2/23 Response: the September Issus

I have to admit that I had the movie a year ago and failed to finished it for the first time. Actually I only watched for 10 minutes. At that time, I knew basically nothing about magazine, the only reason I was interested in it was because it was about fashion.
The second time when I watched it as a journalism student, the feeling was totally different, at least I did not quit at 10 minutes.
the creative director's role:
I guess lots of people will like Grace like I do. She is extremely talented, of course this has to do with her early modeling experience. But after the car crash, she still figured to use her talent in a totally different way. Instead of being asked to posed and putting on cloth, she became the creative director.
Creative director is the blood of the whole magazine, she came up with the idea and conduct the execution. She picked the dress and picked out her best to present to the editor in chief. I lover her witty and when she fixed the shoes for the model. She takes care of all the detail of magazine.
Spread critique:
I really really really love this one

And I perfectly agree with Grace not to polish Bob's lovely tummy. I saw the light of "creative" in the job. The spread well play with color and light, the video man is in dark black, while the model is in light color dress. The moment of jump give motion to the static paper reading. Grace said no one is perfect. I guess this also describes her job. In the whole magazine staff, people from different place and races makes up the whole team. No one is perfect, not creative director not editor in chief. But the cooperation among every staff is the key to the smooth operation of the magazine.

Here to talk a little about the relationship between the creative director and editor in chief.

Anna always shows up as as "ice woman". She seldom smells and her tone is freezing, every one in the building is under her super pressure. But only Grace has a particular relation with her. They are complementary to each other. Anna envision a macro picture while Grace carries out the vision into concrete products. They are both talented and have their own style; they bicker with each other, they fight over ideas but they respect each other more. Some one might feel unfair for Grace since she and Anna joined the company at the same time but now Anna is the "devil". But if I am Grace I would be extremely grateful for Anna. It is her keep pushing Grace into better ideas. People easily fall in love with their own ideas. If not someone jumped out and wake you up, you would always stay at the same place, unable to move forward. Obviously in the movie Grace's second piece is much stronger than the first one. Anna might not have that many brilliant ideas as Grace does, but she definitely has the ability to dig out Grace's potential.

I love Grace's work more. To be a creative director stands at the center of the staff. Being productive and practical and to incorporate ideas into the magazine with personal styles are what I expect.

2/23 Critique

Yes,  there have been lots of changes from the first draft. First, no illustration on cover. But I personally not a fan of delicious food cover which always seems to mock at my terrible cooking. I really love Mary's idea of using tools. So I guess I could use other things that is part of eating but not too obvious. I actually had several version of covers, but found this most clean and simple. 

The publisher team changed the 10 ingredients, 10 recipes story from department page to feature, which is want I want. So I would have more space to stuff all the content. I decided to use monday to sunday theme and add a little day and night clock (made of rice and black sesames) to show how the magazine will accompany the reader through the week

This is also a new idea from the publisher team. The theme is to "recycle" food that will expire soon, which we usually would throw away. My concern is that the left page may be confused as feature. But by adding anything into the page would break the balance of the spread.. I spent most time on the department spread and found I always had a hard time with department page. I do think now that department page is the most difficult one since you want it to be uniform but different in every issue. Lots of contents make it hard to organize the spread neatly but at the same time make it beautiful. 

In order to make the color palette look busier I add some color button that could be taken advantage of in department page or to keep the consistency of the whole magazine.

2/23 You Can't Miss This

Designed to Annoy: an theoretical look at designing inefficient packaging.
Erica Askin is an industrial design major.
He came up with several different ideas in terms of convenience, branding, portability.

The final solution is diamond carton which makes the package hard to display logo and to brand, hard to access and share.
Actually the carton looks cute to me at the first glance. Then I realize the much smaller volume of the carton. Sharp
The main idea of Askin is to break the rule of design and you can still get a good design for opposite purpose.

If you find that idea interesting, you can also check the other projects in the website, they are also very cool to read. Askin had design project for NASA storage, bicycle and moto.

========

The second you can't miss it is also related to smoking
"cigarette Ash Landscape" by Yang Yonglian

I think the picture is quite self-explanatory.

What I like the design most is it's combination of urban modern feeling and the elements of traditional Chinese culture. The background is made up of Chinese Shan Shui painting and calligraphy. The photo skyline which are used as ash of the cigarette are the products of modern digital images.

Those two aspects do not look contradictory at all, instead are nicely combined.

The concept is very innovative too! The irony composition of flowers along with ashes and the gradient of ashes made of city skylines give a strong impact on visual and push the readers to think over the theme "ash landscape".

2/16 Critique

This is my first draft of CUPBOARD.

Here's the color palette. I chose a mix of war and cold color.

This is the department splash page. The topic is about using 10 ingredients to make 10 meals in a week.

I like the idea. But as a department page, it's very difficult to put 10 recipes in one page. And the results are... text text text.. way too many..After learned that we don't have to be confined in the publishers' idea. I guess I would try to figure out how to place so many information in a more organized way.

This is the feature spread. It's about making cocktail

 This is the cover

Overall, I would want the magazine to be clean and simple. During the first phrase of designing I did not use photo for the cover is because I know we will have access to the library later so I want to come up with an illustration cover first and wait till we can dig into the real source to try a photo cover.
Also, our magazine is defined as a one shot thing, so I would prefer not too much periodical magazine elements in that.

2/16 Response: City & Regional Magazine Annual Judging

Last week, we acted as the preliminary judgers of the City & Regional Magazine Annual. That was super exciting.

Probably the first round is the toughest one. Facing piles of nice designs, it was easy to get lost. We only had 10 mins to pick 4. I personally prefer clean and simple design so I did not pay enough attention to colorful and fancy ones, especially those themed for food or restaurants. This was not good, but

To be frank, I did not think anything particular of the design is that attractive. Simple typo, simple design, simple photos and simple story. But the combination is just comfortable to look at. As I mentioned in the class, I felt like I was in the city, watching people walking around me in the streets.

Design is like doing make up. Girls with heavy make up are surely much pretty than those not, but, too much make up will cover the very nature and idiosyncratic trait. I think the best design is the most comfortable design. Readers won't critique a spread like we do, what design elements are good, or that the typography is unique. They use intuition to judge the magazine, thus, the good ones would not be too purposefully decorated. Because natural design are closest to human intuition. Also, as I response last week, design is a servant. Make ups make girl pretty but the prettiest thing is always the girl herself.

Something weird is that I did not like it that much until I need to think of something to convince the classmates why we should keep it. The more I thought, the more I liked it. 

After the class, I got to know more about the design competition. Don't worry you haven't got any prizes, that't probably not because your design is bad, but you just have different tastes as the judgers.

2/16 You Can't Miss It

Poster for LOST

I stopped going after LOST from the 4th season because it was not attractive to me anymore. However, a month ago, I digged out the last season and started watching again.
Audiences all had a decent review of the last season. LOST gave out some many questions and managed to answer them one by one eventually.

Here's the posters designed by a LOST fan also a designer Ty Mattson. If you ever watched the TV show, you will know how brilliant they are.

I am not the only one who was impressed, ABC liked those posters too and they are now selling them on the official LOST store!

Craig Ward's typography portfolio

Another interesting typo designer—Craig Ward

What's different is that Craig Ward's creation of typography is more of a piece of art.
Here on his portfolio website, you will also be able to see how the typo came into shape. Instead of using computer software, he treats his typo as artisan work.

 For example, this one, these are the steps how the final effect came to live.

this takes 11 hours to finish the paper cut

also check out the youtube video of how the plaid typo was made

 also this "You Blow Me Away"

2/9: You Can't Miss This

Batman Icon's mutation

Love batman? Here's the history of batman icon.

I screenshot each stage just for the convenience

The changes are mostly minor changes in anchor points. Some have sharper wings than others. The basic shape stay the same.
Except the evolvement of logo. What interests me more is the co-change of the typos accompany the logos. What kind of typo best fit the logo. Some are playful, some are gothic, some are just serious. The 1983 one interestingly tailors the typo into the shape of the logo. The basic pattern we can see the the transmigration of 3 sets of typos.

Barcode revolution
Are you tired of monotonous barcode everywhere like I do? Then you should definitely check out this Japanese barcode design website. Though the price they charge for each barcode design is around $1500, what matters is the creative idea behind.

To be frank the illustration is quite rough to some extent. But they do have some interesting ideas.

Guess if they could have emphasize more on the execution process. They would be more successful.