You Can't Miss: Royal Wedding Art

In preparation for the royal wedding, artist Scott Wade came up with his own unique way to pay tribute to the ceremony - using dirt. Check it out!

I am so impressed with how detailed the artist is just by manipulating the dirt on this car. Haha I had no idea it was possible to be so talented with dirt! Whether or not you decide to get up at 3 a.m. to witness the royal nuptials, I think we can fairly assume that this artist won't miss it. Check out more of the photos of Wade's innovative artwork here.

Response: Summer Internship at KC Parent

Over the weekend, I went to Kansas City for a scheduled interview with the editor of KC Parent. The job seemed to be mutually beneficial for her and I - I need more clips and she liked my experience working with the software and with reporting. I'm really excited about the position because I was planning on returning to my home town anyway to make a little money before I set off on my job hunt. I am still planning on applying for jobs throughout the summer, but if nothing comes my way before the fall, I think I'll just move to a city where I can continue to look for jobs in person. This internship will allow me to continue coming up with new clips for my portfolio and keep me involved in journalism while I take some down time to make my checking account a little prettier.

During the interview, I basically convinced the editor she should definitely come up with an app for the publication. She was impressed that I will have had experience working with iPad app software and knowing how to develop a concept for an app. I am tentatively in charge of coming up with the content and design for the app, if the plan follows through. I would be ecstatic to have this opportunity because I think it will be so beneficial to my job hunt! The small staff is receptive to my input and willing to let me dabble in multiple areas, although the internship is mostly editorial. I think it will be a great start and provide me with a lot of real-life experience for my future. Can't wait to get started!

Critique: Final Cover Design

Last week I submitted my final cover designs for the semester for the New Pornographers feature appearing in the next issue of Vox. Much of the critique from my first round of submissions was that I didn't play with the type treatment enough. I tried to do something totally different from what I normally do for the second round of drafts. Theresa gave me some tips on tools in Illustrator that might be helpful to me, but in the end, Chen won for her brilliant idea to clash colors on the photo to represent that band's difficulty finding time to get together.

You Can't Miss: New Beauty Magazine

Okay, for those of you I have already harassed about my latest discovery, you already know how obsessed I am with a high-end beauty magazine that addresses expensive beauty remedies such as botox, liposuction, and a broad range of expensive creams and serums that solve anti-aging, scarring, etc. It's a futuristic fashion magazine that assumes readers who are willing to spend $10 on their magazine, are also willing to spend a large amount on surgical beauty procedures. Interesting idea... and their design is outrageously unique and fabulous! Check out these covers:

The sell lines caught my eye first. I remember Jan talking about odd placement of sell lines in beginning design as being a risky move, but I love that this publication attempted it. I respect their courage and I think the end result matches the overall tone the magazine is looking for.

These types of sell lines are much different than the above photo, but I liked that the publication was not only daring enough to mess with the positioning of sell lines, but also switch up the cover design from issue to issue. I really love the type they're using for these sell lines, too. The slant of the type gives the whole photo a movement. 

Response: Modern Midwest Prototype - FINISHED!

Our creative director, Michelle, is making the final edits with the publishers tonight and our prototype will be hitting the printing press tomorrow! Proofs will be reader to go over by Friday and I believe the final printed copy of the full magazine will be finished by the following Monday.

This whole process was extremely educational for me. I learned so much about the process of actually creating a magazine and I think it makes the reality of doing it even more exciting. I think our prototype ended up looking great. All the group members really came together at the end, but things were a little stressful. I think the class as a whole worked together to try and making the printing process as easy as possible for the whole class. We were all in the same boat and working together made all the difference.

I can't wait to see how beautiful all the prototypes are and I'm especially looking forward to the upcoming 4 a.m. bus departure to Des Moines!

Critique: Hot Box Menu Boards

With all the free time I've had lately (that may be a tone of sarcasm you detect), I have been working diligently to finish up the big design projects I have taken on during my internship this semester at Hot Box Cookies. I found new fonts for the basically finalized boards only a week ago and the design has changed drastically as a result. I'm really happing with how the changes look and I think they really do make the boards much more legible and better looking overall. I'm so close to having most of the major store elements formatted and ready for print! Take a look at how the designs have changed since I replaced some of the fonts:

You Can't Miss: Wedding Designs

I'm not usually one to get into those wedding/bridal reality shows, but I got sucked into the new Tori Spelling series where she is a wedding planner for all sorts of couples who appear on the show. I was really touched by the most recent episode in which one couple had fantastic wedding design ideas. The bride owns multiple rats, so Tori Spelling took on the task of incorporating rats into the wedding design. I never knew rats could be so beautiful! Haha, okay so they weren't exactly beautiful, but I thought the whole concept was so original and unique. The colors were also fabulous. The bride and groom opted for a very glitzy ceremony, but I respected how all the elements came together. Here are some photos I pulled of of the series' site:

The chandelier the couple were married under. The colors were fuchsia, white, and platinum 

The bride and her father walk down the aisle. That bouquet was beyond impressive. There were some crystals thrown into the flowers making the whole thing shimmer. 

There's a cage with the bride's rats sitting right next to the groom in this photo. I love how they incorporated the pets because rats are definitely not usually associated with beautiful things, but the bride and groom were determined to make it work and they succeeded.

The cake toppers are two rats dressed up as bride and groom. 

Response: Mini Portfolios

I really enjoyed looking through some old examples of mini portfolios in class the other day. It's so interesting to see all the different ways one can put their portfolio together. Not only do the contents matter, but the design of the portfolio itself is essential.

For my mini portfolio, I think I'm leaning towards the larger square size that we discussed the other day. I think seeing the designs as large as possible is the best plan. Like Jan said, making it bigger also means the flaws are bigger, but I think that is something I'm willing to deal with because past flaws can be altered before I put them into the final portfolio. I want the overall look to be clean, crisp, and as simple as possible. I liked how some of the designs we looked at had the description of the pages on the left and the designs on the right so as not to clutter the pages. I don't have as many examples as some people, either, so this plan may help me to fill up the page minimum. Can't wait to see how everyone's mini portfolios turn out!

Critique: Modern Midwest Round 2

So, we are presenting our next round of drafts for the magazine prototypes tomorrow and I feel much more prepared this time. Last time, I think all the groups were scrambling to put something together on a few spreads for the presentation, but I feel like the groups have all had enough time to work together and modify their style palettes. It was so helpful for our group in particular to be able to use images from Google because the creative library we have access to is limited to beautiful photos of mostly food and home decor. We needed more people in our photos and action, and although we did have to supplement the pages with a few photo shoots, knowing that we had more freedom with the photos was really helpful. I'm excited for the presentations tomorrow! As of now, I just have to finish a few more cutouts for my bachelor(ette) party feature, then I'm done and ready to polish up some of those final details. So, here they are:

You Can't Miss: Back in the USSR

This week on the blog I follow, I uncovered a post about Lithuanian movie posters from the Soviet years. They have some oppositional propaganda influences, but I'm not sure exactly what the message is in all of these posters because I don't know enough of the background. Regardless of lack of historical knowledge, the images are still beautiful. Can anyone else tell what the embedded message is? If not, maybe you all can just admire the originality of design like I do.

Response: Typography and Photo Assignment

I had a great spring break this year. It was pretty epic, which was exactly what I intended since this is the last spring break I'll have, EVER! So weird that I'm about to be finished with school in general... I can't believe this time has actually arrived. During my break, I made a solo road trip through the midwest. I visited some old friends from when I used to live in Chicago and also my grandparents in Iowa.

The photos I gathered have assorted meanings... Some of them are really just more inspirational to me, personally, but I enjoyed the assignment overall. I think I would have taken the photos regardless, but I definitely ended up snapping some shots I wouldn't have, otherwise. Some of my favorites ended up being of random scenery I viewed from my car window while driving through Iowa. I don't really want to end up there, and I definitely don't envy my grandparents' small farm towns, but there is a definite beauty about the desolate portions of Iowa (of which there are many). Here are the photos I gathered:

This is Frank. Frank owns Hole in the Wall: the best Italian restaurant of all times.

The Aragon theater in Uptown Chicago. It was about 3 blocks from my friend's place, who I was staying with. I saw a concert in this venue exactly a year ago, so it was fun to be back in the same exact place a year later.

The bathroom wall at the Kinetic Playground, a bar across the street from the Aragon. This place didn't even card, it was ridiculous. There were all sorts of high school girls hanging out in the bathroom and I guess that's why the writing on the wall seems a little more hilarious. It's so neon!

I stopped in downtown Chicago on my way out of town and roamed around, taking pictures of signs and whatnot. Had to include a photo of the downtown area.

This is my grandma Heisdorffer. Everyone always says I'm most like her.... It was so nice to spend some alone time with my grandparents - something I haven't done in years. 

The new water tower in my grandparent's small town in Iowa. It's the first thing I see as I come over the hill on my way into town. I thought the clouds and blue sky was so beautiful this day.

I made a pit stop at the Mark Twain State Park/Lake on my way back into Columbia. My shoes were kind of ruined for the rest of trip...

The other part of the assignment over break was typography. Since my break was made up of an epic road trip, I decided to make the word "Odyssey." I used letters from all the photos of signs I took. Some of the letters are a little blurry because the photos were taken from far away. The letters are a little disjointed and don't exactly flow, but I still like it because I know where the letters came from and I had fun taking the photos for the project. 

Critique: 30 Under 30

It's the week after spring break and I've seen my design class in the lab with me night after night since the moment we all got back to Columbia, or just rolled out of bed... We all have a lot to finish in these last few weeks we have in this semester, but I've been focusing primarily on the 30 Under 30 spreads that are due in lab tomorrow. It would be nice to have another clip from Vox before this class is up, but I'm competing with some pretty impressive talent! Here is my splash page and the first 30 of the 30 Under 30 features.... It's not quite finished yet, but I will be taking care of that over the next few hours!

I started with my idea for a retro style gas station, made the sign in Illustrator, then moved on from there to start working in the profiles. I still need to do the cutouts, but I'm just going to see how much time I end up having at the end of the night... Good luck to everyone in the competition tomorrow!