You Can't Miss

I'm currently obsessed with The Fader Magazine. I've just recently started to pick up issues of this specialized publication, which features music, culture, and fashion topics for an alternative crowd in the range of 18-30 years old. Their writing is edgy and often surprising. They slip in references to using drugs and partying that make the whole thing seem more acceptable than it did when you had "the talk" with your parents. Best part of all: it is one of the best hubs for underground, and popular music and talent I have come across yet.

In a recent story by Caroline McCloskey, young rappers were the theme. In reference to one of the craziest music festivals showcasing California rap, McCloskey used this as her lead...

"Admission to the fame party‚ that 24/7 bacchanal of tangled limbs, free shit, Schedule IV drugs, paparazzi strobe, chlamydia, tiger pets, emotional illiteracy, macchiatos and mug shots‚ always follows its own inscrutable metric."


The photo accompanying the story, by Jason Nocito, was haunting and original. The black and white made me think of epic '90s rappers that set the stage for now-emerging talent. If you're interested in music at all, check out Fader and their site to expand your iTunes library. Their modern design tactics are highly influential and help inspire us new designers who will be asked to use our youth as a jumping off point for future designs.

PHOTO BY JASON NOCITO

I'm following Eye Blog, a UK-based blogging site that features design news in the UK. One of the recent posts that caught my eye was an entry about one publication's quest to produce sustainable graphics.

(eds. Dmitri Siegel & Edward Morris, Thames and Hudson FROM eyeblog.com)

The blogger's perception of the publication: not worth the recycled paper it was printed on. The idea was interesting - make a magazine using only recycled materials and include images/posters that the reader can tear out. Therefore, the designs have two purposes - to fill the magazine, and hopefully become more than just temporary artwork. It sounded like the problem was that some of the designs were simplistic and underdeveloped compared to some of the other, more talented works. I think that news and magazine print takes up a whole lot more paper than anyone wants to think about. Going green is an excellent undertaking for publications, but the goal to persuade others wasn't achieved here because they didn't use a consistent quality of work throughout. 

This makes me once again consider the extreme importance of consistency and quality. My job as a designer isn't just to produce the best possible images at all times, but to involve myself in projects that reflect my own high standards and maintain a level of consistent quality (for lack of any better words). The truth is that if you want to be noticed, you must surround yourself with motivation and the right resources to improve yourself. Maybe Green Patriot Posters missed out on reaching their goal, but I don't think their message went unnoticed. It just had to be more convincing. 

Response

This week in class, several designers from the Meredeth Corporation came to present our semester-long project. It was intimidating to be approached by professional designers and given an assignment to be presented to a corporation that reaches millions of readers. I haven't fully digested the details and ins and outs of the project, but I do think that coming up with professional content is going to be very exciting for me. I want to take this experience as a way for me to further prepare myself for the future and a career doing exactly this.

They told the class several things we already know, but applying these concepts may prove to be difficult. They want us to bring a new eye to their designs that will attract a younger audience without sacrificing the older one they already have. The designs should be simple and modern, but not to an extreme. Basically our goal is to be simplistic while being inventive.

I feel that the greatest challenge with this assignment is being inspiring and original while remembering the Meredeth audience. To me, this sounds like a restriction that may overwhelm my thought process as I try to step outside of the box, but in order to avoid this, I am going to try to read more Meredeth publications and get a feel for how far is too far, or not far enough. I'm so excited to work with my friends and classmates to complete this project! Although it's undeniably hard work, I know it will pay off in the end and extremely improve my design skills.

I'm currently living in my first favorite apartment and I love decorating it. I got to paint my walls this year, which was a thrilling event for me! I really loved BH&G's Color-A-Room download. How creative.

Critique: My first attempt

Before I can work out the specifics of Advanced Design or understand the schedule at Vox Magazine, my professors are five steps ahead of me and scheduling the due date of my first design assignment. I arrived in the Vox office and tentatively crossed the imaginary line that divides the place I have always stood in front of Kim Townlain's desk and the rest of the room.

My design competition assignment included a cover, two feature spreads, and one additional feature page. The story was about a NASCAR racing father who had devoted much of his time to turning his 2-year-old into a pageant queen. Like TLC's "Toddlers in Tiaras," but without making you want to punch the parent. I made text boxes, I pulled art from Illustrator, I played with fonts, I chose photos... All the while frantically trying to imitate the "Vox Style." This was different from my designs last semester because I was working under a different context. This design represented my skills and provided a placement test. That's a lot of pressure for a first attempt. So - here are the results.

Looking back, I put too much pressure on myself to abide by the standards and style of Vox, and it compromised my final design. I designed my pages in an attempt to fit in, not stand out. This is not something I was conscious of while I was doing it, but now I know I spent way too much time trying to mimic what had already been done and not coming up with my own ideas. I wasn't completely embarrassed of the end product, but I knew it wasn't my best work because it lacked creativity.

I chose to print out my final pages in the morning, when the J-Library opened at 8 a.m. Everything was going according to plan, until I pulled up my pages on the J-Library's computers and realized that they didn't have any of the same fonts as the Vox computers. Now it all made sense why people were bringing their jump drives to class and uploading from the server... Hmm. No fonts means my design is basically nothing like I wanted. The pictures in this blog DO have the correct fonts, but the boards I turned in looked nothing like those. I had ruined my whole first project because all the typography was different from the designs I spent hours on. Between my haphazard gluing and cutting, incorrect matting, and the absence of all the Vox fonts, I'm sure my project was immediately overlooked.

Jan mentioned in class on Tuesday that designs that were submitted that had clearly not followed mounting and gluing directions were thrown out. If I hadn't been immediately disqualified for my hideous cutting tactics, I definitely was for not having any of the template fonts ANYWHERE to be found on ANY of the pages. Oops.

Okay, so assignment one didn't go so well, but making all the biggest mistakes now means I definitely won't make them again next time. I just realized how much I have yet to learn, but I can't do that just by copying the hard work of others. From now on, I will make all my own mistakes. At least that way I can defend myself because those designs will be all my own.