Wednesday, February 4, 2009

a sprint in my pink tennis shoes this week

MY WEEK'S WORK

1) It has definitely been a busy week in my life! First, and what I am most excited about, I won the cover competition this week for Vox. 

As I stared at my first tries that we hung on the wall last Thursday, I knew before anyone said a word that this is not what we were looking for. So I took the weekend to completely rethink the idea. Sometimes my designs can tend to be too girly and that was definitely my first three covers I turned in. But after the weekend I had come up with an entire new concept. 

From Monday until today it went through many changes, slight and large, but my original concept and inspiration still stands. Three days before I turned my cover in I was speaking to Meredith about how terrible I am with typography and yesterday she reminded me of this conversation as the first thing of mine that will be printed in Vox is a pure typography cover. Seeing it come to life this week was a very fun journey for me. Working in the office with Meredith and Taryn (who are both very helpful) this week has been a great learning experience for me. While I have designed fliers and such for internships and things for class, this will be my first published design and I couldn't be happier. The craziness I went through in my first two and a half weeks of class has been more than worth it. 

2) Also this week I have been working on my first edit of a bed and breakfast feature for an upcoming issue. The text basically just outlines a few details of some of the B&B's in the midwest so I went with a road trip theme in my design. Road signs, road lines, etc. Here is what I will be turning in tomorrow: 

3) Also this week I redesigned the first Vox cover about the bands that are selling the license to their music to TV and movies. I was told by Jan that my original general concept was liked but that I had to make it work with the words. So most of my design is the same, just some rewrite of the head and subhead.


4)Coming tomorrow will be my redesign of my economy spread and then I am also designing the Art department this weekend for the 2.12 issue. Lots of designing and I am thrilled to be finally taking a class which has me practicing what I would like to do with my life everyday!

RESPONSE:
We went to Meredith Corp. last week in Des Moines and there was a MU grad there who spoke with us about her job hunting experiences. I have to say it made me feel a little sick to my stomach. I think somehow, all at the same time I am thrilled and terrified to be getting ready to go out into the work force. I am excited because I am definitely ready to be done with school, but I am scared to fall, to fail. Or I guess most scared to not find a job in this field that makes me so happy. 

My fiance is applying to graduate schools around Missouri and Tennessee so I won't even know where I am going to be living until March and then once I know, then I have to try and find a job in that city. I'm afraid of this economy but hopeful for the work I would love to share with a company that would give a recent grad a chance.

But, I'm sure this fear is shared with many of my colleagues, so at least I'm not alone!

IN THE INDUSTRY
So I found this article on folio. It is talking about something we all have heard about in story after story but something I find ridiculous we're still dealing with. It's a story about how Vogue OVER photoshopped Sienna Miller. The article talks about how people on the set were calling her "toothy" and saying that she had "unruly hair." Who doesn't? So they over airbrushed her and then took a nice picture of her head and pasted on a "better" airbrushed picture of her body.

One: Why would you being saying that onset with a movie star sitting right there unless you were just crazy jealous/insecure? These people are still your clients and they're helping you sell your magazine!

Two: I have on question: If Sienna Miller isn't beautiful or hot enough, who is? I get it, everyone airbrushes, but what happened to ethics? As our technology gets better and better will are ethical concerns decrease? 

DESIGNINGMAGAZINES.com
A few posts back he talks about Wired's "50 cent covers." He talks about how much a cover photo shoot costs and how much money Wired saves by doing its typography covers. As I read it I think the blogger had a great point. You don't have to have a celebrity face on the front to make a great designed cover. They have some great examples of that. However, if you can afford it, we all know those celeb faces SELL magazines. 


8 comments:

  1. Annie! I love, love, love the Spring Preview cover, and I'm glad to see you got to stick with your pastels you loved so much from your first designs :) Keep up the good work, I can't wait to pick up a copy today!

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  2. Seriously, Annie. Great job! My favorite part of the whole thing is the quip about how 90 wouldn't fit. It's fun and informative and eye-catching, and don't worry, still a little bit girlie (which let's face it, spring is in general. Not many men get excited to sing in the rain or smell the new flowers or eat chocolate eggs).

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  3. Great Job Annie! The different hues of blue turned out really good in print and it's just "springy" enough without down-pouring the typical concept of flowers and easter eggs. Seeing the progression you made from last week to this week, the pink pops and catches the eye. I will admit when I saw you working on the computer Tuesday, I was leaning toward the green, but I don't think it would have worked in print as well as the pink does. Great job colliding your new typography and renovation skills.

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  4. I'll have to agree with everybody. I like the colors and the concept provided a way for you to work in some content, which will hopefully mean more people will the picking up the issue. Nice job!

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  5. Lovely cover, Annie. The texture of the blue really adds depth to a type-based cover solution. Congratulations!

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  6. The cover looked really great. Personally, I love type treatments. Here, you did a great job showing as many events as possible and joking about the number of them in the article. All around a good, fun cover.

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  7. Congrats on the cover!! It turned out beautifully and all of your hard work payed off! I have learned from your design that I should dabble with using textures a bit too. Loved it!

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  8. I too LOVE the way the cover turned out. The color scheme is really cool and the whole thing looks just as good in print. Congrats!

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