-| Week No. 3 |-

-| Critique |-

This week I've been working on coming up with an idea for the interracial dating cover. When I first heard the description of the feature, it was described solely as "interracial dating." OK, what does that mean? I can't really know how to illustrate that until I actually got to see the story to see what was actually going on. It turns out it's about athletes dating outside their race. It's an interesting take on the idea. So I've come up with some ideas. Keep it simple. Kind of inspired by the abortion cover in my last post. Also, some of the covers I LOVE the most are so simple and clean and perfect. That's what I'm going to try for. I picture sillhouettes reversed on a black or white background. The athlete will be holding a football, looking huge, wearing all the gear. The female will be. . . smaller and not a huge football player. Maybe play with some people looming in the background (the family that often has an opinion on the matter.) I've also played with the chalkboard Xs and Os. Not quite simple, but maybe effective. There is still some refining to do before I present on Thursday.

(I'll try to see if I can get a scanned image of my sketches in here)

-| React |-

(I'm watching the Super Bowl. . . How has Prince not aged? And whoa, he's flaunting a double-popped collar. Only Prince. And, I so wish I could be in that marching band. It looks insanely fun! AMAZING halftime show.)

Back to reality. . . LIFE Magazine circa the 1940s. . . wow. I'm not seeing much in the way of design. It's mostly huge pictures or a ton of little pictures slapped on a page and a script font as a hed. I'm definitely looking in the ads for design style and I'm seeing a lot of heroic realism, for obvious reasons. It's really amazing to see how far the magazine world has come in the way of creative efforts. It's a completely different world.

-| You Can't Miss. . . Newspaper Design! |-

This week on newsdesigner.com, Garcia Media designed a financial daily in India called Mint. (Garcia Media: see Week No. 1, KC Star, Wall Street Journal. . . )





It looks like a Garcia Media product. Very modern. Very colorful. He definitely has a branded style in his design. You can just tell he had something to do with it.


Great cover. You know exactly what it's about. Fantastic and simple.


Such a great design! Again, from the BGlobe (I went to the SND conference in Orlando and their art directors/Creative AMEs gave an awesome powerpoint presentation that they shared with everyone!). You can do this in a newspaper features department!

Nothing spectacular here, but look at their main art! A huge head and Aqua Teen Hunger Force! It's all a part of the VP's visual culture that they've created. At every paper it's different. Someone there decided that running huge mugs and un-original illustrations was A-OK.