Check this out!

Apparently, Jenn's idea of the bound portfolio is becoming a new trend in the art world. Read about what supervisors and art professors had to say about having a bound portfolio. It's slightly dated but it's still worth the look.

The Portfolio Matures

Apparently, Gap is becoming retro. I haven't been in a mall in a few weeks so I haven't seen this yet but apparently they are putting Andy Warhol artwork into the windows. That's Gap for ya, making vintage good.





Almost makes me want to buy something from the company. Almost.





I thought this was a really cool way to put graphic design into the environment. This is something that I'm doing for my independent study project. Whenever I find this kind of stuff I think it's so cool. I recently saw one that someone did with Post-its for Nintendo Game characters. Imagine how much time it takes to make these.

Portfolio Presentations

I like seeing alot of people's portfolios but at the same time it was little intimidating. I have worked two previous internships but I don't have much to show for it. That kind of makes me feel bad but I think from this point on I will save all of my clips. After trying to get everything together my portfolio, I realized that I threw alot of my artwork while I was transferring. Or I lost it while I was in the process of transferring from Stephens to Mizzou.

I also though it was surprising that many of us have different emphases on what we want to do when we graduate. Some of us have tons of work in many different areas rather than just one. I think that shows a lot of diversity when you're showing your art to a prospective employer. But something I still haven't figured out is how many pieces are too many pieces?

Kudos to Jenn. I think that her idea of putting all of her portfolio pieces in a bound book. I think that is a creative idea and it will definitely make you stand out amongst the other applicants.

I'm also glad that we will be having one of these sessions now and one later. I think that will help before we get into the real world.

Big Lights, Big City

This week, I worked on updating some of my clips for my portfolio. It's funny when it comes to a portfolio, it's hard to decide what will in and what one should take out. As I was looking over things that I've done over the years, I realized that it's hard not to hate everything you've done. Or if not that it's difficult to decide what a employer will think is too old or stale. I realize they would probably want your most "fresh" pieces. Some of the pieces I plan to use for my portfolio are from the Magazine Design class. Then I've decided to try to do my graduation invitations and I also plan to help a friend with her wedding invitations. I've made up my mind to try to do more free small favors for various friends and family so that I will have work to add to my portfolio.

So the clips are as follows:



I actually updated this over Christmas break. This was the typographical layout that we were assigned to create for our Magazine Design final. Although it wasn't until I printed it out yesterday that I realized that the background was so dark. Plus I think I have some ideas about how to change the layout of it again. I probably won't delete it but I will probably make a new one. I like the way it turned out.


Page 1


Page 2


Page 3

I also created the poster for the MAP seminar. I didn't think that it looked that great but I was trying to go with a "Big lights, Big city" theme. That's why the font is the way it is. I tried to drop the a skyline outline in but it made the poster look too busy .So that's why I decided to leave it out.



I don't know if I like the way it came out.But right now I guess I will stay the way it is.

Since it seems like this summer I'm going to be Columbia-bound, I'm looking for some type of internship to do just to get more work into my portfolio. I don't want this summer to go to waste. So any advice that anyone can give about design jobs that need to be done over the summer, please let me know. I appreciate all of the ones that have been suggested to me already.

Design Work

This week I did various creative projects. This past week for the first time, I actually executed a few covers for Vox. There was a requirement to do three but I misunderstood. I only turned in one because I just didn't think that my other two covers looked that great. It is as follows:



Okay I finally got my photos up and running again. For some reason blogger isn't cooperating with my computer. So the covers are as follows:



I wanted to use type to try to make the outline of the camera. I was inspired by some of the film festival posters that I found on the web. I noticed a common symbol is the camera for a film festival. So instead I made mine with type. Although after making it, I decided that maybe I should add on the legs to make it look it was a camera. You probably wouldn't have known it was a camera until I told you. That's why I made one without the legs. Plus I was still trying to make sure I used the colors for the festival.





With this cover, I was trying to go for something a little different, a little indie. I gave up on this one at first because I just didn't think I could pull it off since Im still learning how to use Illustrator. It seems like with each project, I'm becoming more and more comfortable with it. I actually uses livepaint and livetrace for each item on the cover. The font that I started out with wasn't the one that actually is on this one. But since I forgot to make a .pdf on the computer I initially created it on, I had to use another computer with CS3 on it and unfortunately it didn't have the font on the second computer. I plan to change that and try to tweak some of the art on the cover. I thought the concept was good though. I was associating leaping forward with metamorphosing so at first I tried to create a cocoon with the True false insignia on it but that didn't look as good as I thought. Then I tried to make it look like it was a garden by adding the flowers but I wanted all of the attention to be on the butterfly. It just didn't turn out quite how I conceptualized it.

I was trying to go for something that would be different and eye catching but it didn't turn out quite as I had planned. I was trying to go with a new concept where we didn't have to have the symbol of the True/False Festival. I was also trying to make sure that a person waling by would understand that the True/False festival was about cinema. The titles in the background are all the films that are playing this year. I made the art in photo shop and added the words in later. I'm thinking about going back in and adding a film strip with the individual sign on a ticket or something else of that nature.

This week in basic photography, I actually took a photo of something that I liked. I'm slowly getting better at taking photos. Before taking this class, I knew the art of photography was somewhat difficult but this class is opening my eyes to things. This week I actually tried to used the techniques we learned in class to execute my landscape photos. Last week we were to take photos of a setting with unique light. There could've been a human subject in the photo but it wasn't necessary this time. It was also difficult to execute this project because every day that I had the camera, it was an overcast day. This is what I thought was my best photo in the batch.




I am also performing mediocre work in flash. I will update you guys when I do a project that is something to be proud of.

Historical projects

At first, I'm not going to lie, I didn't really think that I was going to learn anything from this project. But from the few presentations that I listened to the other day, I realized that there is a lot to learn from old publications. Many of their designs are mind boggling and very modernistic. Some of the layouts I saw looked as though they could be a magazine you would pick up today yet they were created back in the 30s, 40s and 50s.

I grew up with Ladies Home Journal. My grandmother use to keep old issues at her house. Not quite as old as the ones that Kirby presented but they were old. I always thought the content was boring. I preferred her old issues of Family Circle to Ladies Home Journal. The presentation just reaffirmed that belief, Ladies' Home Journal was just a fluff magazine. There really didn't seem like there was much to it unlike Colliers. There weren't any political stories or


I had never heard of Colliers before the presentation in class. I liked the content in the magazine. It seems very much like a magazine I would read on a monthly basis. I also liked the layout. It wasn't arrogant or boring. The publication wasn't afraid to use color, to be influenced by the new typography era or the cubism time period. Apparently the magazine was so popular that it was in competition with The Saturday Evening Post. It was known for having doing many investigative journalism stories. In fact it was so popular that the magazine it had it's own television show on NBC called The Collier Hour. After WWII, the readership fell and they had to shut their doors in 1956. It's always sad when great magazines close.

CIO: Esquire TOC, Dairy Today

This week on Designing Magazines, Jandos Rothstein describes the new layout of the Esquire's TOC. Rothstein had mentioned before that TOCs are usually looked over when it comes to producing a magazine. The fact that Esquire is taking out so much time to design the TOC is rare. I think they did a good job. They get out of the common, formatted style and add their own twist to it.




I think putting them into a rectangular grid definitely makes it look pleasing to the eye. I think that it's even more effective since they crop each of the photos and place them next to corresponding page, which has been viewed a problem for many readers since they find it difficult trying to find the right page for a certain photo or summary. I also think it was good to have the lines separate the summaries with lines.

With Esquire's new TOC, I don't think that they will attract more readers. It seems like you would only like if you knew a little bit about journalism. But I don't really like it. If I wasn't a journalism student, I think that I would get lost as an average consumer. It looks like the feature layout before it goes to print. Ick.The new TOC would make me put the magazine down and walk away. I would've expected better from them. I mean that's fine for around the office where it can be appreciated but I don't think people will enjoy it as much now as the old TOC's pictured above. Maybe it's just something that I will have to become accustomed to.

I can't wait to see if they keep changing things inside of the magazine. It's amazing how much typography can change a spread.

Speaking of typographical changes, Dairy Today has made changes to their cover to try to give their publication a new look since they rank third out of three dairy magazines in the nation.

Before:



After:




I think the first cover was a bit text heavy and a bit old fashioned. Yet the second cover looks very design forward. The typography makes all the difference on the cover. They actually start putting more of an emphasis on the dairy rather than the today. I think that was good move. The cover looks more colorful and funnier with just a single cow on the cover. And the selective colored background makes the image pop. I think now I would actually pick it up just for the cover. As the semester progresses, I'm starting to like when a publication doesn't have many sell lines on the front. Tighter sell lines with page numbers and hierarchy sell line covers seem to be the most visually appealing. I think is definitely something that I will start using more often in my designs.

WigWag Magazine

WigWag Magazine was a magazine that discussed the lives of celebrity with a little literary writing mixed in. The publication was launched around the same time that Spy Magazine was launched. Spy Magazine is widely recognized for its design and content while WigWag tends to live in its shadow. Spy Magazine created its own style and stepped to his own beat while WigWag was influenced by many of the editors and staff members at the New Yorker. The magazine's life lasted from 1988 to Feb. 1991, when the Gulf War was declared.

I'll admit that some of the design is a little dated but it is clever and creative. They have nice concepts. Much like the one shown in the table of contents:



Note how they used different photos but yet they all work together which is usually very unlikely when dealing with the TOC. Usually the TOC is the most disconnected department in a TOC because every story in an issue is different. Yet the design works together overall. I like how they use the torn page look and yet they make picture clippings look elegant and tasteful.




Yet another spread that uses the torn page look. And I love the stamps idea. It also illustrates how less can be more when it comes when it comes down to design.







I thought that these spreads were very creative to be designed during the late 80s. I admit the illustrations are somewhat too old but I still think that could be used in many of today's magazines. These spreads don't reflect the digital age that we learned about in our books or the Punk era either. Probably during that time period these designs were much ahead of their time.

Despite the fact that Spy Magazine is more popular than WigWag, I think these are two magazines that should equally be recognized for their innovative design and forward thinking. I think that many of the layouts and designs that are presently printed in many magazines were influenced by both of these magazines. Check out this design of WigWag's cover:



Look at that space above the banner. Look familiar? When do you think someone decided that that space was truly prime real estate?

Meredith Trip

I thought the meredith trip was pretty great. I'm not going to lie, I honestly didn't expect the magazine to be as big it was. I've worked at other magazine publications but none as big as Meredith. After growing up with many of it's publications like Better Homes & Gardens and Family Circle, the office was well beyond my expectations. I always imagined the publications as looking like a second home and in some areas of the office building it does look cozy. But at the same time, it looked very modern.

Iowa was definitely a new experience and as much as I would like to work for Meredith, I don't think that if I received a job there that I wouldn't be able to tolerate the cornfields. Sometimes open space is good but too much of a good thing could be bad. While on the trip, I found out that I will be in Readymade group 1. The team seemed to have their mission statement and vision ready. The only thing that the group was missing was a title. The editor that we spoke to about the group's magazine had many ideas and suggested that we should model the magazine after a start up idea that Meredith had shortly before they took over Readymade.

I was happy to find out that the issue that we are suppose to be doing is not a remake of the established Readymade but a all new magazine aimed at college students. It's almost like creating a new magazine. I'm glad that I followed my first mind and went against what John F. said.



I already see things that I already possibly want to change about the magazine. I'm avid reader of the magazine but now looking at it a little closer, I realize there are just something that need to be tweaked and I can't wait until I get a chance to do so.

I also thought it was enlightening how at Meredith they spent to much time picking the perfect cover. It's like a contest where everyone gets a vote and supports their decision. Then the best part is that you don't know what is picked until it goes to print. I think that it's so cool that the business despite its size is so close. It's like when you join Meredith, you're joining a family. It reminds me of the lighthearted jesting that many of us did with close buddies in high school. Usually when I envision work, I envision grueling long days where the workload is almost piled to the ceiling. It might sound a little overexaggerated, but that's what I imagined. But Meredith puts a total spin on that makes working in the big leagues appealing. I was also surprised to find out that recent graduates could move up through a company so quickly. It lightened my outlook about the designer workforce for a bit.

Vox Music, Resumes and the Business School

This week, I tried to work on previous designs from last semester and I worked on a design for the Trulaske Business school. I also pushed myself to revise my resume make it look more creative than it did before. I looked a few typographical resumes and this was what I came up with.

Previously my resume looked like this:



Presently:



I think the redo looks better, clearer and more creative. It seems as though I've been receiving more responses to job inqueries whenever I send my resume. I've also been working on my first project in this class (immigration spread). This week I also worked on an ad about Mizzou's graduate program in Crosby. It was a test in order to get a position as a graphic designer at the business school. I won't know for sure if I got the job until next week.

The design was as follows:



I think that concept was in the right place but it didn't quite turn out as well as I had hoped. I executed an ad that was in color but since I didnt lie the way it was turning out with all the color, I decided against sending it. I think that when I have more time, I'll actually think of a way to make all the elements work without being overwhelming.

Clear Magazine & Bauhaus

This week, Jandos Rothstein (blogger of designingmagazines.com) mentions a magazine that mixes fashion and design. Clear magazine takes old tricks and makes them new by adding their own typographical and layout twists.



The cover of the latest Clear Magazine

With the cover they added a nice foil cover to draw the readers attention, but once the reader gets inside the content should be questioned. The pages boasts grid or typographical layouts.


A typographical layout in Clear Magazine

Yet they are just that. Tricks to make the fashion and art composed in the magazine look better. At times it seems like they put too much focus on the design and not on the content. Like the following:


Opening spread in Clear Magazine


Another spread in Clear Magazine

The layout looks nice and really pulls in the reader yet as Rothstein comments the grid illustration does absolutely nothing for the story. It has nothing to do with the story. The reader would actually get the wrong idea about what the story is actually about. This is just another example of how all design should be content driven instead of designed at the designer's whim. Now I understand why it's so important to make sure that the illustration doesn't mislead the reader.



All of the fashion layouts look plain and don't put the models in any other enviroments other than the gray enviroment of the studio. Here they also try to intergrate the typographical tricks used on other pages of the magazine. It seems as though this publication has forgotten that images are a key component of a publication.




After doing the reading, in my opinion the Bauhaus section left something to be desired. After trying to consume all of the facts that were available in the Graphic Style book for our Advanced Magazine Design class, I wanted to find out more about some of the time periods. I actually ended up finding an in depth article about the history of the Bauhaus school. The article can be found here:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/30/style/DESIGN3.php?page=1

Enjoy.

"Helvetica"

I've been wanting to see this film for quite awhile now. I thought I could learn so much about the font and about the people that use it. And I have.

Even though we didn't get a chance to see much of the movie, I learned a few things. I didn't know the the NY subway line letters were in Helvetica. I've always admired the typography of the train line but I never would've thought that the bus line was made with Helvetica. It's so simple yet classy. It's the last front I would've thought they would've use. I thought that it would've been more unique.


One of the signs used in the NY subway system.


A photo of a stairway leading to or from the New York Subway.

I also didn't realize that so many logos and signs are made with the font. Usually when fonts are so over used, then people get tired of them. With Helvetica, I think many of us have just gotten desensitized to. It's everywhere so it's nothing new when someones uses it.

I was also surprised that many of the graphic designers stated that they only used only about two or three fonts for their designs. I always thought that one would need to use a new and different font everytime they design something. But those graphic designers used the same couple of font families and just applied various colors to their designs to differentiate between words. That's definitely a tip that I will use from now on in my work. I thought it was funny that the many of the designers felt that fonts don't have to be animated. They should convey an attitude or a idea to a viewer not be completely distracting. The font should demand attention but not completely take the attention from the product or ad.

If I learned that much from about 45 minutes of viewing, I can't wait to see the rest of film to see what else I can learn.

Shutter Graffiti

I actually didn't think this project was going to work since the example that was on the syllabus was from someone who lived in a city that was sectioned off into districts. Plus his letters were pretty large unlike our letters which were on street signs and business signs. But once I got started, the project went smoothly. I actually started to have alot of fun as I walked around downtown, in and out of alleys taking photos. Once I executed it, I really liked the way it looked. I might give the project another try in near future.



I don't know if the background color really works so that might change soon, but here's where I got many of many letters from:

R: GoodyeaR Ewers
E: Tiger BarbEr Shop
K: SparKy's
A: Alpine Shop
B: Boone Tavern

D: Carhartt's Dungarees
E: BoonE Tavern
S: Slackers
I: Alpine Shop
G: Goodyear Ewers
N: The Blue Note

I: My SIster's Circus
N: The ArtisaN
C: Cool Stuff

I thought of this in the sense that it would be a logo for something in my portfolio so that's way I used the design inc. "Rekab" is also used in my URL and for many of you guys who haven't figured out its purpose yet, it's my last name backwards.