Spread 'em.

Here's three spreads I have found. Fabulous.

Yes, one has a black background, but I really enjoy the left side, how it breaks up the photo and the name. The top one I think connects the photo and the headline in an interesting and thoughtful way, and the middle spread I just like because of the high contrast black/white/red.

modifying health spreads

Shot some photos. Made an illustration. Fun times putting everything together. Need to reshoot some peppers in water, but over all I am pleased.

Food.

I am quite hungry. Maybe it's all this talk of food, whether it's food-born illnesses or not- sounds good to me.

The first article has little body copy to work with, and so it was a good opportunity to up the size of the headline and add a glamour shot on the left page. The image that will eventually be placed on the entirety of the left page is a photo of a pepper, maybe two, splashing into water [since the article does mention washing the food]. I created the layout mostly breaking out from the fold. It may be hard to tell with the spread lacking the photo, but it's gonna be gooood.

The second spread is an article about the hormones that your body produces that can make you feel full. I added two words to the title--"The Secret to Feeling Full (is out)". I want the mouth on next to the title to lead you to the side bar, which will be in the current blank space, and will likely include illustrations of parts of the digestive system, but it's possible that I will change my mind and use imagery of food.

stress spread. final?

As I have been watching my housemates work on type grids all week, I thought that I would use typography in this spread and stay away from photos for the time being, as I am sure I will be incorporating them soon enough. It took between two and two and a half hours to tweek and get the spread as I desired it to be. After viewing the printed copy, I can tell that it looks a bit simplistic, and maybe a bit amateur, but I am about 70 percent satisfied. I think that the balance of the two pages is working well with the horizontal yellow lines (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVrrAP-ntMc), and I think that the framing boxes help, but I realize that I use framing more often than I perhaps should. It's just so nice to give the space depth!

Catching up...

Last class we looked at the magazine spreads we had designed for the article, Stressed out! Let the most frazzled win! First issue is that the headline is set, and it's a little hard to work with. Next problem, professor decides to place the article into Modern Lifestyles Mature Living. This made it difficult to want to use photos I take because I do not have models to use who, I'm sure, are this magazines definition of "mature". This made me hold back concept-wise because I was mostly worried about the difficulties I would run into trying to execute them. Not to mention--loads of type to work with. A few ideas bounced around in my head, a lot of them, though, I felt cliché. The headline begs for some sort of race or contest, but I feel like it may be hard to find two older individuals willing to run a track looking "frazzled" or find a stock photo of two "mature" people playing tug-o-war. In the end, I have begun working on a more type-based design. We'll see.

a three hour tour

forgot--here is my 'gilligan list':

Helvetica

Baskerville

Futura

Palatino

Georgia

Done and done.

Dance:

Words I would use to describe what I wish I could do, but can't because I am a viscom major. I kid. Dance was the topic of this next poster, more specifically a performance of different dance groups from Truman State and the like. Immediately I decided to come up with a concept that would have a pop culture reference, which in my mind would be fairly easy to come up with a multitude of them, but finding a good one for the design would be a bit more tricky. After about an hour of brainstorming and googling, I landed on the age old question-are we human or are we dancer? Ha. I decided that the headline would be the dominant element, as it is a reference that any radio-listener would catch. I took around twenty minutes to draw an image of a dancer whose arms/hands resemble the form of an 'A' and so I designed it to replace the 'A' in DANCER. Overall, I would say that I spent close to 2 hours on this comp. Prior to creating this comp, I had to revise my Native American Heritage Month Poster. I had redrawn the image using charcoal, which took about an hour to two hours, less than before having already created a grid which was helpful to my schedule. Once that was done, all I had to do was scan it in, and place it in the grid that I had created. All of these revisions rounded to about 3 hours. Still have some work to do, some tweeking, but I am becoming more pleased with the overall design.

Native American Heritage Month (yay)

Having received our new assignment of promoting the month of November as Native American Heritage Month (or American Indian Heritage month, as the term "indian" is not really politically incorrect), I began searching for a concept. Dreamcatchers having been deemed puke-worthy, I was at a loss. But alas, I found my way to web page that included native tribal quotes, and settled on an inspirational phrase from a tribe unknown to the site creators and to me. "Involve" is the word that caught my eye, and so I searched for a corrisponding photo. Found one! Splendid. Pencil drawing ensued, and I came up with a decent graphic that interacts with the quote. You could see it--if blogger would stop being lame and let me upload the image.

part three

Ah, part three. This time I have been given slightly different instructions-a twist-for this time I have an 11 x 17 format for my design. As soon as I saw the content for the Latin party/salsa dancing lessons, I knew what I would create. One hour, done. Design elements to include scale, direction, and some value. Rock climbing club, not so quick. So, I do what any worn out designer would do, vector art! By pen tool tracing over a found photo, I have created my second poster in just under two hours. Using elements including line, shape, and direction. Perhaps not my most brilliant work to date, but it'll do. It'll do.

Part Two

Second day of Viscom boot camp brought another two flyers assigned. This time the subject matter entailed pottery and Germany; joy! Having recently seen Inglorious Basterds (twice), the latter was inspired partially by it. Who knew that Germans use the thumb instead of the ring finger? Anyway. I was pleased with the concept, relatively displeased with the design. The Pottery flyer=boring. Mine anyways. The word "fun" may be on it, but fun it was lacking both in the input and output. I recognize that I should allot a greater amount of time in which to complete these designs, yet my schedule simply does not comply. Again, I must work faster. Think faster.

flyers: part one of sixty

Viscom bootcamp has commenced.

Assignment one, given on Friday, included the re-design of some heinous designs that 9-fingered professor Nelson has found around campus. Delighted to know that nothing I would produce could be worse than the originals, I spent my weekend with the creative wheels turning. In my mind. Finally, Sunday night, I felt I was ready to form my designs. I began with a flyer related to Greek language, as I felt I had gotten a handle on a concept. If my memory serves me, it took around two hours to "crank" it out. I later returned to this design and added a gradient to the type, which added just what it needed to look truly complete (and so, for the moment I was truly complete). The concept for the second flyer, though, I had mulled over for day(s) to no avail. It took another twenty minutes to decide, and from then it took around two hours to fully produce. Feeling good, I think.

I proudly brought my designs to class, sufficiently pleased with myself (though quite tired). My classmates were not as impressed with my designs as was I. What's that my professor is always saying, "Work harder"?