Response: Some thoughts from Meredith project open session

Tuesday, editors and designers from Meredith came to our classroom and give a brief idea of what the project will be: yes, we, designer group will be working with publish class and web producer group. It's not a design competition?!

Then, Maggie said something about the relationship between design and photography that really make me think a lot later. To paraphrase what she said was like, design is to serve.

Truly, design is to connect dots together, including: text, photography, content and idea of a magazine. It is a servant. The design idea should based on and to some extent restricted by other elements of the publication. But meanwhile, it is expected to reach out and expand the meaning and contents of other elements.

Maybe this is the requirement for designers: "content driven"(which we've been talking a lot last semester), visionary and creative.

A designer could not succeed herself just by design because design itself is meaningless without content. It's like a thoughts looking for a body. We can't see the thoughts by themselves, but we can totally tell how beautiful they are when they find the right place to stay, in a body. We don't talk to the thoughts, we talk to the people but we can sense the thoughts, ideas and wisdoms behind the body.

It's a weird analogy, though.

You can't miss this

Meat America is "a way for us to combine a few of our favorite things. Meat. Quotes. Facts. Photography. And the indefinable adjective that is "American."" as shown in the official site.

Meat American is a photography project by Dominic Episscopo first is a brilliant idea of art and photo stories. Creative, smart, funny and well executed picture make every reader smile while browsing the website. I like the idea of combining mundane life with art thoughts. They could be perfectly combined like Meat American. It is also a celebration of every day life, to the fullest appetite.

The series has a strong vision effects, the color is natural, clean and powerful. The backdrop of the photography is detailed set. The photo editing process shows the creative mind of Episcopo.

Why I think it's good? I want to have some beef now!

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The blog I follow post an article on "best magazine covers of 2010". I though it would be extremely useful to everyone of us in the class since we all have to compete in different cover group for VOX and this might give everyone some ideas and inspirations.

The website features fashion magazine covers. Though it's not exact the style of VOX, but they show an amazing contemporary style of the design that I might want to learn from.

It has a selection of fashion magazine covers from all over the world, so it's a great opportunity to keep your eyes wild open and get something from other cultures!

Something STYLISH

 Something with brilliant studio shooting ideas

 something vintage

 some creative conceptual ideas

 some brave use of colors

 some conservative but nice use of color

 some just. WOW

Critique: baby beauty pageant

This is the very first assignment of the semester.

Baby beauty pageant is not uncommon, thus the story is focus more on the "dad" character. The contrast of masculine and feminine is what I want to emphasize. However, the cute little girl is still the leading star, so, I also want to add something cute and princess feeling.

I actually outlined three covers. The reason is simple, because I like all these three pictures!

Then, I show all of them to my parents (I know VOX targeted younger audience! But it's already mid-night, my parents are the only ones that I could talk to). Surprisingly, they liked the first one unanimously. I like the picture a lot, but it could not convey the idea of contrast as effectively as the third on. Finally I chose the last one. The reason I told my parents was: you all chose that because you have a kid and I don't...That's an awful excuse. But, anyway...

The hardest part then, is to make the picture stand out. Since the original tone of the picture is dark, I might need some bright typo to lift the tone. However, I failed to find a nice color to match the picture...which is obvious...

This was not the first time I had trouble with color matching. I could tell this does not work, but have no idea what will work. I would really want to work on this now and if anyone have some suggestions please!! teach me..

Yes, I spent almost 2/3 of my time on the cover, and 3/4 of which on the color. And I got THIS!

Here's the spreads

I actually do like my opening spread, though, Jan said the photographer was really mad about the DAD on the picture. I am sorry about that. Also, lots of people use this picture for opening spread. I guess if give another chance, I would still use this because it just showed every aspects of the story: cute little girl in fancy dress, dad's hands always support the girl (dad's head is not shown in the picture because he's off stage hero!), the towel showed the caring aspect of the dad. NICE PIC!

The too much time I spent on the cover steal my time on the rest of the spread so the last two looks quite simple.

I might want to add more picture on the second spread since it is a photo essay. Also, what I don't like about the second spread is that the pics I chose is both too dark and made the whole spread not "happy" and "warm" enough for the story.

One thing I learnt through this experience: I would need to work on illustration more. Because I often have illustration ideas in mind but don't know how to execute them out. Even this assignment does not require much illustration, others will eventually.

Anyway, I really enjoy the  design, every minute of it, and always.

About Chen

Chen Yao is currently a first year journalism master student in University of Missouri with a focus on magazine design. She loves beautiful magazines and graphics, she loves designing them more.

No more words, let's get started!

It's a visual world!