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.....