Response >> Ad Design

So, to "be able to do everything," I decided to take on some spec ads at my internship about a week ago. WOW, it was challenging. I had to design an ad for a salon/spa, a title company and mc sports. The salon ad I showed was the easiest. I tried to play off the new salon's name (the beach salon) to help with name recognition..so i found the photo of the woman on the beach and came up with the headline get away/getaway... a clever little play on words I must say. I really like this ad. It's pretty and simple.

The MC Sports ad was hard. They just remodeled in the mall and the store is HUGE. I wanted to do something with that so I did an all text ad that made the shape of a roof saying something like everything you need under one huge roof. My boss wasn't crazy about it and I wasn't either. She wanted me to use photos, so I ended up with this. I was going for a dream like layout, with all of these photos overlapped and crowded, like an athletes thoughts about sports. It may be a stretch, I know...but....


Finally, for the title ad (PS I had to call my dad to figure out what a title company was, I just couldn't wrap my head around it), I had a lot of trouble. The company was looking for name recognition and credibility, so I first designed an ad that looked like a dictionary entry of his name, and the definitions were things that set his business apart. It worked in theory, but not on the page..the layout wasn't right at all. So, my boss again encouraged me to look for a photo. The business prides itself on giving clients personal attention, so I ended up with this. (The photo hasn't been downloaded yet). I like it because it's fun, but its one of those things I don't know if other people will get right away. I knew it was for a title company...but I'm not sure others will get that right away...so i'm guessing it still needs tweaking.



Overall these projects reminded me how hard ad design is. What I took from it is that while with mag design you have a few pages to get across a concept or idea, to be complicated and daring, with ads it's best to go the route you do with covers--simple and direct. there is room for concepts, but if you do go that direction you have to be able to get it across immediately.

You Can't Miss

So, I came across this following my blog. The website it comes from isn't necessarily fantastic, but I wanted to show this for the people doing web projects for meredith. I think this would be a great way to display the site work on our personal site. You could have detail shots of elements you designed, and then the overall screen shot of the site..the same presentation idea as this:

Oh, Mizzou.

Since everyone is feeling a bit nostalgic, I thought I would share with everyone a picture taken on the day I moved in. It's okay, you can laugh at my blonde hair. :)

CRITIQUE:

Let's see...This past week I spent a LOT of time designing a brochure for a job I applied for. I designed two and was debating on which one to send. They ended up allowing me to send both, which I was really happy with. Both designs were completely different, showing them, in my opinion my versatility as a designer. Crossing my fingers, folks!

I also spent a lot of time this week designing spec-ads for Inside Columbia. They were a challenge, but I'll get to it more in my reaction. I worked on 3. One for a salon, one for a title company and one for mc sports. Here is the salon one, which I was most happy with (and it came the easiest if you didn't guess that already.)



WHAT'S NEXT:

My website took a back seat to the above projects as well as my diligent effort to finish my online class, ONE TEST LEFT! Yay! It will be my focus as well as my mini portfolio in the next week. After looking at everyone's websites I always get really excited about working on it..I can't wait until I can send everyone the link to my completely finished, flawless website. COMING SOON! I will also be designing a graduation announcement for myself!

And finally, I will be working on some more Vox things. I will be finishing up my tecktonik illustration from a few weeks ago..it is now going to run in the 5/14 issue as well as figure out some type of multimedia for that. I also will be doing my second feature for the magazine, a photo essay about working women..no word on that yet, however..i am awaiting photos.

Response >> Vox Redesign

I wanted to say congrats to Meredith on her redesign of Vox.(Vox is a weekly city magazine published with the Columbia Missourian newspaper) We can all definitely respect the time and effort she put into this project.

I really loved the redesign. I think the editor's were probably squirming a little bit that text is going to be cut. a lot. but, i think in this day and age, witty short writing is necessary. save the long winded stuff for the feature well. in all honesty, i rarely read all of the department page stories from week to week. i usually thumb through, read things that LOOK interesting and then move onto the feature well.

I think Meredith's design will get people like me to stop and read the different department pages, which usually do have some great and fun writing. It goes back to the purpose of design--to get reader's to dive in.

great job, i hope to get a clip with your new design to share on my blog!

You Can't Miss >> Art Farm

Well, I'm not sharing this with you because I think the art/design is amazing, but I think the concept of this Art Farm blog is kind of cool. It shows your more of who she is and makes her more interesting.

Basically Judith Hunt (mainly an illustrator of children's books) combines her blog with the two things she loves: farming & art. I was trying to think of what my two love combo's could be....

design & napping, design & tequila, design & fast food, design & starbucks? i think this means i need a hobby.....

What I want to show you guys though, is the neat way she shows her work online. In my trend interview Cassie Darst of 417 Mag said that presentation of your work can set you apart. While this may not apply to us, it got me thinking about how I could present my design in a CONTENT DRIVEN way. haha, oh thank you jan.

She shows hers as a story book..each little book mark is clickable and brings you to a new page. here is a screen shot. check out her blog at http://www.downontheartfarm.blogspot.com

Week >> Less than a month to graduation!

Less than a month away.. I don't know whether to be excited or hide! I have so much to do before the end!

CRITIQUE:

Since I have nothing better to do (haha, ya right) I decided to count how many hours I spent designing this past weekend: 29.5! It's a good thing I love design.

My biggest focuses (foci?) this weekend were the criminal justice feature and countryhome.com. Both were successfully completed!

The draft of the criminal justice feature we showed Meredith I did like. However, we were trying to merge two ideas and it wasn't really working. Meredith and her amazing design skills helped us end up with an awesome and fun clip (that has no pink!). But here is one of my drafts of a spread. After it publishes on Thursday I will post the final and you can see how it changed for the better.


Next, the tecktonik man! There was some major confusion about whether this is running online this week or serving as an evergreen, but I designed him just in case. If it doesn't fun I'm hoping to give him some really cool sneakers and do something multimedia to make it more fun. But you know you love his purple skinny jeans.




Countryhome.com...oh, country home. I accomplished a lot with this project this weekend. I finally found a "style" I liked for the design of secondary features on the department pages. This image/design is clickable and leads you to a new page where the feature is. I think it is simple enough but still encompasses Kristen's feel she was going for. I also finished updating slideshows, fixing things here and there, and adding ads to the site. From here on out we just have some "tweaking" to do, mainly spacing issues of where things are placed on the site.



Finally, after such an exciting weekend, we turned in covers this morning for Vox. We had a few topics to pick from since the photo cover that originally was supposed to run was lacking great photos. I'll be honest, I was pretty burnt out and my cover lines aren't too witty. But, I like most of the concepts. I haven't done a full text cover yet and I love them, so I figured this was a good time to do it. The one with the marriage vow I thought was fun & poking fun a little bit at the issue. The "acceptance" cover may not necessarily work with the story. Our TA had reinforced that domestic partnerships aren't just for gay couples. But, after reading a Missourian (the local newspaper) story about it, it expressed that a lot of LGBTQ community members were present. While domestic partnership may not mean LGBTQ, the bottom line seems to be that this domestic partnership registry is making a difference in their lives, so why not focus on that aspect? I thought this quote was strong and I'm in love with this font (thanks meredith!) I'm sure I will overuse it from here on out...oh well. Finally I did a cover about the art of the encore story. The story seemed to talk alot about the "moment" bands decide to do the encore or not, the audience cheering and waiting to see what they decide. I wanted to focus on that moment by having the empty stage..and lets be honest, by cover line isn't very creative, but you get what I'm going for.






Oh and finally, I created this little RSVP card for my sister's graduation party brunch. I tried to get it to match her invitation, which I might add has a not so pretty design. It came as part of her senior picture package. But she looks goregous, so that's what matters. Anywho, here's my little card (and the ugly invite..should have let me handle it, MOM)





WHAT'S NEXT:

This week I will have cover revisions for Thursday....photos for the art of the encore story will be posted tomorrow, so I may try my hand at that.

I am also designing 3 spec ads for Inside Columbia advertising clients this week...eeek. I'm making myself do it because I only have one true ad in my portfolio. I'm trying to diversify (after hearing our trend interviews) even though I'm not very good at ad design. I will post what I come up with. I'm doing ads for MCSports, a new salon in town, and a title company (any ideas for this one?)

I will also be FINISHING my website and STARTING my mini-portfolio (i hope) oh..and about that online class i need to finish to graduate.....

Response >> I'm an Idiot

So, I probably shouldn't publicize on my blog that my resume had errors on it, (the correct, PERFECT version has replaced the one posted a few weeks ago)but I do think its SUPER important to emphasize what Jen Rowe and Andrea Hinnant have been telling us. These mistakes are crucial. If I don't get the job, I will be kicking myself repeatedly that this may be what cost me the position. Before turning in my Mizzou portfolio this afternoon, I treated my resume like an editing assignment. Going letter by letter, word by word to make sure NOTHING was wrong with it. I'm trying not to harp on it too much, lesson learned. I need to slow down and pay attention to detail.

Luckily, though, I did atleast get a phone interview. To give each of us a little encouragement, I was told that even though I didn't have as many years of experience as any of the other applicants, she thought my work was fantastic. I gave myself a little pat on the back when she said that. Regardless of whether I get the job, I can be proud that on the very first portfolio/resume I sent out, the ONLY reason I got a phone interview (reminder-spelling mistakes on the resume) was because of my design work. Perhaps these past few, grueling months, are worth it after all! :)

You Cant Miss >> Im A Thai Designer

So, I've been puzzled now for quite awhile about whether or not to put a photo of myself on my website. Well, for those of you debating about it as well, I found the perfect way for us to incorporate a photo.

On I'm a Thai Designer, each designer has a photo of themselves holding something super creative that says "Im a Thai Designer." While we obviously wouldn't use those words, I'm sure we could each think of something...I may go with the original, "I'm an awesome designer," haha. But, this is on my project do do list.






To me, this is the perfect solution to put my face on the site and make a connection but still have it be somewhat content driven, I'm showing you my design skill. The two I posted above are my favorites, but check out the site for some others that are equally as cool.

thaigraphicdesigner.wordpress.com

Week >> Never ending?

As I typed never ending, I thought to myself, is that one word or two, is there a hyphen? Thanks Jen Rowe, for getting me thinking that way, but the sad part is, I don't know the answer.

Anywho, this week in design...

CRITIQUE:

I worked on the Criminal Justice feature last week. Christy, Abbey and I went our separate ways to begin with and each have an element of our original designs we will bring to the final spread. Christy and I attended the photo shoot we had set up with our justice league members. It went, okay. We probably could have been a little more vocal, but at least on her camera we did see some stuff we really liked. We also ended up having her shoot some sillhouette shots which were very cool, I'm hoping we can find a way to incorporate them. Here are some of my initial designs/elements.






Next I'll move on to good old countryhome.com. Designing for web is the most time consuming thing I have ever done. Creating something in indesign or illustrator, then making it a jpeg, then loading it into dreamweaver to find it doesn't work and starting ALL OVER again. This weekend I spent most of my time designing my secondary features. They aren't quite there yet and I'm not proud enough of them to post, but I will soon.

I am also working on an illustration for the art department about some dance craze called tecktonik (I don't know if I spelled that right). Phillip had sent us the youtube link..It's very fun, so that is what I am going for in my illustrations. Here is what I started with having not seen the video...I'm going to stick with the basic format of my little guy (I am trying to give him hightops and a mohawk, I welcome suggestions on how to do it and make it look good). I also had high hopes for making this a little multimedia treat for online...but we will see how much time I have.

Here's my little dancing man.



WHAT'S NEXT:

I will keep working on countryhome.com. This evening I have been working on adjusting color in my slideshows as well as redesigning one. It at times can be overwhelming but one of my slideshows is teaching me how to organize a lot of text in an efficient and visually appealing way.

I will also keep working on the Criminal Justice feature. It will run in next Thursday's issue. As well as my little dance crazed man. I will post the final designs then.

The mini-portfolio (and big one for that matter) eeeeek...I'm avoiding it.

I will also be doing my FINAL Vox cover sometime this weekend. Typically due tomorrow, we are waiting on photos because it is going to most likely be a photo cover about the "Art of the Encore." I do have one non-photo cover in mind, however. Look out for these soon!

After doing my Mizzou portfolio today, I am really wanting to get some redesigns done.

Oh, and somewhere in all of this, apply for jobs!

Week 10

CRITIQUE:
This past week I didn't do as much design work as usual. I did however, send out my first resume and portfolio for a JOB, which is what consumed a lot of my time. I probably obsessed over it a little too much, but I was confident with what I finally sent out of kinkos doors (after printing everything, changing my mind, going home to make the changes, and reprinting!).

WHAT'S NEXT:
I will be working on countryhome.com things next week as well as a criminal justice feature for Vox. I will also be thinking of ideas for my mini portfolio and working on finishing my website!! I will post what I come up with for the criminal justice feature later this evening.

Response>>Art Director Help

For a class assignment we were to get in touch with someone in the industry, ideally in a position we are interested in. I spoke with an art director at a city/regional magazine. Her information was certainly helpful.

My biggest concern was what to do upon graduation in a time when getting a job is so hard to do. Her biggest piece of advice was to make your self extremely versatile. Know how to design, but also know how to do everything else. Photograph, do multimedia, style shoots, etc. And have a diversified portfolio that shows you can do it all.

My discussion with her gave me a little kick to get started on things like t-shirt design. It will diversify my portfolio. From interning at inside columbia magazine, i know that have various events they create bags and t-shirts for, etc. I think it will be just one more thing to set me apart from other applicants. It also encouraged me to go back to something that I really love and FIND time to do it because now I certainly have a reason, photography. Hopefully despite the business of the next few weeks I will be able to get out and shoot. Photographs to be coming soon...

You Can't Miss>>T Shirt Designs

One thing for my design career I would really like to get into is t-shirt design. My boyfriend used to do it, so whenever I get a moment, he will be teaching me the ins and outs! In the meantime, I found this really cool site called threadless.com. Once I actually get a design I can submit it on this sight to be sold and printed, how cool is that? For those of you with a similar interest or who have done work designing t shirts, check it out. Oh ya, and you can also get paid for it. Yay money!



here is one of my favorites i saw on the site:

Response>>Web & The Job Hunt

So, I'm feeling talkative this morning and I'm going to post 2 responses. Aren't you lucky to here an extra insight of mine?

This morning my design group had our critique for the countryhome.com project we have been working on. In all honesty, it got picked apart. Really picked apart. As it should have been, however. The 3 designers, although working off of a style guide, built 2 department pages each. They all ended up being very different. I think the biggest problem, though, was that since we didn't write the content it was hard to have any direction with how the story or department should look. I think we all realized how crucial it is for the publishers and designers to work together. They all had visions for their content, which made great sense, but weren't executed by us, or if they were they were misunderstood. I've learned through this experience that email and written instructions don't really cut it when it comes to trying to build something visually. A lesson learned that a team is a team and while it can be a pain to sit down and walk through your design with someone the bottom line is on a company project in the real world building essentially other people's vision (the creative director and publishers/editorial) takes teamwork!

Oh the real world.

Which brings me to my next response. I have finally jumped on the band wagon and started seriously looking for jobs. I am applying for my first one this week. I forgot what a task it is to redo resumes, write cover letters, get references, etc. I've also learned that I may be over obsessing about it all. I cannot decide what clips to use. If my resume should have activities or not. Blah blah blah. But, I think with a deep breath I've decided that while the details certainly need to be in place I need to let my design work speak for itself and have a little big more confidence. I also need to quit obsessing over one job and start getting myself out there to open doors. So, what a better way to get myself out there then post my resume on my blog! Here is the most basic version. Feel free to share it with anyone and everyone you know! (And give me feed back since even though I say I'm trying not to I'm still obsessing over if its "right")



download the PDF here
http://bengal.missouri.edu/jlafyb/images/Resume.pdf

and here's just an image, too

You Can't Miss>>Personal Websites

So I thought a lot yesterday about what Sarah and Philip said when presenting their sites. Sarah had her little quippy welcome to my site page that shows her personality and Philip has his picture to give his design/site a face. I'm still not sure what I think about making your site very personal. I like the idea initially because it does give you a face, set you apart from other designers, make you human, etc...but can showing your personality hurt you? If the client doesn't feel drawn to you? Or if your personal design style shows through (even though your work may show a variety of styles) will a client focus on that instead of your work? (I worried about this with my logo--although, I do think my logo helps show my variety in that it's not cute and girly!)

Well while I certainly don't know the right answer, I did find to websites/blogs off of the blog I follow designers-who-blog.com that have personality shining through. I'd like to know what you think. Is it too much?

Dickson Fong shows his personality much more through his copy while Malene Hald does through her header designs. Check them out and let me know what you think...It would really help me in deciding how much "personality" to put on my site.

Dickson Fong http://www.dicksonfong.com

Malene Hald http://malenehald.dk/blog/

Week 9?

It's sad I've lost track of what week it is! But even though I missed blogging for a week, I certainly didn't take a break from designing (though it was probably needed!)

CRITIQUE:

Let's see....

About 2 weeks ago I worked on designing a new set of covers for Vox. This set is about a play called "The Verge," which focuses on the psyche of the woman, what women want, etc. Being in the mood that I was I tried to do some unconventional things although the original plan was to make it a photo cover. I think I probably went a little overboard with the dominatrix idea but I think it was fun and poked fun at the feminist ideal behind the play. I also really liked my vegas show girly cover which pretty much had NOTHING to do with the assignment..but I will definitely keep this around for future inspiration. I think this covers helped me realize an edgy/sexier design style beyond my typical "cute" and "girly."






I worked really hard over break on designing a logo to "brand" myself. I wanted something I could put on my resume, website, business card, etc. I wanted to LOVE it and have it embody "me." From the feedback I got from my classmates they all really seemed to like the final product. I may tweak it a bit, and I have done some flash work with the lines for my website. But, overall I like the feel of it.



My website is a work in progress but www.jenaleneanderson.com is a working site! Now that I've battled the dreamweaver and flash demons, I'm actually really excited and eager about improving it and advancing my skill in these programs. While it's not so fun to necessarily tackle all of the technical that comes with the programs, seeing the finish product makes up for it and let's me give myself a pat on the back for learning something new!

Speaking of WEB, I also worked on our countryhome.com project over break. It was certainly a challenge (I tackled this before my own site, so this is where I did a lot of my learning). To be honest, I'm not that proud of my "designs," I think I was getting too caught up in the web and making it work. This week I will be going back (after working with the other designers and publishers) and doing some re-working.

While on break I worked on another "Look of the Month" and "Shopping Page" for Inside Columbia Magazine. The theme of May's issue is travel so I went with an outfit easy to travel in (wrinkle free!) and a shopping page of every possible bag you could ever need when you travel. I'll be designing those next week. Here is the image we will use for the LOM, just to give you a sneak peak.



Oh ya, and I redesigned a redesign for my portfolio.