BG

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Moving Right Along

Critique: First Department Page
This past week I designed my first page for the music department at Vox. I enjoyed it so much that before I knew it I had been there for three hours and didn’t realize. Arranging and organizing elements in a design is something I love to do. I caught on pretty quick to PlanSystem and everything that goes along with designing. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it went well, and I feel more confident and prepared for future designing. There is a lot of design detail that needs to be executed that I didn’t realize. It took longer to make a single page than I expected.

Response: Modern Magazine Design
Last week I discussed the Modern Magazine Design by William Owen. As the book mentions, this "bonding of type and image" with a full-bleed photo was a common feature of the 1950s and early 60s. It was part of the new visual journalism. In 1953, Otto Storch came to McCall's as art director, and he was said to be ideal for implementation of the new visual. He created outstanding pictorial formats. He frequently designed around a bleed photo that was used as illustration and background. The text was carefully placed in an open space on the photo. The reading discusses Storch and his belief that we are a picture-minded country. I think this was true then and will always stay true.
Here is a spread from SELF I found that relates to a design in a 1959 issue of McCall’s. The layout centers on a single bleed photo. It’s used as both an illustration and background, and the text is placed in an open area, similar to Storch's spread. I see this design throughout many publications. The one bleed photo and minimal text has nice impact. It’s neat to find design today that is so closely related to design from more than 50 years ago.

You Can’t Miss This: Valentine’s Day
For the past two years, I have been crazy about cooking, and I’m always searching for recipes online. I usually look for main dishes or sides, but I enjoy checking out desserts as well. I came across these cute heart cupcakes on Martha Stewart’s site. They seem pretty simple to make compared to some of the other Valentine’s Day recipes. I also found this cute packaging idea for candy or treats. I've already put heart cookie cutters on my grocery list. I'm excited to try these out!
Designverb posted these little honeycomb cardboard chairs. I had never seen anything quite like it. I'm curious how much time it took to make them.

3 comments:

  1. I was so excited to see your recipe post! I feel the same way.

    You'll have to let me know how the heart cookie cutters work out for you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am designing my first department page this weekend, and after the crazy week I've already had, I'm kind of dreading it! You're not the first to have mentioned, though, that it's a pretty painless process. I'm happy to hear! I think your page turned out very well-organized. It must have been difficult to work with so much text, yet still bring an element of design creativity to it. Looks like you pulled it off!

    My roommate and I were just discussing how disappointed we were that we didn't have cookie cutters for our Valentine's sugar cookies... Looks like you were a few steps ahead of us. :) Hope the cookies were yummy!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your illustration for you department page was very good. I think it turned out exactly as they described it. You are already improving your illustration skills, and it makes me hopeful that I will be able to as well.

    ReplyDelete