4/27 critique: royal wedding graphic for VOX

Something I love about VOX: FREEDOM!
Last Friday during my inforgraphic shift in Missourian, I took an assignment from VOX. It felt like going back to your parents' house after you got married (to Missourian)
I am never a princess girl and I definitely don't have any fancy for wedding, but I really love the assignment for royal wedding.
So, out of expectation, I did lots of cheesy stuff for the graphic and some of them were deleted later. I did learnt a lot when doing the graphic since I need to satisfy my own need for fancy stuff.
so my favorite part is the preloader, which was supposed to be even more cheesy (I want to make it into a expanding rose petal path connecting bride to groom, OMG that's totally not me).

v

if you haven't played with it, check it out here

4/27: You Can't Miss It

OATMEAL fun
This is a very funny website to look at if you are in final weeks.
I just had some problem with my trackpad and started searching for possible solutions online, then I came across this

and then I found myself in this situation when reading the post

and then I found myself doing lots of similar scribbles all the time 

This is what I sent to my friend in China (she's getting married and I can't be there)

and this is me writing my 25 page historical research paper

hope that's not too scary

So, check out the website, you will find yourself smiling at the post. That's better than the happiness brought by 2 lbs of chocolates.

how's the weather today

4/27 response: draft ipad presentation

I hate to say that print is almost in a dead valley since I love print design so much. But survival for the fittest, we have to embrace the fact that web and ipad design will eventually rule the world.
I had my first experience of designing on ipad on Thur. morning. Though I have to say that mag+ was very "beta" but it did free designers from lots of technique issues. I do have cravings for software techniques. I love flash, love javascript (which I don't know how to use) and love everything that requires coding. Am I weird?
There are truly lots of limitation for mag+ but something better is just round the corner. And there will be more such plug-ins and software addressing ipad magazine design. Sometimes I feel like that our design work are highly restricted by electronic technologies, I want to be the one that can combine both but at the same time I understand that individual time and energy are limited.
Anyway, let's all get prepared!

4/20: Critique the new pornographer cover

This 4/28 issue cover design is quite a challenge for me. First, my crazy final schedule only left me couple hours for the design, and second, it't one photo with three ideas, not the regular one photo, one illustration and one studio.

Thus, I decided to make all of them pop and trendy but with different "methodologies" (yes, I just took a break from my giant academic paper writing).

Though, not much time left, I still went through couple of their website and went to youtube for their music video and it turned out that I really like their music. 

They liked to combine lots of creative music elements and their mv are especially funny. Thus, "diversity" became the theme of the cover. And you can easily tell they are really a team of diversity: gender, age, even just how they all look like differently.

4/20: response: blog review

Hey, if you are reading the post, then please receive my sincere apology for writing lots of non-sense for the past semester. I should have been a better writer now since I've been in States for almost a year.
I love my blog a lot, I just don't like blogging a lot. I mean I love blogging when I started the blog, I just found it hard to keep it alive for more than one month, because that's how long my countless old blog lived and I already forgot where they were now. Or because I am a gemini and I can't focus on the same stuff for too long a time.
Anyway, I still like my blog. I like the color: black and yellow, I like its simplicity: black and yellow and I like my profile picture which tells you that I know how to operate complicated camera. I confessed that I did not put too much thoughts when I started the blog because I found it hard to work with the template. It gives you 20% of freedom to change fonts and background images from a very limited pool but it won't let you design the rest — that's 80%. All those just made the whole blog as a child with serious identity issue: he, in my case I would call my blog a "it", does not know is it a template result or a designer's incomplete designing.
All those been said, I finally realize who I am: a person who does not like to be confined, at least not in a boundary that only give me 20% of freedom. Thus, I decide to create my own baby — my portfolio website, in this case,  a him/her with my full heart and devotion.
Last not the least: I still love my blog like my mom loves me.

4/20: You Can't Miss It

Some inspiration from flash based websites
Another post about website.

After browsing through quite a lot of such "amazing" titled websites. I found a lot of the websites are over done. Lots of them are over decorated and there are soooo many fancy flash animation that it's hard to figure out what 's the most important content. I did feel like they are "bragging" about their flash skills.
I would not blame them for that. I am actually making the same mistakes. In my graphic I tend to put as much stuff as I can. I think since I know how to do that, why not use it in my graphic, but the result always turns out to be awful.
So, be careful!
web design in real life
I spent almost 16 hours in front of my computer. Isn't that just not enough?

rubber

keychain

4/13 Critique: 30 under 30

30 under 30 is quite a popular theme. The biggest problem in designing shall be how to layout 30 people's stories in a proper way. For the cover, I had 3 choices: using one or several representatives from 30 people, using all 30 people and using none. Finally I chose the last. I did not displayed anyone on the cover because: 1. I don't think there are strong or weak personal stories, surely, there must be. But to me, each individual is so unique that they have their uniqueness within their story. 2. listing all 30 people would be too much for the cover.

So, basically, my cover theme is sun (for future) and create a sense of being on the stage in the spotlights.

For the splash page, I used color to represent diversity.

I guess the problem with my design is that it was "boring"....yes. I really had a hard time in doing layout for the actual stories.

4/13 Response: mini portfolio ideas

This week we took a brief look at the mini portfolio from previous students. I was quite amazed by the variety of them. I did not have the concept of mini portfolio before and now it seems to me it is a very nice idea not only just for portfolio, but also a good tool to preserve memories.
So far, I haven't had a clear outline for what I want my mini portfolio to be, but generally, I want it to be at a moderate size, big enough for reading and turning pages.
For the structure, I might sort all designs into VOX, projects and assignments.
Overall, I'd like it to highlight my pieces so I would keep the design for portfolio simple. I do think your works speak for you.

4/13 You Can't Miss It

Web design inspirations

In this blog post, the author introduced 40 "Kick-ass" web design, what they all have in common is a simple and stylish tone.

the color just stand out from everything, though I don't understand why blog is the important word.

nice design, clean use of lines and tone of photo matches well with the website

this is so obviously a fashion website

love love love this!!

papercraft template

That's something far back in my childhood, and I love it!

I am not a very crafty person, and those really look complicated, but I might try some of them during summer vacation!

if you can't afford an iphone

if you want a little bro for your mac

and my fav!! dr. who's office box