Photo Inspiration: Campus

I borrowed this photo from a friend, but with graduation just around the corner I thought it was a fitting picture to end the semester. I have loved being on this campus (for a little too long probably) and I am sad to leave it, but it's time to start the next chapter.

Critique: Mini Portfolio Cover

It took me forever to decide on the theme that I wanted to carry throughout my mini portfolio and then I was looking at minimalist movie posters and I saw a Place Beyond the Pines poster that has the three trees on it. I really liked that and then kind of just put together an outdoor/nature theme around those trees with my own spin on it. I also had to incorporate a beard in there somewhere. I just love my beard and beards in general are great. I was told by someone whose design opinion I respect a lot that the lettering under my name might be a bit much. What do you all think? Actually any feedback would be great.

Cant Miss: Instagram Logo

I came across this while reading my class assigned blog and thought it would be an appropriate post because we have been talking about and using hand lettering in class so much lately. Instagram has decided to change their logo from a filtered font to hand lettering. I think that it looks better personally, I liked the original logo, but the hand lettering just adds a little personal touch to the logo. If you want to read more on the change check it out here.  

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/hand_beats_filter_in_new_instagram_wordmark.php

Response: Mini-Portfolios

It was really fun to look at everyone's mini-portfolios. I liked the variety that the class presented. It really shows the different taste in the class. I think that everyone had really great minis to present. I wish we would have talked about them for a little so that everyone could have described why they chose the cover they did or why they used the small design elements they did. I had a lot of fun putting together my nature themed design. I think creating the small icons like the trees on the front and the beard and axes on the back was my favorite part of my mini-potfolio. I also really enjoyed blowing out and texturizing the dividing pages as well. It was really exciting to see everyones and I cant wait to see where everyone is in six months I know everyone will do great things.

Cant Miss: The "f" has changed

I am sure most have you have already seen this being the social media consumers that you all are being journalist and what not. If you haven't noticed or heard though Facebook has changed the design of their very recognizable "f" it is a pretty minor change, but still even little changes with such an iconic symbol can be tricky. Here is the article if you want to read more.

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/facebooks_radically_new_f_logo.php

Photo Inspiration: Ignore the Pale Guy

So with only a few weeks left in my college career, mostly finals week I am starting to get a little stressed and worrying that it might not be my final semester (just kidding, I hope) and thought about what is waiting for me the week after finals. This is a picture of my brother and his house in Key West where I will be staying the week after finals. I think a week in the Keys will help me wash all this stress off. I just have to make it there first. Two weeks and counting.

Response: Portfolio

After a very unsuccessful weekend of trying to code my online portfolio I am considering changing site. I have talked to a few people in class and they all seem to think that Wix is a much easier site to use than cargocollective. A few people have said they will help me with the coding and once I get the hang of it it makes redesigning the site and customizing the site way easier. I just need to take the time, most likely again this weekend when I actually have a few mins of free time, and sit down and just figure out the site. I really enjoyed a lot of my classmates sites, I just need to put the time into it to make it my own.

Critique: iPad Art of Fiction Feature

This week I got to work on my iPad feature finally. I was a little worried about working on it since I have never really worked with the iPad, but it wasn't that bad and I had a lot of help from Will. I also really liked the theme of the feature this week so that might have helped move the design along well. Since it was all about fiction I thought it would be cool to make the story into a book where you would kinda flip through it to get to the next story. I also really like my table of contents. I like how each illustrated line gives you a hint at what the story could be about but in all reality it is just a tiny glimpse of what is to come much like a real TOC where you get a little blurb of the story to come. Here is the splash and the TOC you will have to look at the actual issue to see the stories.

Response: Folio Critiques

After looking at peoples from other responses since I was not able to actually be in class due to sickness I feel I am a little behind there are so many good designers in this class. I am glad cause it really pushes you to be a better designer in the long run. I def need to work on my portfolio more and sharpen it up before I go out on the job hunt.

Photo Inspiration: Spring Cleaning

A week or so ago I decided to the spend the afternoon cleaning off my houses back porch. I was full of trash and boxes that had collected over the winter. Since it has been so nice lately I wanted to be able to enjoy the weather outdoors. It took like 4 hours to get it looking halfway decent, but it was so nice to sit down and have a glass of tea and enjoy the warm sun and gentle breeze. 

Can't Miss: Fun Food Logos.

I dont know if you have noticed yet but my blog I follow for class mostly focuses on brand recognition and logos. They did a short story on a few of there favorite up and coming logos in the food industry. I love how industrial they are and just how clean the first two are compared to the personality of the third one. It is almost hand drawn. I really like all three but I think my personality lends itself to the third one for sure. Check out the whole article and see my photos on the blog. http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/friday_likes_41.php

Critique: Taxidermy Feature

Here is the mostly finished taxidermy feature there still might be some minor tweaks but for the most part this is it. I think that all and all it turned out well. It was a pretty simple feature because the photos were so great you didnt want to distract from them to much you wanted to give them room to breathe and shine. We used a light blue to represent the freezing aspect at least in my mind that is what the color stood for. I tried to take some risk in the early rough drafts by adding a fur color and texture to the tagline and a cooler to the side bar, but they were not the most well received so we made some changes and this what the feature came out looking like. I like it. I feel it is a little bare but it is clean with a sophisticated amount of white space.

Photo Inspiration: Coming Together

This is a photo of one of my best friends of all time.This is pre-race, but she finished the Boston Marathon about 25 min before the bombs went off and was just blocks down the street. I am so thankful that she is ok and my thought go out to the families of those who were injured. I chose this photo because it was so amazing to see how quickly people reacted and the acts of kindness you saw on TV after the incident. It is sad that it takes moments like this to bring everyone one in country together, but it is nice to see everyone come together.

Can't Miss: UC. Quarterly

The blog that I follow for this class has just released a new magazine. It is called UC. Quarterly. It follow all the blogs under the Underconstruction websites. There are four different blogs: Brand New, For Print Only, Art of the Menu and Quipsologies. They will put together a 48 page magazine that will have content from al four blogs. It is really great to see that they are putting something out in print. People love going to blogs and seeing great material, but there is just a special connection with holding the art in your hands as you look at it that makes it that much more real. Here are a few pages from the magazine to get a feel of how it will look. Also here is the website handle so you can order if you are interested: http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/introducing_ucquarterly.php

Response: Final Meredith Prep

We had our final meeting with the Revive group tonight since we have our final presentation with the publishers on Friday. I think as a whole we are in pretty good shape. We still have to work a lot on the iPad part of the magazine, but the magazine is pretty much done. We have some small things to tweak we noticed tonight. It looks really good. the magazine moves and flows well. There is consistency throughout the magazine that we were originally missing, but after sitting down and talking we have fixed those errors. I am excited to see what the publishers have to say and to see if they are happy with the magazine we have put together. I can't believe that we go to print in a week. The semester is almost over and this project finishing up makes you really realize it.

Critique: Taxidermy Feature

Here is the rough draft of my taxidermy feature that will run next week in Vox. It is actually a pretty neat story. They pictures were a little gruesome, but there were enough good pictures to pick from I didn't have to use the bloody mucky ones. I decided to put animal prints in the hed to make it pop a little. After talking with my art director, I am most likely going to nix the exotic prints and use more domestic animal fur patches. The story is pretty short, so I had plenty of room to run some really large photos. I also figured out that I am waiting on a side bar that will really change the flow of the spreads I am guessing so I will have to work that in once we get it. As of now though this is what I am working with.

Can't Miss: Zoo Portraits

I was just stumbling around a designs or art website I really enjoy called Art-Spire. I dont now if I have talked about it here yet, but it is one of the coolest sites I have some across for designing and such. They have great typography, photos, illustrations, and graphs. All the stuff on the site is really top notch stuff.
Anyways was checking out this site and came across these super cute and adorable Zoo Portraits by Yago Partal. It is just pictures of animals in peoples clothing. They are super simple but just so great. I will share a few of my favorite and link the rest casue you all should def look at these photos and this site they are both amazing.

Favs:

http://www.art-spire.com/en/photographie/zoo-portraits-by-yago-partal/

Check out the rest here.

Photo Inspiration: Pendelton Love

This the most recent purchase of my life. I have always wanted a Pendelton blanket they are just so warm and have the best designs ever, so when I got my tax return a week or two ago I decided it was time to cross this purchase off my wish list. I really like the blanket I chose there were tons of awesome designs but I just love the colors in this one.

Response: Trends Assignment

I really enjoyed "parts" of this assignment. I was great to catch up with an old classmate and here him talk about how much he enjoys hi job and how much he has learned since he left to join the real design world. It was also made me want to get out there and start increasing the number and quality of my own design skills. 

It just seems so awesome to make a living creating these gorgeous layouts and imagies and that people are paying to look at something you designed. It was just fun to hear what that was like.

I will say that the assignment also has been one of the worst assignments of my college history. I have never had to transcribe an interview much less a 30 minute interview and it was utter hell. I know I am not the fastest typer by any means and that I key typos all the time, so ya I was probably a little bit slower than your average student. It took me like 3 hours to get that thing done and I was so happy once I was. I hope that is the last time I am asked to do that but I am sure knowing my luck it wont be. Hopefully we can get better voice recognition technology by then and I will be able to just play the interview for my computer and it will totally take care of it for me. 

Critique: Feature for Meredith

So I have made a few changes to my feature pages for the meredith project. One of the big changes was that fact that I had to shorten the design by two entire pages. I also took some pointers from other people in the class and put the dek under the hed on the photo which actually looks pretty solid. I thought originally it would look a little squished, but it looks fine. I also resized the photo of the women and the text in the white free space next to the photo. I cant tell if it is to much white space or not I will have to wait on feedback I suppose.
We also might be completely changing the photos to better match the story if we can find a set of photos that will work. Guess you all will have to just wait to see what we decide to do next.
I also feel I should try to work with the publishers to see if I can get those two pages back. I don't feel that four pages is a typical length for a feature in a a magazine it just seems short to me.

Photo Inspiration: Appalachian Trail

Here is a photo of the Appalachian Trail. I am planning on hiking it soon and just looking at photos of how beautiful it is makes me want to skip forward to that part of my life where I can do something that few people have had the chance to do.

Cant Miss: Georgia Bulldogs "Apparently Old Dogs Can Learn New Tricks"

Mizzou athletics recently revitalized there entire sports appearance by changing logos and fonts and everything in-between. It looks like their fellow SEC schoolmates the Georgia Bulldogs are doing the same in hope of boosting their stance in being noticed in the SEC.

Here are a look at some of the changes:

You can see they mostly just wanted something a little more youthful. I like the new design much more than the old design. They left the famed G alone for the most part which I think was a great idea because I feel most people associate the G with the school as its symbol. The bulldog is the mascot but it was dated and needed a revival.

Response: Mock Magazine Presentation

I think that our presentation went really well. I wish that we would have had more time to discuss things because I feel we didn't have enough time to really talk about each individual story and get a feel of what the publishers really thought of each spread. I know there was good feed back and small changes for each spread, but I feel the publishers also held back a little and didn't really let us designers know exactly what they felt about things. I feel though that we are working really close with our publishers, so we will get plenty of time to talk to them and figure out exactly what they want. Revive is apparently the furthest ahead when it comes to content and having things do, so that is nice and makes me feel good about where the magazine is now. I think that be the time we head to Des Moines we will be in really good shape and everything will look great.

Critique: Revive Feature

I enjoy the feature spread I have created for the Revive mock magazine, but I still believe it needs work. I feel like my design may or may not be a little to traditional for the feel of the rest of the magazine. I just got the vibe of a good souther country style house was what was being described when I read the article. I like the font choice and color for the title but I also don't think that it keeps the consistency of the magazine, so I am sure that we will possible need to change that.
The photos actually work well together but after talking to the publishers we might be getting all new photos so we will have to wait and see. The only thing that I don't like about the layout is I am having a hard time deciding how to handle the dek for the story. IF you have some suggestions I am all ears. It just looks so lost and out of place where it is now.

Photo Inspiration: Responsibilities

Seeing as how the my roommates have left me for the next few days I am solely responsible for the two other living things in our apartment. Also as the only male in the apartment my paternal instincts are lacking. I know the basic concepts...feed....water....repeat. Let hope these two make it the next couple days. Here is to growing up.

Cant Miss: Minimalist Movie Posters.

I have recently be doing some side art projects for friends and family. It is called paper cutting I showed a picture of one I did last week. I wanted to share some of the things that inspire me. These are just a few of my favorite minimalist movie posters from one web page. There are thousands of posters floating around out there. I just love how clean and neat they are. 

I mean these are all great movies as well so that helps. I have attached a hyperlink at the bottom to the website I found these at, but they are all over the web. They are a great source of inspiration and they are extremely popular now as well. Go out there and check some out.

http://www.redbubble.com/people/redbubble/journal/8521381-20-memorable-minimalist-movie-posters

Response: The September Issue

I was not in class to watch this movie with the group, but I have seen in a few times already. I really enjoy this movie it is a great look at what the magazine industry is like in a very successful magazine. I love the interactions between Anna Wintour and GRace Coddington. It was fun to see these two almost fight like sisters. You can tell they both have tremendous respect for one another. but both are strong and successful women who at times feel they are right and are willing to fight to get what they want. This movie also gives a good insight into the designing aspect of the movie. I just love listening to Coddington in this movie. It is such a great movie and anyone who wants to be in this industry should definitely watch it. Also fun fact the september issue that was made during this filming has become a collectors item. It is worth like $100 dollar now.

Critique: Older Designs

It has been a slower week for me when it comes to designing. It is the last few days before spring break so of course I have had the worst head cold I have had all winter, so I don't mind the lighter work load. Since I didn't have much to design I am going to show a few older designs and maybe my fellow classmates will be able to give me a few pointers on how I can make the designs a little sharper. I am always looking for pointers to make my clips better. That is one thing I really enjoy about this profession is your clips can say so much about you and really help you get a job even if you don't have that much experience.

Here some older designs I wanna tweak:

The first two were concept covers for for a story about a woman who got rid of almost all her possessions to life a simpler and cleaner lifestyle.

The third was a story that focused on how different professors dressed on campus. This is the splash page of the feature story.

The last is my final project for a photography class. I actually took all the picture in the spread and designed the spread as well. 

I would love feed back on all the designs from anyone. 

Photo Inspiration: David Bowie

Here is a picture of a paper cut art piece that I did last week for my girlfriend who really loves David Bowie. I enjoy making art, but I just dont have time to create new things right now. I have another three or four already planned just have to find the time to make them

Cant Miss: Logo Redesign for Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay, previously know as The Bay, the most successful and established department store in Canada and the longest running department store in North America decided that it was time to redesign there logo. I really enjoy the new logo and think that it is interesting that a company that is obviously successful thought it was a good idea to change their logo. Apparently you are never to well established to bring some new life into a company.
I also like the fact they put three very Canadian creatures into their logo. Doesnt get much more Canadian than a moose.

Here are some of the redesigns:

As you can see the new type logo is much cleaner and distinguished. I prefer it much more.

Response: Portfolio Reviews

I was a little nervous about doing portfolio review because I feel my work isn't always the best or equal to some of the work that other students are producing in class, but I was really surprised with all the positive feedback I got from my classmates. I know that there are still a lot of things that I could tweak to make my portfolio much stronger. Since I am planning on taking a year off after school that will give me time to really work on my portfolio and make it as strong as I possibly can before I enter the work force.

On a different note here is a website that has some really cool portfolios from some really talented artist:

http://www.graphicdesignblender.com/50-stunning-design-portfolios-you-must-see-before-redesigning-yours

Critique: Burger Covers

My inspiration behind this design is obviously March Madness. The issue this cover would be designed for would be published right around the time that the tournament would be in full swing. I put a chalkboard style in the design because of how you will get large groups of friends that sit around and watch all the games and keep the running bracket with all of the wins and loses. I cant decide if I like the color vox logo more or less than the chalk vox logo. The color in the logo reminds me of basketball with out shouting basketball. I am sure it could use some other small detail, but will just have to wait and see.

Covers:

Photo Inspiration: Little T/F Fun

This isn't the greatest quality photo I know, but I just enjoyed this night and scene so much. It was taking at a T/F party at Tonic. Tonic was decorated and staged with go go dancers that made for a great time, but I loved the people that packed in the place. There was such a wide variety of people from students to teachers and townies to visitors. It was a true representation of what T/F is about, which is people who love movies and love drinking just as much if not more. 

Can't Miss: Logo Reducations

Now that most people are spending more time on the internet on their smartphones or tablets companies are faced with to reach these potential buyer on a smaller screen. A recent article I read had students from Holon Institute of Technology redesign some well know logos to help with this problem.
     They were asked to create an app launcher, icon, etc....
Here are just a few of the designs the students produced. They really did just condense the original logo with out losing the ability to recognize the brand.

Would these be considered a logo redesign or an alternate logo? 

Check out the full article at http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/logo_reductions_for_screen_use.php

Response: T/F Film "No"

I did not see many films during T/ F, but one film I did see was No. The main reason that I wanted to see it was I already know about the movie and had seen the trailer for it before T/F. I really like the actor Gael Garcia Bernal who plays the main character Rene Saavedra. I have seen him in other movies and know he makes really god films, so I had a good feeling this movie would also be good and I was right. It was shot entirely on period camera that gave a feeling you were actually watching a film for the 80s.
The movie is about the political campaign in Chile to end the Pinochet regime. It is a strong heartfelt film that also has it light and fun moments. I enjoyed seeing the campaign advertising parts of the movie as well.

Critique: Revive Mock Cover

I know I am a little behind the rest of the group when it comes to talking about our mock magazines, but I figured I would give you all a chance to see mine since I have seen all of yours. 

     I wanted to create something that had a very modern and edgy feel to it. I loved the thought of Revive being a up and coming modern architecture/ interior design magazine (I love modern art and architecture) so I went with that design idea.

     I really like my name plate I mean it is Helvetica. What is more modern and edgy than Helvetica. I chose to keep all the letters lowercase because I didn't want the name plate to draw away from the picture of the pictures that would be on the cover. 

     That is another thing that was really important in my design of the magazine. I wanted the photos to be the life blood of this publication and stick out the most in every part of the magazine. 

     I chose a pretty muted color palate. The colors are bright, but if you look you will notice they have a dull or kind of glazed over feel. I thought this gave the industrial feeling I get with some modern art and architecture. 

My Revive Mock Cover: