Saturday, January 31, 2009

Foodie fun (and then some)

As part of our tour of Meredith in Des Moines yesterday, we got to see the Better Homes and Gardens test kitchen and photo studio. For me, that was one of the most interesting parts of the day. Listening to the presentations and discussing covers was all good information, but actually seeing the props and photos that make up the magazine was really cool. Well, that and I love cooking and baking. Here are a few pictures from the day:

They had so many rolling pins!
As an avid coffee drinker myself, I had to get a shot of this old coffee can.
This is my favorite picture. I love the look of these old typewriters. So much so that I kind of wish I had one. Although, as slow as my computer had been today, it almost feels like I do.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Vanity Fair: The Portaits


Vanity Fair, The Portaits
Originally uploaded by j.ledbury
My parents gave me "Vanity Fair: The Portraits" this past Christmas. Vanity Fair is one of my favorite magazines, in part because of the gorgeous photography it always showcases. This book (which is pretty big and heavy) contains a century of the magazine's best images.

I love looking at the older photos, especially from the 1920's. It's interesting to see how some of those photos have influenced more contemporary art, photography and design. One of my favorite periods of design is Art Deco, which has influenced Vanity Fair. You can see the influences in the typography the magazine uses for its flag (and for the title of this book).

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Week 1 in review

I saw this post from the blog Publication Design that was published on election night. The post discusses an interactive graphic from the New York Times that asked users, "What one word describes your current state of mind?". A frequent reader of the Times, I saw this graphic during the election. I think it is such a great way to involve readers while supplying them with information about other people around America were feeling that night. The most popular words were played up larger and bolder than less common emotions. Words that were featured included, hopeful, relieved, euphoric, disgusted and my personal favorite, sassy.

This reminds me of a fun online application called Wordle. The application takes a block of text or a URL and creates something called word clouds that are similar to the graphic above. Words that appear more frequently are larger, while less frequently used words are smaller. It's both a cool way to see how often certain words are used as well as a cool typography treatment. Definitely worth checking out! Here is an example I made using the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry for the University of Missouri.

Winter/Spring semester started last week and it's been a little hectic. I'm looking forward to settling into a routine and adjusting to the different production schedules I have to follow. Once that happens I think things will be a bit less stressful. At the start of this week, my classmates and I submitted a cover and feature design in competition to get published for the Feb. 5th issue of Vox. I have mixed feelings about what I turned in. I think that I had a decent concept for my cover, just not one that was fully realized. What I submitted is to the left.

In addition to the cover, we also submitted a spread. I think my spread was a bit conventional. I didn't do anything too fancy, however I did try to emphasize the two different sides to the story. I noticed that a lot of people in the class decided to lead with the headline "Two faces of the economy". I chose not to do this because I didn't think that the two men profiled in the story should be labeled as the two faces of the economy. Rather, they were merely offering two separate views on the economy and the issues surrounding it. With all that in mind, I split the story into two main parts by using larger subheads paired with a picture of each subject. I think this story really lends itself to being split like this, so I want to continue with that idea while working on my revision. Right now, I'm not really sure about what I want to change to better express that idea. When I come up with a good solution, I will be sure to post it here.


Thursday, January 22, 2009

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.