You can't miss: April Fools!!!

From Smashing Magazine, comes an awesome list of gadgets(a lot of which are geeky) and ideas for pranking your friends on April Fools Day. Since we will all be gone next week and away from our blogs, I think this is the perfect moment to fill your minds with some sneaky ideas to prank the people you'll be spending the day with, for me it's my family and the random strangers at the airport, I hope y'all have some better choices. Smashing tweeted this post earlier and it caught my attention so I hope y'all enjoy it as much as I did. Here is a preview of some of the items:

Response: Meredith

Yesterday in class we had to present what we had to our class, our publishers, Jan and John. I was so nervous about this. I'm not a good public speaker, something I need to practice before we head to Iowa in May, and I was in the midst of re-designing my department head, which had me going crazy. I was so anxious for our presentation I managed to chew a sore on the inside of my lip waiting. After I got up there I showed what little I had, because I was not aware of the cover story yet and because I was changing the department head. I wanted to bring a lot of different options to the class yesterday because I really wanted everyone's input since I seemed to be hitting a road block. After listening to everyone and taking in all their advice, I've worked out a department head that I think will please my designers and the publishers, although I haven't presented it to them yet, that will happen tonight. It's still being tweaked so I want to wait until that's done. We have a long way to go on our design but I think once we get all our items set we'll be good to go. Since we've gotten all our text now and have begun getting photos, we should be set to start over break. So relaxing. I actually don't mind working on this, and I'd rather be doing it over so many other things. I think having break to work on it will be helpful since we won't be getting work thrown at us all the time and won't have to go to class and have other things occupying us, but this could just be me since all I'm doing is going home. I hope everyone who is going somewhere besides home gets to have fun.

Critique: Department page, round three

This weekend I designed my department page and this is the first one in a while, possibly ever, that I've had that doesn't include an ad on it. I'm grateful for this because it probably would have been difficult for me to fit everything on there with an ad this time around. I had my anchor story with a sidebar to fit, which went pretty well and was pretty standard, but I had a large DIY recurring section that was a bit of a squeeze. I also did the illustration for the section, and considering this is only my second go at illustrating something I think it turned out okay. I made the editors cut quite a bit of text to make everything fit but I think it all turned out alright. I'll post pictures once it runs tomorrow.

You can't miss: dreamworld cabinets

I was surfing many of my design sites one day in class and came across some beautiful furniture designs. When I grow up and get my own adult apartment I want some really fun and funky furniture and these reminded me of something out of Alice in Wonderland or Dr. Seuss and are completely something I would love to own one day. I found them on dornbob.com and am still not sure if I can buy them somewhere but I hope I can when I get my own place one day.

I did a little more searching and found the awesome person who made these and they were done by Vincent Thomas Leman and can be found at dustfurniture.com. 

Response: Design Mags

In class today we went over and got introduced to a few design magazines. I read a few of these in my, now rare, spare time and when I have a few extra dollars to spend on them but I'm not subscribed yet. I'm asking for a few subscriptions for my birthday. I really enjoyed seeing how different design magazines structured themselves and designed their layouts, especially since they have to showcase such beautiful designs.

Critique: Cover Concepts and forgotten designs

This past week I was on the design group for the rap battle cover. It was a tricky little number this time around since we didn't have any text, photos or information for our first time around. I did three concepts, which I'm not completely satisfied with, and will be working on revising two and hopefully I'll be able to pull off what I want. I'm also working on an illustration for my department page this weekend and hoping my practice in Illustrator pays off.

I'm also including a few forgotten designs that I didn't realize I had missed putting up over the weeks or I didn't have the jpgs yet. So here are some of the designs I've missed: 

You can't miss: Eating Utensils

When I think of well-designed objects the first things that come to my mind are not forks, knives, spoons, etc., but these designs are definitely original and gorgeous. I wanted to step away from what we think of in class and put something out here that is design related but out of our normal realm of thought. These pieces I found at toxel.com  via webdesignerdepot.com are so fun and nicely designed.

 

The last one is my favorite because it's so useful and allows you to set your silverware down without accidentally flipping food off the plate and spilling. 

Response: The September Issue

In class today we watched The September Issue and I was so excited about it. I had seen the movie before but still enjoy watching it every time. Last year when this movie came out I could not wait to see it. I had left the idea of working for a magazine completely behind me and switched directions and was thinking more about other ways I could go with design. After seeing the movie I remembered why I wanted to work in this industry for so long. I changed back to my aspirations of working for a magazine and hope to achieve that someday. Unlike some of the people on the video and I'm sure in class I would love to work for a fashion magazine and even Vogue. I would love the opportunity to work alongside Grace Coddington and even Anna Wintour. Grace's work is so amazing and beautiful and watching her fight for her designs and not give up even when her stuff is criticized or cut out is definitely a lesson I can learn from this film.

Critique: Logos

So this week we turned in our final five logo choices for LBB. Through this entire process I learned how difficult it is to design a good logo. It was such a challenge for me to come up with five different concepts that I thought fit her personality and encompassed everything she wanted in her design. Here are the final five I came up with, I can't wait to hear what she has to say about them.

You can't miss: Type on bottles

This week on typegoodness.com  I found a great post with some beautiful examples of how type is displayed on bottles. It reminded me of LBB and her bourbon and how one of our logos could be placed on a bottle of hers if she wanted it. It wouldn't be as dominant as these of course but these are a few of the beautiful and well done examples of using type on bottles, I just love well-designed packaging. 

This last one is what really reminded me of our assignment with LBB.

Response: Logos galore

This week our first round of LBB logos were due and I am less than pleased with my work. Logos are way far out from anything I've designed before and definitely are taking some getting use to for me but I'm enjoying the learning process. The ones everyone liked kind of surprised me because they were the most simple but that also didn't surprise me because the ones where I tried to combine all the elements she wanted just didn't turn out well for me. There were a lot of good logos yesterday and I hope she picks someone from our group because that would be a great experience for them. I've already started re-working the logos from yesterday and coming up with some new ways to approach them so I've taken apart a lot of what I had yesterday but as soon as some new designs develop come up I'll post them here.

Critique: Prototype Design

         

Last week we had to propose designs for prototype magazines for a publisher that cannot be revealed. We once again were in a competition with each other, although in smaller groups. Here are the designs I came up with, a couple cover ideas, a TOC, a department page and feature. I think once we start laying out some copy with the publishers and getting an idea of what they really want we'll be able to get down to a more solid and cohesive design.