-| Week No. 14. We made it! |-

-| Critique |-

This week in my design, I am working on the LUXE feature. I'm kind of struggling. I guess I'm glad it's only three pages, but four would have been nice, too. I asked the photo department for photos that I can cut out, if at all possible. I thought that would have been really cool. So far, I've got a pice of jewelry that I might be able to cut out, but I don't think I want to because it'll get lost on the newsprint (It's white gold and diamond on a blue velvet background.). Anyways, I'm glad I have photos at all.

Also, you all know this saying: cut once, measure twice. I've changed it. It doesn't matter how many times you measure if you're calculations are wrong, so use a calculator. (I sliced through some color pages of my mini portfolio today at Kinko’s. 11/2=5.5, just for the record.)

-| React |-

OK, I'm rescinding all negative things I said about Meredith. I said earlier in the year that I'd work for them if I had to, but it's not my first choice. I guess that's still true, but not as much. Just hearing from some of their art people there who said that they have survived the beast and are still designing with passion, it was enlightening. It would be a great place to work, I'm sure. Some of us were talking amongst ourselves, and after visiting Des Moines and seeing how they work and how much they seem to like it, not to mention the fact that they made such a great effort to visit us and give us their time, all those things put together kind of made me change my mind. (RUN-ON SENTENCE! YAY! Watch me NOT edit it!)

I think the Fresh Life product was great. I could have been more a part of it if I had chosen to do so. I didn't, and I kind of regret it, but I know that at the time I was just feeling busy. I really should have jumped in but oh well. This whole experience really has been fun. I felt like a suck up when one of the art ladies asked me which project I liked the best. I think I really did like the Meredith project. It was a fun trip, it was fun to see how their big-time operation really works and it was great to get their final feedback.

-| You Can't Miss. . . |-

It's time for one last installment of newspaper design enthusiasm! I went through my collections and even searched the net for new, exciting and inspiring pieces of design! Just remember that some newspapers will offer really cool gigs designing tab covers if you can find them and have the skillz.

This is from a man named Jason Benavides at the Charlotte Observer. Brilliant.

Again, Mr. Benavides out of Charlotte. Apparently they let insane people design for newspapers! There's hope for some of us! ;-) Seriously a cool piece. I wish I had anything like it in my portfolio.

Same guy.

I hope I haven't posted this already. . . I don't think I have. Anyways, another product of the Boston Globe.

White bread = boring. Genius.

Dark. Cool. Intriguing.

-| Week No. 13 |-

-| Review |-

Design work this past week has included department work and website work. My departments were kind of crazy. The designs are not crazy. Working with graphics has been. That's mostly becuase I didn't check in enough on the process to make sure things were going OK. My website has frustrated me. I'm glad I have extra time to work on it. I think once I get some time to sit down and tinker on it for fun that it will turn out to be great. I'm not going to use PhotoShop to do it. I was convinced to just make little squares of my work that will then display the larger work.

-| React |-

Other sites are looking really good. I wish I wasn't so scared of Flash, but I am. Melissa's site was so cool but I would have no idea (or patience?) to work through it all. Maybe it's easier than I'm making it seem. Anyways, Melissa, your page rocked. I also really liked Larue's gallery, which is why I wanted to gank it. I also really liked last week's issue of Vox. It was pretty good.

-| You Can't Miss |-

Another newspaper redesign. It's a Canadian newspaper! The Globe and Mail.

Also, there's a picture of us on the blog. I think I'm in the very very back of it and Libby is in the not-so-distant back of it. newsdesigner.com


Old and new. I like it. It's not a HUGE change, but it's definitely a big one. As you will see, in both versions they sold the bottom portion to advertisers. A more and more common trend these days.

Also, some interesting design choices for newspapers. Nothing radical, mind you. (Well, the video think is kind of radical. But not the most radical.)

-| Week No. 11 |-

-| Critique |-

My work continues on my mushroom piece. The consensus was that my first draft was too plain and that the pulled quote was too pschadelic. I didn't even think of that until Jen said something, and I guess it does make sense. I thought that with the pulled quote it would work visually. I love it when words and images play off each other and create a stronger meaning. So I'm messing around with hues of browns for my page to give it an earthy feel. I'm also tweaking the main shitake art so that it's more mushroomy.

-| React |-

I'm still trying to finalize my interview with anyone at Hispanic magazine. It turns out that they run three publications out of their office and all three were on final deadline as of last week. I think I was told that the final deadline would be today, so hopefully someone can talk to me soon. What I've read so far is interesting. I hope to get an angle that's unique from all the others. I think that Page 1 Media runs three different magazines by some of the same people. I'd like to know how that works and if some of their people have to double up on publications.

-| You Can't Miss

There's nothing really big on the blog this week, but the big news this week is that the SSND competition is here this week and so is my blogger! Mark Friesen runs my blog and he's one of the guest judges. There will be plenty of opportunities to mingle and I would suggest doing so. It's a fun time, really. First off, there's a dinner Wednesday night at 6:30 in LHH over pizza discussing the future of newspapers. Then on Thursday, anyone can sit in and watch them judge the categories. The first half of the morning will be dedicated to non-daily papers and the second half of the day will be for daily papers. This will be interesting. I helped sift through all the entries and some of them are REALLY good. Some of them REALLY suck. (Seriously, it's amazing that they think it's their "best" work. . . but then not everyone can have a Jan Colbert and a Joy Mayer around to help them out. But then, actually, ANYONE should be able to tell that when you go crosseyed looking at a page, THAT'S BAD!) OK, whoa, just got a little mean and bitchy, but you might see what I mean if you go! TUCKER FORUM THIS THURSDAY

-| Week No. 10 — It's almost the home stretch! |-

-| Critique |-

I did nothing design wise over the break except think about my upcoming two-page feature a few times. I've decided that I'm not going to use photos because we just did a huge food issue. Instead I'm going to use some sort of mushroom illo and a fancy hed as the main art for the page. Jazz it up with some carefully placed white space and hopefully I'll have a nice feature. I was kind of upset that the story took only the food angle of mushrooms. The lead started something along the lines of. . . Mushrooms are sprouting up this time of year. . . here's how locals cook with them. BUT, you don't cook with mushrooms that pop up in your yard. They didn't address poisinous mushrooms at all. I would have said something, but I didn't really feel like it was my place to.

-| React |-

(I know this isn't the "react to the food items you might have prepared" section, but hot damn, I just made some of the spiciest salsa of my entire life! If anyone likes super-spicy items, let me know. I CANNOT eat this entire batch on my own.)

I'm worried about my project. I really want to talk to the folks at Hispanic, and I have great contact info, but I haven't actually seen their magazine. How can I actually call someone and inquire about what they do without having seen their product? I think it'll take some very creative tact to work around that. I don't know if I should just move on to another mag.

The four presentations we saw in class today were very good. I was so confused with the Glamour hair products thing. It seemed like too far of a stretch in mine eye. At least it's cool to know, though, that it is in fact possible to be in a great position in just a couple of years.

In the scrapbooking magazine, I found it hard to tell the difference between ads and editorial. Just an interesting observation. It was all so cute and pastel filled.

-| You Can't Miss. . . |-

The new EyeTrack study has been released. It came up with some interesting findings. Mostly the same stuff that we already knew. People tend to see colorful and newsy photos first (meaning they don't notice posed or black and white photos as fast). Also, people pay more attention to ASFs (Alternative Story Forms!) and their comprehension rates are higher with ASFs! This totally can apply to magazines. Just pulling out some info into a dandy little graphic can up interest and comprehension by a lot!

Also, Mark Friesen is going to be one of the SSND judges. He's the guy who runs my blog, newsdesigner.com. I'll fill you in on more as we'll probably have opportunities to meet with Mark when he's on campus.

From an e-mail from Joy Mayer about the contest: "Mark Friesen is the author of the newsdesigner.com blog and designs at the Oregonian, though he has a new Web-based job that I don't know the details of."

-| Week No. 9 |-

-| Critique |-

Website design is complicated. There's a fine line between good clean design and crap. I think I have a great splash page but I haven't discovered how to translate that into the rest of my site. What good is a good splash page if the site behind it doesn't look anything like it? I need to brainstorm some more creative and genius ideas. What I've got right now is not cutting it.

-| React |-

The sites that we saw today in class were great. I really liked Christine's peeping girl. I thought it was cute and sophisticated. Not amateur. I also really liked how on Melissa's site she had thumbnails pop up when you scrolled over the numbers and then when you clicked you got a big image. Very cool. There are so many things that I saw today that I wouldn't know how to do in the programs we use. I think the book is helpful but only to a certain degree. It seems that you just have to kind of tinker with the programs, kind of like the programs I'm already used to.

-| You Can't Miss. . . |-

Newsdesigner.com finally updated! The Arizona Republic (Phoenix, Ariz.) has launched a Monday redesign. So I guess that means that this is a redesign only for the Monday papers. Hmm. I've never heard of that, but maybe I'm just dense. They are marketing it as a new Monday product that's going to be chok full of newsy things unlike most Monday papers which are really the lightest papers as far as news content goes. It's the newspaper "for busy people," says editor Ward Bushee.

Luke Knox of the Republic says the Monday edition will feature:

... shorter stories, more short-form information and content to help readers kick-start their week. It's basically the antithesis of the usual Monday product you may find from a number of papers, filled with retread stories and no real news to sink your teeth into. ... Section fronts have one, (mostly) non-jumping story and a series of lists, refers and other devices to get the reader into the section.

NB: There is display type on all the dominant images. Is there a new rule with the Monday paper that all dominant images must also have display type on them? Not always a bad thing, but maybe a bit too much too fast.


I used to live in Phoneix. The paper didn't look quite this trendy when I lived there.


Text on a photo, again. I like it. It's done well. And whoa, there's nothing quite like west-coast smog. It's almost worse than LA because Phoenix is a valley where the smog just settles on the city. At least there are coastal portions of LA so the smog can kind of disperse.


It's almost like a magazine, isn't it?

-| Week No. 8 |-

-| Critique |-

Oh design, how I love thee. This week has great for my redesigns. I really like what I turned out for the group. I think I got some positive feedback, although I still am kind of confused as to what really is going to happen next.

The logos were actually a fun assignment. I think that working mostly with text might have been the boring way to go, although I like a lot of the things I came up with. Text is so literal, but then is that such a bad thing? I love abstract things, but in this case, I think my art heds work for the most parts. The talk about the black and gold colors was interesting, since all my logos had black and gold. I had no problem using these colors. It’s a logo for a branch of the University of Missouri. It makes sense to me. I actually like those colors, too, and when they’re paired they look so sharp.

-| React |-

All of the logos (160 total?) were really great to look at. We all had such different ideas of what these things might look like. I especially liked what I saw in Melissa’s logos (with the cursor, eye and signal). Very creative! Each week, we just get to see each other reinforced in our own designs.

I would have like to have gone to see the publishing class react to our final versions of our prototypes. I think I like John’s idea of presenting all the designs to the Meredith eds but I’m not sure that the eds would understand what was happening. If we had a separate meeting for only the designers I think that would be fine (that was my first impression of what would happen, but I’m not sure if that has changed. . .).

-| You Can’t Miss. . . |-

Newsdesigner.com isn't doing anything right now.

So, in lieu of news from newsdesigner.com, some cool newspaper pages!

Blogger is being difficult. I'll upload some news pages and some of my Fresh Life (or is it now Freshlife?) stuff.

-| Week No. 7 |-

-| Critique |-

I did a few of my preliminary sketches for the convergence logo while we were speaking with Steve. I've got some cheesy ideas which have to be in the mix of course. More sketching must come to develop stronger pieces that will actually work. (One of them included a camera lens as the "O" in "convergence."

I'm a little overwhelmed that our final versions of the prototype are due next Monday. Two huge projects in one weekend. I never thought it would come to this. I really would like to do a lot more on the Meredith stuff, but at this point, it's going to have to be minor revisions.

Of my rough designs, this is my preferred cover design. I'm going to tame the logo somehow (probably less color). I will find a better picture. I will use only two colors other than black and white in my sell lines. It's just too much right now.

TOC

Deptartment

Feature/Department

*****

The rest of these are my variations on a theme. The above items are the preferred rough drafts. Below are the others.



Lefty sans seriff!

The other TOC. I think it's too standard and formatted.

Another text treatement on the feature.

-| React |-

On visiting Molly: It was a fun experience, I say. I liked the party setup. She could be a great party designer if that's what she wants to do! After seeing the zine in class today, I can understand why she would stick with it. When she was talking on Thursday about how she works for nothing and has all her work changed on her, I thought it was absolutely crazy. I mainly thought that because I pictured it as a tiny, twine-bound zine that gets handed out on the corner that all of 200 people will read. It's actually a glossy that looked pretty cool. Maybe I should have asked her about the magazine before she told us about her work experience. She is getting clips, and if that's the genre of magazine she wants to work for, then it can't be too long before someone is willing to pay her to do it. Best of luck to her.

-| You Can't Miss. . . |-

On newsdesigner.com it's just more SND stuff. They have a list of their top winners from the design contest! It's pretty interesting stuff. I'm not surprised to see a few of my favs (The Merc, The Virginian-Pilot, B Globe).

****

• Los Angeles Times and its magazine, 107

• The New York Times and its magazine, 99

• Excelsior of Mexico City, 72

• Hartford Courant, 57

• San Jose Mercury News, 55

• The Boston Globe and its magazine, 52

• South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 47

• La Presse in Quebec, Canada, 43

• The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, 40

• El Mundo of Madrid, Spain, and its magazines, 40

• National Post in Toronto, 38

• The Guardian in London, 35

• The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, 35

• San Francisco Chronicle, 28

• Gazette in Montreal, 23

• Clarin in Buenos Aires, 22

• The Dallas Morning News, 22

• Politiken in Copenhagen, 22