Week 7

This Week(end)

I designed the department page for Screen. It was difficult because the story was a little confusing. The reporter did the interview, which took 6 hours, to find out from the source at the end that he did not want to be the focus of the story. The story had to be changed so that the secondary source was the main focus, but the photo selection was slim at this point. There was a picture of the second source that was really close up and also one that looked like his high school yearbook picture. We ended up using the photo of the first source as the dominant photo because it was more appealing, and used the second source's photo as the secondary photo. The page turned out o.k. in my opinion. There is a sidebar included too, which had some spacing issues, but I think it all worked out and we'll see on Thursday. Here are my final cover designs that I created for showing today as well. I drew inspiration from "Fast Food Nation".

I completed the 20/10 assignment this week. I didn't get started on it until yesterday, so I really understood what Jan was talking about when she mentioned the lesson of a quick deadline. I had about half of my 10 executed designs that I am pleased with, which I will probably go with when we narrow down the bunch Thursday. 

Response

This week in lecture, we discussed (I'll discuss Thursday) our design process and show our process through the logo designs in particular. It was interesting to see how similar many of my classmates' design process were to my own. Many said they need to have some kind of sound in the background, wherever they are, and need to do a lot of brainstorming before actually sitting down at their computers and putting elements into a document. For some reason, when I'm designing, I need to be in my room (either sitting Indian-style on the floor or on my bed) with my headphones on. I usually look for inspiration in magazines, design books and commercials. After that, I do some sketches, then once I feel like I have a good idea of what I'm going for, I start designing on the computer. I go through many drafts before I'm happy with the outcome. It was great to hear everyone's process and maybe think about trying some of those things.

MagCulture

This week, Leslie takes a look at the final days of preparation for Colophon2009.

He features an exhibit showcasing 111 independent magazines called "We Make Magazines".

Leslie also talks about a talk coming up in London about "how to design really good magazine covers". The talk is being given by IPC Media Group Creative Director Brett Lewis. Speaking of covers, I am in the process of revising my final cover for the judging on Thursday, and I really like it so far. I'll post it when it's finished. 

Also this week, Leslie introduces readers to a distribution/subscription service called Stack. According to Leslie, people who subscribe to the service receive a different independent magazine each month to hopefully gain their subscription to the specific magazine. He recently received Electric Sheep through the service. I'm going to learn more about this because I think it's interesting and maybe want to subscribe.

You Can't Miss

The Design Awards: 2009 winners have been released on Wallpaper.com. The competition judges included Kanye West, Jean Nouvel and Marc Newson. Categories included Best New Domestic Appliance, Furniture Designer of the Year, Best New Restaurant, and even Best New City. The winners and runners-up came up with some really cool stuff. I never even knew this competition existed, but I think I'll follow it each year, now that I know. The winner of the Best New Private House category built a house that looks like Jenga!