This past week I worked on my first cover and feature at Vox.
1) The Cover- When I first read the story about the musicians selling the licensing to their music, images of TV’s and CD’s ran through my head but I tried to see if I could come up with a less obvious choice. I thought the whole idea of “for sale by owner” would be interesting because most of the music business is run by nothing but tycoons who take all these artists for all their worth. In this situation not only are bands getting their art out there on their own, but they are going to reap the benefits all by themselves.
1) The Cover- When I first read the story about the musicians selling the licensing to their music, images of TV’s and CD’s ran through my head but I tried to see if I could come up with a less obvious choice. I thought the whole idea of “for sale by owner” would be interesting because most of the music business is run by nothing but tycoons who take all these artists for all their worth. In this situation not only are bands getting their art out there on their own, but they are going to reap the benefits all by themselves.
I think my biggest issue with this cover was that I couldn’t quite find the words to go with the concept in my head. Headlines are always my downfall and I think this cover could have been much more successful, had I found the right words to go with it.
2) The Feature- This feature was much harder for me. Every time I thought I had a good idea, I would turn myself down. I wanted to focus on the fact that this story was more about the men than the dollars. It’s more about the businessmen behind the money, which is why I lead with that picture of the business stick figures. I wanted to portray that. I think that I ended up with a pretty simple, plain Jane, feature. Between the topic and the amount of text, I couldn’t quite find the inspiration I needed and I think I gave up too soon on something that could have been spiced up a bit. Redesign to come soon!
Today I have spent a lot of my day in the Journalism library working on the cover competition for Feb. 5th. Sarah, who is designing the feature for the spring preview talked to me a bit about her vision of spring icons with geometric shapes, so I have been sticking with that as an inspiration. It is a little difficult coming up with a theme cover like this just because I don’t want to be generic. Also I think my designs tend to be pretty girly when it comes to things like spring colors and outdoors. Besides Sarah’s themes, I think it’s been pretty easy to have inspiration for this cover purely because it is ice cold out and I want spring very badly!
RESPONSE
This week I received my last book for the Advanced Design class in the mail from Amazon.com. “Pantone Guide to Communicating with Color.” I have not read any of it yet, but I started flipping through it. There are all of these pages with different boxes of colors. Certain shades of certain colors that go well together. I flipped one after the other and it got me excited. Which I know, is probably pretty nerdy, but it clicked in my head with what Jan talked about in class Tuesday.
I need a bag of tricks. I need something to resort to if I can’t find inspiration or I can’t figure out a way to start. Something that could help put me down the right path and I think that color book will be one of them. We have so many opportunities and tricks at the end of our finger tips with these programs, but unless we inform ourselves on those tricks, they are useless to us.
I think after only a week and a half of class I can already tell that Jan is right. This class will give us a new bag of tricks. For me it was even the simplest trick of having a book to look at some different color palates for inspiration. Or even looking in that history of design book to learn what has come before us. Whatever it is for each of us, I am excited to find out what I’ll hold in my bag 16 weeks from now.
IN THE INDUSTRY
So I am going to comment on something that happened in August. I know I am many months late, but it’s something that made me very sad. The resizing of Rolling Stone. Honestly it just isn’t the same. This NY Times article says I am sad because of the nostalgia. So what if I am! Rolling Stone started as a newspaper WAY back in the day and then it went to tabloid side, which did not look like every other sleek slick magazine. I mean believe me, there are other magazines which I LOVE that are the small size. However, I did not want this one to change. I miss the days of Annie Leibovitz and Fleetwood Mac all in bed together. But I guess they didn’t ask me.
DESIGNINGMAGAZINES.COM
The latest on my blog I am keeping an eye on for everyone had a post about the inauguration and magazine covers. The blog questions why Obama is on so many of the covers once again. I am bit confused. Isn’t it because he made history? I don’t care what side of the political fence you stand on, to me it feels good to live in a country where 50 years ago a black man couldn’t vote and now we have one as president. The blogger mentions the history he made but sort of sluffs it off, asking why once again we must as an industry put him on the cover. Maybe the blogger is playing devil’s advocate, but I am not sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment