make them from scratch. I love that photo of puppy chow, and the color scheme turned out quite nicely.

You don't even want to know how much noshing I did while working on these pages....

Critique: 30 under 30 contest for VOX

Last week the advance design students competed amongst ourselves for a shot at designing VOX's 30 under 30 feature. The story featured 30 up-and-coming Columbia residents under the age of 30 who are impacting the community in one way or another.

cover

The VOX editors really wanted to emphasize diversity with this story, so I wanted to show it right from the start. I also wanted to use fun, bright colors to emphasize the quirky youthfulness of the story. I wasn't crazy about the solid orange background, but I wasn't able to come up with another idea that I knew I could execute in a professional manner. Also, I grabbed the arrows from our Nosh prototype (two birds, one stone haaa).

opening spread

I wanted to continue presenting the diversity of those featured in the article. I absolutely loved this photo of Phylshawn Johnson. It's really fun and energizing (as are the other lead photos here), which I thought would attract readers.

secondary spread

With the secondary spread I was trying to show how I would work to squeeze 30 vignettes into the 10 pages that were originally slated for the story. Because there was so much text and a photo for each story, I didn't want to use too many "decorative" design elements. We all knew the pages were going to be tight. I chose to use bold drop caps, numbers and pull-quotes to help break up the seas of gray.

In the end, I still feel as though my designs were far too text heavy. I wish I would have found a better solution to help split up the stories more definitively, as did Theresa. She developed a really great broken grid technique that convey the story's VOX-y edginess, which, of course, is why her design was chosen :)

Critique: found typography assignment

For this assignment I wanted to focus on the bold neon typography of big name companies because I'm so intrigued by their use of of color. I chose the word "mammoth" so that the word itself and the type would refer to each other. While taking the pictures I tried to do so from the same angle for each sign to get a consistent 3-D perspective.

While designing the piece I cut out each letter individually. To get across the neony feel of the signs, I added a drop shadow and a glow to every letter so that the letters would pop off the page more.

Anyway, that's about it. I was really surprised with how well it turned out. Can you guess where each of the letters came from? Some are pretty obvious.

From left to right: Wal-Mart, Subway, MCSports, McDonalds, Target, Dollar Tree, Chuck E. Cheese.

Critique: VOX food challenges cover

This week's critique features cover concepts I developed to highlight VOX Magazine's food challenges issue that will be printed during spring break. One problem that arose was defining what exactly a "food challenge" is. Apparently it's really just about people eating huge, spicy or otherwise ridiculous food in a competitive nature. All three of my drafts utilized similar color palettes, which wasn't especially intentional but something that's understandable given the color palettes of the food featured.

meaty madness

Since the story conveys a tone as though the food involved in the challenges is intimidating and confrontational, I wanted to convey a fun photo illustration that gave a sense that the food is "attacking" the challenger, which would be the reader in this case. Although I'm not sure how feasible this concept would have been in regard to the images VOX photographers had produced for the story, I really like how this one turned out.

uncomfortable eats

With this cover concept, I basically wanted to show how unappetizing these challenges can be. I honestly don't think that anybody is going to look at that and say, "Oh, that looks delicious!" I wanted them to think, "Oh God, that looks terrible. Who in their right mind would try to eat that?" Fun fact: after printing my first drafts for critique, my boyfriend pointed out that he read the title as "Uncomfortable Cats." Obviously this would have been a problem, so I would have worked with the type.

the human element

I personally thought that the most compelling part of the story is the fact that actual people choose to partake in these challenges. I definitely thought that showing somebody in the midst of a food challenge would be the best way to entice readers to pick up the issue. In the end, this is the one that the editors and art directors wanted me to rework for our final drafts.

final draft

Unfortunately, once the rest of the photos came in from the photographers, I quickly saw that there weren't any new ones that featured an individual partaking in a challenge. Instead, the photos were basically still-shots of the food, which were obviously not interesting as far as compelling cover images go. I looked through the photographer's raw files of this burger shoot, but this was still the best image as far as content and framing were concerned.

Jan wanted the burger itself to be more dominant as well as more centered, so I zoomed in on that aspect of the photo and tried to rework its position, as well as the title, to make it more of the focus. I knew the words within the title would be crucial for selling the rest of the story, so I worked with the title a lot to find the best way to convey information.

In the end I was satisfied with the end result. I think it looks like something VOX would run, even though it wasn't the final choice for the issue.

Critique: social smoking cover (or "the evolution of a design")

After last week's critique, the VOX editors decided to go with my cover choice. I was told they appreciated my initiative to tone the photo on my own. The original photos had yet to be toned, and as a result they were almost too dark to work with as far as designing goes.

 my original concept>>>

Here's what I turned in (and what they subsequently chose) to be worked on as the VOX cover for the social smoking feature.



After being chosen, the editors had a number of suggestions for the design. They thought the blurbs took up too much space at the bottom and compromised some of the photo. They also wanted the headline repositioned. When printed, the hot pink blended in with the background too much, so I needed to re-evaluate my color usage.

Here is how I revised the cover for print.



Although the art directors all approved of my decision to use three colors, upper management did not. I was required to downgrade from using three colors to only two, which I found to be extremely problematic. I liked how the top to colors balanced each other out and worked in contrast against their respective backgrounds, so I really didn't want to get rid of either of them. However, replacing the orange with either the turquoise or the pink would have made the overall color use unbalanced. Changing the orange to white would have made the deck blend in with the headline too much.

After a lot of deliberation, Aaron and I came up with a solution we found to be the least of all evils. Here is the final product that VOX printed.



I wasn't a fan of the new headline, so I searched for a new font that didn't look as awkward with these new words. I found one that was similar in nature but didn't have "G's" that seemed as weird. I'm also not a super huge fan of how we did the blurbs, but the issue with three colors versus two really limited the options. (This is also the officially toned version of the photo.) I think the use of only two colors makes the story look much more drab than it actually is.

In the end, I definitely prefer the product of my last revision before the color issue came up. As far as designs go, that's the one I'll be keeping in my portfolio. Working on this cover definitely taught me a lot about the editorial process.

(Did you notice that I wrote my own blurbs on my drafts? I got tired of reading "Billy Joel coming to town" and the like.)

Critque: Social Smoking Covers

Well, all of the shenanigans leading up to this project sure did take a whole lot out of me. Of course there was Comosnowpocalypse, which prevented my pitiful Pontiac Sunfire from getting to campus so that I could work on anything tangible. An unexpected sledding injury resulted in a 6 1/2 hour visit to the local ER Wednesday afternoon/evening. As a result I spent the next three days in bed attempting to heal myself.

In an ultimately feeble attempt to work on my design project from home, I downloaded the 30 day trial version of Adobe's creative suite. I was obviously not happy (nor prepared) to set aside 12 hours for its snail-paced download onto my system. Wow. I woke up this morning ready to install it when I learned that my janky old Mac system apparently doesn't support InDesign CS5...$%*#! Needless to say, I got my (injured) rear in gear and was on campus by 10 a.m. prepared to fully dominate both my design and photography projects. Serious productivity (and Red Bull) allowed me to achieve my goal.

Now to the nitty gritty that is critique blogging. The story I'm working with offers a new perspective on an old habit: smoking. The journalist working on the story observes that young adults in Columbia are following a trend of smoking socially rather than habitually.

In other words, smoking is a fun hobby done in social situations—not in daily life. As a college student, I don't think there's really any new, shocking information in the story, but it is noteworthy that this is a trend that's starting to gain some attention. In its entirety the story discusses smoking habits involving cigarettes, hookah, and a limited amount about marijuana (for obvious reasons).

Because the story maintains a light tone, it needs a design that relays a similar feeling. Keeping my technical abilities and limitations in mind, I've created the following three concepts as potential covers for the story.

Cover 1: the social (smoking) network



This article is a blatant parody of a certain social networking site *GASP*. Creating replicas of the buttons took the most time. Finding the best photos for the profile shots was also challenging due to the limited availability of certain subject matter on free photo stock sites. If this design is chosen to proceed, then I will probably invest some of my own money in a better image to represent marijuana. (The best ones I found charged fees I wasn't willing to pay upfront.) Ideally I would like to use a vertical image in place of the pipe so the design is more consistent overall. This should also remove the awkward white space.

Cover 2: Generation Y (are you smoking?)



I came up with this head and deck myself (although the deck admittedly needs work). I think that one of the most interesting aspects of the story is the fact that young adults growing up in Generation Y tend to be social smokers rather than habitual smokers. The story tries to answer the question of why this is so.

In this cover I tried to play off the trendy-indie hip qualities that seem to represent Generation Y. I think this cover is pretty successful, but to move forward with it we would either have to shoot our own photo or find a comparable one that's big enough to take its place because this one looks a bit pixelated when printed full-size. I also question whether the use of parentheses might confuse the reader.

Cover 3: Light up the Night



I don't think the VOX editors will choose this design, but I always seem to be drawn to minimalistic designs myself. While searching for various images related to smoking, I came across this photo and fell in love with it for some reason. The color, repetition and balance are all great, and I love the subtle reflection beneath the lighters. The head and deck were provided, although I did question how well it pairs with the image since there aren't actually any flames in the image. In the end I think this would be a simple way to communicate the story's basic subject matter to the reader, but it doesn't really go much further than that.

So what do you think? I'm a big fan of constructive criticism. I'd rather have my designs torn apart now so that I have a chance to really make something great for the final product.

Dang. After staring at all these designs, it's time to go get my nicotine on. (kidding)

>>>danielle<<<

Critique: spring preview design for VOX

Hello fellow design enthusiasts. I hope all the locals reading this are thoroughly reveling in Comosnowpocalypse.

Our last assignment was to create a design that showcased VOX's annual spring preview issue. I really enjoyed working on this project because we had a lot more creative freedom than we had for the first assignment (a photo essay). With this project I didn't have to worry about overdesigning or detracting attention from great photos as much.

For those of you who might not know VOX's spring preview showcases upcoming events that will be hitting the Columbia area in the near future. Basically reporters gathered a ton of information that was given to designers to organize into monthly spreads. Needless to say, I knew it would be a challenge to find a way to organize all of this information in a way that attracts readers. 

Before beginning work on the project, we were told not to put too much emphasis on conventional spring symbols like flowers, rain, umbrellas and the like. Editors suggested themes centered around the solar system or mechanics. Keeping these general rules in mind, I pretty much ran with this assignment.

After considering the issue's theme and effective tactics for enticing readers, I came up with the idea of working with a slinky. (Slinkies are essentially "springs.") I started looking for images I could use in my design. Because I wanted to go with a retro look,  I considered ways that I could manipulate certain images for a bold look.

I wanted to create a concept based on the type of art and design that I personally appreciate, something that would intrigue me if I found it in a publication. While it might seem arrogant to assume that VOX's audience would have similar reaction, I believe this type of design would appeal to a large part of VOX's readership: both the trendy "hipsters" as well as older readers who would have actually played with the original childhood icon.

Cover



I chose a color palette that was pretty much contained within the VOX color palete, which wasn't something I intentionally planned to do. I created the red color swatch, which I named "cool red," to complement the other colors. The font is "Knuckle Down," which I chose to download because it emulates the shape of the slinky. After re-evaluating my cover, I think that black slinky might be too dark on the teal (pool water) background if it were printed on newsprint paper. Overall, though, I am pleased with the final product.


Splash



I wanted to tie the cover theme into the splash page. I chose a more dimensional slinky image to work with. I wanted to use the "cool red" color because I loved it so much. I changed up the font; the main one I used here is Greasy Spoon because I think it provides a different kind of retro feel.

Feature



For the feature I wanted to carry on the retro theme and the same color palate without overdoing the whole slinky concept. To give the spread a subtle spring undertone, I initially wanted to use some partridge icons to accentuate the feature. After searching for some images, I decided that I wanted to do something a little bit different. A vintage shower curtain actually inspired these little bird fellows. Their eyes lead the reader around the spread. I used some placeholder photos because we didn't have actual stock photos at our disposal yet. I also created subheadings to split up the vast amount of information.

Overall, I'm pleased with how my design turned out, but I can see where it might have been a little too obscure or minimalistic at times (especially the splash page). I'll be proud to showcase this design in my portfolio, as it's definitely one that expresses my personality as both a person and a designer.

>>>danielle<<<

Critique One Pt. 2: slipping into the life of a designer

Week One: Part 2

Good news for all of my loyal followers: your preliminary interest in my potential ability to become a designer was not in vain—or so it seems.

Out of the 18 designs created for VOX's baby beauty pageant story, mine was chosen to be used as the feature. I was pleasantly surprised to say the least.  The final version of the design will be published in the Jan. 27 issue. Also, kudos to Tanya Oritz whose cover was chosen to be published.

Here's the (potential) final result of the two additional nights that I spent in VOX reworking my concept for the story, which of course took into account the editors' and art directors' suggestions.

Revised Opening Spread 
Revisions included a new title with a new "punchier" typeface. I moved the crown above the headline, which was my initial plan that I had abandoned at one point for some reason. The photo is now bled as well—something that my preliminary design also featured, but I changed this before submitting it the first time. 




Revised Secondary Spread
Showcasing fewer photos means that we can run the select ones at a larger size. The use of fewer decorative features should achieve a more impactful photo essay. 



Closing Spread
We decided to end with this photo of Ellie because it's so simple and beautiful.



My proudest accomplishment is that we were (tentatively) able to keep the tiaras that I painted in watercolor and then rendered in Photoshop. HOLLA!

In the works: Spring Preview designs for VOX, which I will be spending all of Wednesday working on. Then it's on to designing VOX's art department over the weekend followed by three cover concepts due Thursday for the Feb. 17 issue. Can't wait to live in the design lab all semester!

>>>danielle<<<

Critique one: baby beauty photo essay

The beginning of the end (or of the beginning?)
I just spent the first weekend of my last undergraduate semester doing nothing but designing. I remember complaining about my lack of exposure to any design courses my freshman year. Ahhh, life has come full circle. I attended a Photoshop class over the weekend to ensure I maintain my full-time student status. It was a major timesuck and a distraction from my assignment, but I need to avoid paying off those pesky student loans for as long as possible.

Anyway, when I wasn't "relearning" Photoshop's various lasso tools this weekend I was working on the first project for my Advanced Magazine Design capstone course. The assignment: create a cover design and five page spread to showcase a photo essay for a localized "Toddlers and Tiaras" story.

I was enthralled when I learned of the assignment, as I am a HUGE fan of TLC's "Toddlers and Tiaras." It's one of the few shows I watch religiously because, well, I can't even explain it. It's really just something you have to experience for yourself. (It airs Wednesdays at 10 PM/9PM central in case you were wondering.)

To my (slight) disappointment, the story we were given was not one of overzealous, ostentatious parents who have put themselves far into debt to ensure their little darling will be the next Miss America. The story featured a father who had given up his career as a NASCAR driver and now supports his daughter's pageant career (young though it may be). He has to help her walk across the stage not because she's too young to do so herself, but because her physical development is far behind that of her twin brother.

Long story short, the article wasn't about the utter ridulosity of the toddler pageant circuit. Rather, it told the story of a devoted father who shares a special bond with his daughter.

Cover
Using this photo for the cover was an obvious choice for me. I chose to use hot pink for the VOX masthead to give it some pop. I came up with the headline and the sub display on my own; I thought it captured the content and tone of the story perfectly. I chose fonts that expressed the same feelings and were also easy to read. 



Opening Spread
This photo shows how supportive Ronnie is of his daughter Ellie.  Since the assignment was to create a photo essay, I wanted the major elements of the spreads to be the photos. To complement the photos I hand-painted some pink tiaras with watercolor, scanned them into the computer and edited them in Photoshop.  I chose to use hand-painted tiaras rather than using Clip Art or actual photos because I wanted the spreads to have a youthful feel, as if a young girl could have painted on them.



Second Spread
I absolutely LOVE the photo of Ellie's parents painting her nails. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to run it as large as possible. Kudos to Caitlyn Emmit for taking such an exquisite photo. 



Closing Page
This last page just shows the results of a day at the pageant. Overall I ordered the photos chronologically to show how a typical pageant works for the family.



This assignment challenged me in a number of ways. First of all, I had to make sure my perspective of the story as a designer matched the story's tone and content. I also struggled to find a happy balance while designing, as I neither wanted to over or under design the story. 

In the end, I believe my execution was successful. My only concern is that it may not wholly mesh with the designs typically featured in VOX. However, I am happy that the overall design matches the story's content and tone and also offers the audience a logical presentation how exactly this father and daughter duo works.

I'm looking forward to sharing my design experiences from this semester with anybody curious enough to notice. And who knows, a potential career in design might just follow.

>>>danielle<<<