See this: McSweeney's: Lucky Peach

I love food.  But then again, who doesn't?

My blog post this week combines two of my biggest loves (no, not fashion this time), but magazines and food!  What I like about McSweeney's Lucky Peach is how they make the food industry so humorous.  The magazine is produced by the same company that puts on Anthony Bourdain's: No Reservations, so it has to be awesome.  There are only two issues out thus far, and I think they are doing really cool things with their design.  It's super goofy and borderline inappropriate at times.  So naturally, I'm in. 

Everything about their magazine is captured in their cover, which I think is a sign of great design:

Who wouldn't want to read this?

Take a look at this spread they did on, of all things, how to kill a fish.

See their website here:

Lucky Peach

Response: The September Issue

I had already seen The September Issue  but was happy to watch it again now that I am completely immersed in the magazine world.

I would love Grace Coddington's job.  I too am a complete romantic and really identified with her vision of beauty and appreciation of fashion's rich history.  And of course there's Anna Wintour.  What a BEEP.  

However, I see where she has to be cold to do her job.  She's so busy putting together issues and making the decisions for the magazine that she doesn't have time to be anything but blunt and honest.  She could work on being warm, but what does she care? She's Anna Wintour.

Maybe that's why I never want to be an editor.  It sounds great to have my own magazine, but I never want to lose the whimsy and romance of life that so often translates into creativity and passion.   An editor is there to edit.  I want to create.

Critique: Spring Preview

Hey fellow designers,

There has been some confusion over my cover design.  The image I used was my vision for what I wanted in a studio shoot.  Obviously I don't have the rights to use Twiggy and we had to use a different photograph for the cover.  Also, the image in the background was a swirl image I found that I manipulated in Photoshop to create the mosaic look.  I am still learning the whole process of Illustrator and wanted to show what I was going for should the cover I chose be picked.  It did, and after meeting with Theresa she showed me how to create a similar look in Illustrator using gradients.  I took colors from the first concept with the eyedropper tool and made my own psychedelic radial gradient.

The final background image came out like this:

I played around a bit and tiled the gradient like my original concept, but decided it looked better without it the second time around.

As for Twiggy, I used the pen tool to cut out her glasses in Illustrator, then made a clipping path and placed them in InDesign.  I filled them in white and added black circles and the psychedelic "Spring Preview" text within them.  I put a bit of a drop shadow to make them pop out.


After my roommate graciously volunteered to be shot for the cover, we came up with three options:

Since Kelsey didn't have the mod-look I initially was going for, we decided to have more fun with the cover.  I asked a few of my friends and people in the office which one they preferred, and it seemed like every one was leaning towards the first shot.  Myself, included.

The cover we went with Sunday looked like this:

After the photo shoot and reworking of the background, I still really liked the cover.  I thought it encompassed the fun and excitement of spring.  I also liked how it was as if she was kissing winter goodbye.   The reason I wanted her to be in black and white, a part from standing out from the background, was because it showed that transition between seasons.  It's almost spring, but we're not yet there.  Just a few more weeks of braving the dreary conditions and then our days will be filled with sunshine and happiness.

There were some people who didn't like the kissing expression of the new cover.  Some comments said it was "too sexual" for VOX.  I consider myself a feminist and completely disagree.  I thought the cover was cute and more visually appealing than the dead-pan face of the original.  Alas, I didn't have much of a say and had to go back and redo the cover again with the expression-less photo of Kelsey.

You should all see the final on Thursday in print, but it will look more along the lines of this:

Not as fun, right?

Anyways, I learned more in this weekend than I probably did the entire last semester of Magazine Design.  I have a clear vision but I know my execution techniques are still playing catch-up.  When I began thinking of a design for the Spring Preview issue, I sat down with a pencil and sketchbook and drew five completely different rough versions of my ideas.  Some were completely ridiculous, and others I could never complete with the skills I currently have.  The whole publication process and collaborative efforts of the entire staff makes it even more difficult to get your ideas across, but overall I'm still happy with the way the cover turned out.  I have a feeling my entire semester will be spent immersing myself in the world of design and going through tutorials and endless magazines to become a better designer.  

Thanks for the help and support!

See this: Portlandia

Hey all,

This isn't part of my formal blog post this week, but I wanted to put up this clip because I thought it was so relatable to us as journalists.  I have become a recent fan of the show Portlandia, since the whole season is instantly available on Netflix.  I'm not calling all J-school students hipsters, but there's always a pressure on us to have read everything and be in-the-know.  Here's a clip from the show I thought you may enjoy:

So...

Did you read it?

Winning!

There will be revisions before publishing and a self-critique later on, but here's my cover for the Spring Preview issue:

Not sleeping pays off.

[[Happy dance]]

Don't miss this! Edward Leida

You've already heard me blab about one of my favorite magazines.  Why stop there?

W

Yep!  It's W, another American fashion/culture magazine.  Although it's also a larger format than most magazines, like Flaunt, it has a very different design aesthetic.  Last year they came out with a great video that gives a brief inside look at how Edward Leida, the Design Director of W, puts the magazine together and makes it beautiful.  He also offers a lot of great design advice.  Check it out!

I hope you all enjoyed this as much I did.

Response: Graphic Style/Flaunt magazine

I found a lot of inspiration while looking through Graphic Style this week.  Everything was so beautiful and my mind immediately went off in a million directions.  I particularly liked the Modern design section, specifically the pages on Futurism and Constructivism.  I have always been drawn to minimalist designs and geometric patterns.  This applies not only to my magazine preferences, but a lot of the clothing and jewelry I like as well.  You may be thinking... isn't she always wearing boyfriend jeans and sweaters, or that god-awful uniform with the black and gold striped tie?  && You'd be right, but I'm talking more about the items I treasure.

One of the magazines I always am excited to look through is Flaunt.  It's a fashion/culture magazine with larger than life photographs and provocative content.  It's eye candy.   (You'll see this is a trend with me)

Any oversized fashion magazine with beautiful photographs that's a bit risky and scandalous is mine off the shelf.  I can't help it.  I have the same reaction to gold glitter, shoulder pads and the color turquoise.

I took a snapshot of this cover from Flaunt's website.  It's not the newest issue, but the magazine is less than fifteen years old.   This one, from the Bronze Age issue, looks a lot like the examples shown in the modern section of Graphic Style.
Don't believe me?

El Lissitzky: Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge

Of course they aren't exactly the same, but there are definite similarities.  

Here's another example of a Flaunt cover, issue 103:

The old is always being redone and improved upon.  What's completely original these days, anyways?

{Like you haven't heard that one before}

SO, you should all go out and get a copy of Flaunt.

That's all, folks!