FINAL MAG DESIGN _Close up!

Please see previous posts for full process.

Done! Whoo hoo!

Let's never Fight again

Turned out I was a bit harsh on my computer -- it wasn't to blame after all! It was my flash drive! We're on friendly terms again (for now).

Final Mag Design

Well, the computer wars are near an end. I've fought valiantly, but my computer continues to prevail. Urgh. Nevertheless, after hours of saving, resaving and rebooting, I finally have the final pieces printed out (except for the cover and table of contents, which remain in limbo because KINKOS sucks... more on that to follow shortly).

Anywho, without further ado, here are the final designs!!!



Here, I blocked up the main title and kerned the lettering. I then gridded off the main text so it would fit exactly under the main titles, making a larger box grid. I really like how it came out. I also rescanned everything in order to better remove the moire pattern. I'm actually really happy with the outcome. I'm scared to reread it now, though, for fear that I'll find an evil typo!



This is an interior spread. evened out the columns and recentered the images. The strip on the right page goes all the way to the center margin. I wanted everything to have a very streamlined look. Pretty happy with the results.

Now for another rant... KINKOS, my ultimate frenemy. They're a friend because the one near my house is open 24 hours, which suits my insomniac nature. They're an enemy because I've often been befuddled by strange printing errors. Well, first I went around 5pm and printed everything. However, once I got everything mounted, I discovered some printer roller marks on the editorial... so I wanted to reprint. I went back to KINKOS just an hour later, and was told they don't have any 12 by 18 paper... strange considering they had this size just an hour earlier. I pointed that out, and was told "we may have it, and I just don't know where it is." ... here's a thought... look for it! YOU HAD IT JUST A MOMENT AGO!!!!

Argh... it's the lack of sleep and finals speaking. End of rant.

Book Covers FINAL POST

Done with the book covers! YAY! So happy. I think they came out pretty well. Here they are in all their glory!



Just played around with the color a bit on the sticky. To give a brief rundown on the entire process, the book covers are intended to each mimic the main character's writing style, as well as embody their overall aesthetic. In this case, Lolita is a teenage girl. Therefore, her book cover is made to look like a teenage girl's notebook scribblings. The crumpled texture is intended to refelct the loss of innocence common to each book.



Finalized the color here, too. Holly Golightly is more sophisticate than Lolita, so I designed the cover to mimic a page out of date book and incorporated cursive typography.



Finally -- Baby Doll: The ypography is meant to look simple -- more in keeping with Baby Doll's character. It's written on young children's type paper.

Please see earlier posts for full process description.

Apology?

"I'm not sure if this friendship can continue when you're just so unreliable."

Books and Brides

It's been awhile since I've posted -- most of that has to do with the fact that my computer hates me. Still have exporting and importing problems. About a month ago I took my computer in to have additional memory put in. The problems have persisted since that time. I know-- I need to go back and have them look at it. But that seems like so much more work than spending hours cursing at my computer while banging my head against a desk.

Anywho, here's what I've been up to.

Finalized by book covers (yippie!) Here they are:




(February has been deleted from the final file).

Also, began work on my magazine spreads. Feel free to browse my flickr stream to see full description of process up to this point. Here is the cover as it stands now:



I'm still working with typography along the side. I'm thinking of replacing Perpetua with Futura Light.

I also started working on the TOC. It came down to two choices:

1.

2.

I discussed the two options in class, and decided that option 2 is the best to pursue. I will also continue working on the typography here... add a little color!

Finally, I started working on the interior spreads. Here's what I have so far:



I'm hoping the title is legible now. I'm thinking about adding color to the "trendsetters" to set it off a bit more.



I think I need to widen the distance between columns and the pictures -- but it's a general idea of the layout.

Now that I've discussed a bit about where I am in the process... I now want to rant about scanners to my undoubtedly captive audience.

Scanners are nearly as bad as computers. I have scanned, rescanned and re-rescanned so many of my picture that I'm beginning to see resolution controls in my sleep! Why can't a descreener really descreen? Do they just put that button there to mock those of us who might even consider the possibility that the moire pattern might be removed by simple technology during the scanning process? It's a conspiracy in my humble opinion -- a conspiracy designed ingeniously to drive design students crazy.

Anywho... that's my theory... meticulously conceived by overwrought design student/ insomniac at 1am in the morning (as trustworthy as that sounds).

Computer Hell

Computer problems -- story of my life. My computer has temporarily decided that it wants to corrupt my files. This is not making me very happy. Sadly, technical difficulties have kept me from posting... will post once they're figured out. Everything seems to work internal to my computer... but it won't export anywhere.

This is what pissed chick has to say about all that:



Somehow I feel better now.

Huge Post -- with some rewards if you read carefully

It's certainly been a whirlwind of weekend. I've gone through several ideas for the book cover designs, and I think I've finally landed on a route I like. Well, here's the weaving path that got me there.

1. Thought I would do illustrations (as seen below). However, after some time considering it, decided an alternative route to my typical illustrative style would be a good exercise.

2. Thought I would do photography. Got everything set up, got my sister to agree to pose, art directed the shoot, loaded everything into my computer, tweaked the photos, added text.... realized it had all been done before.

In the risk of pure embarrassment... and with the prerequisite note that I had never before seen the actual Lolita cover... I'll share with you the similarities between my photo and the existing cover. Here's my cover:



Here's the cover of an existing Lolita book (Again, I swear I never saw this before making mine... so weird)



Can you believe that? Same pose and everything!?! Have to admit I shed a couple of irritated tears when I found this (found it in the process of looking for summary text for the back copy of MY cover).

3. Stewed over my hard luck for a bit

4. Got a cup of coffee

5. Stewed a bit more

6. Drew a ton of sketches

7. Hated all my sketches

8. Doodled in my notebook -- likes what I saw. Thus -- the doodle idea. The idea I've finally arrived at that I think I like best, is to have the cover based on how the character might write -- i.e. Lolita is a teenager, so the title is written in typical teenage girl fashion on notebook paper surrounded by doodled hearts and flowers. Here's what I have so far:



Still need to work on the spine and some details -- but I'm pretty happy so far.

The Breakfast at Tiffany's cover is more elegant cursive on a day planner:



Yay for Marian Bantjes research!

Finally, the Baby Doll cover is the most simple -- with child-like drawings and handwriting.



That was actually the hardest one. I wrote the text with my left hand -- an activity easier said than done. Finally put to bed any aspirations of being ambidextrous. So sad.

9. Passed out from exhaustion. (yeah right.. I wish!)

10. Woke up to write this.

11. Who knows what the future brings? Coffee I hope.


Oops! Almost forgot to calendar out the rest of the term:

Tomorrow (today... Oh my gosh... I need to go to bed): digital version of three covers -- ACCOMPLISHED! See above.

Thursday: Complete the spine of all three covers and edit details

Following Tuesday: Complete book covers. Beging magazine redesign. Have digital version of the cover and beginning of table of contents.

Following Thursday: Make revisions on cover and post ideas for spreads

Following Tuesday: Have digital version of the cover, toc and 2, 2 page spreads

Following Thursday: Make revisions

This Calendar may be subject to change -- changes will always be made in advance at prescribed meeting times.

If you're still reading this post... here's your reward:



Pissed chick wants you to have this tasy ice cream cone.

Process!

Just experimenting with blocking in the color. I think it gives it a bit retro look -- or at least that's what I'm hoping.

(what, aren't most people blue?)

She'll have both legs eventually, I swear. The bear's body issues will also be resolved. :-)

Book Covers

Wow-- I've gone through about 500 sketches (perhaps an exaggeration)... and I haven't been happy with anything. On the 501 sketch I finally arrived at a possible solution I like. From the get go I've been thinking that I would like to do the minxes series for the book covers. I had the idea of using legs for each cover. When I started sketching, however, I thought a lot of them were coming out a bit too suggestive... still, Baby Doll, Lolita and Breakfast at Tiffany's certainly have their suggestive sides. Anyway, I toned it down a bit, and I think I'm still going to pursue the leg theme as a unification for the various covers. For all of them I want to stick to a pastel color palatte suggesting innocence -- an irony in light of the various subject matters.

Without further ado... here are my sketches so far. I think I'm going to start playing with type in Illustrator... my handwritten type stinks.

Here's the sketch for Lolita:



Again, the color palette will be pastels... I'm thinking of also "coloring" the legs in large blocks of solid color that don't necessarily match the forms. Also thinking about placing the back cover type at an angle so it mimics the angle of Lolita's leg on the cover.... just a thought.

Here's the Baby Doll sketch:



Again-- pastel colors that will tie in with the Lolita cover. Still working on a sketch for Breakfast at Tiffany's. I think my hand may fall off soon.... so I may work on the typography with the existing sketches for now.

And so it begins!

Well, I did quite a bit of brainstorming over the weekend, and I think I've settled on my two projects for the rest of the term. First off, I would like to work on the book covers. I'm still trying to narrow down which series of book covers I'd like to do, though. I'm tied between "Lovers," "Minxes" and "Spine Tinglers." I did a series of quick thumbnails for each. Super early ideas at this point (and drawn horribly to boot!)

So here, I'm thinking about doing a series of leg images to illustrate either "Lovers" or "Minxes." For example, "Babydoll" might be a childlike drawing of a small girl from the waist down. Breakfast at Tiffiany's might be a sultry leg in heals, etc.

Here's page two.



If I do the "Spine Tinglers" I really want to avoid cliches. I was thinking about focusing on large, kind of intimidating typography with a small figure in silhouette in the center. For Frankenstein in might be a small bird (freedom), for Dracula a deer (innocence of an animal before it's attacked). For Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I'm still thinking -- possible a rat.

Sigh, I'm still not sure which one I'll do though.

For the other project, I'm going to do the "Rad Maker" series of Posters. My Rad Maker: Marian Bantjes

Here's some initial examples of her work I absolutely love!!!

What can I say? Funny stuff. Can't bring yourself to make bad type for the bad type conference--- make the type literally bad. The part I love the most is that it's at St. Brides.


LOVE THIS! I love the line of the figure and how it bleeds into the text. So beautiful .
Don't you love all the curls! I do. They kind of remind me of snakes
Love this! Reminds me of Arabic writing.
The texture on this one is really nice. Very natural.
I find this super interesting -- incorporating illustration with a beautiful swirl design.

The Horror is Here! Final Monster Process

The Monster type is nearly complete! Here's my cue for a maniacal laugh -- M'wha ha ha ha! It's alive!

Now that I have that out of my system... thought I would share my final Monster process. Scroll down for FULL set of cards!!!

So from Saturday to Monday I created four boxes -- all of which completely and utterly failed. First, I realized my design wasn't correct and the folding flap didn't work. I then realized that too much glue is not always a good thing. Finally, I had to come to terms with the fact that straight edges are not always as straight as they seem... especially if you've placed them at an angle. Sigh.

On Monday night I was in quite the dilemma. I only had one sheet of large heavy-weight paper left... and the final box HAD to work or else I was out of luck. So I began working on the process at 5pm... and here's the process in its entirely.

STEP-BY-STEP PHOTO GUIDE TO CONSTRUCTING A BOX WHEN YOU'RE SHORT ON SUPPLIES

STEP 1
Begin with a smile. If you're not smiling at this point, it's only going to get worse from here.


(yes, I know it's not July... I just like Remy. If you haven't seen Pixar's Ratatouille, you should go rent it now!)

STEP 2
Make sure your cutting materials are really sharp. Dull blades = sad, untidy lines. Learned this one the hard way.


STEP 3
Makre sure your workspace looks like this:

...and not like this:


(don't worry... not my desk. Just something I found online -- that's being truly buried in your work).

STEP 4

Spray mount (or whatever sticky process you prefer) your design to your final piece of heavy weight board. Be sure to document this, as this may be the last time you see your design looking like your design.


STEP 5
Use a straight-edge ruler to make your lines look straight and pretty.


Here's how it should look after your hours of tedious labor.



STEP 6
Take a break and drink your beverage of choice. My choice: Coffee... I know they say it will tense you up, but after years of Starbucks addiction, it's become a much-needed friend. Thank you Frappuccinos.


STEP 7
Back to work! Use whatever scoring materials you have available (in my case, the side of a butter knife) to score the fold lines and fold 'er up.


STEP 8

Now, this is the hard part... and where I went wrong multiple times. Glue the two side flaps together. Be careful not to over glue!

STEP 9

Bask in the glory of success.


Wasn't that fun?

the complete set!

Here's several shots of the complete set: