Ok, so it isn't the most exciting cover ever designed at VOX. But my approach to this assignment was to try and let the photos speak for themselves. I actually started with a detail shot on the cover and was planning to do something more creative with the headline. However, I was a little concerned about putting cigarettes on the cover so I just put this image on the page to see what I thought and decided I loved it. In retrospect, perhaps putting a photo of a storefront on the cover is super boring, but at the time I thought it was sort of like inviting people to come into the magazine and find out more, and since I really liked the graphic quality of the photo I thought it worked great.
I really liked my final product, though I have to say I still had some unfinished elements. Above are the two options I created for the opening spread. I loved the photo of the little boy looking at the cigarettes, but I felt a little uneasy about using it. So I turned in the spread with the owner looking through the glass. I thought it was a good way to open the story and introduce the main character. The photos were as much about him as they were about the roll-your-own smokes.
I was really happy with this spread. I thought blowing the detail shot up was a nice way to highlight that image and a great way to play off the other photos. I choose the two people rolling smokes to bring in the community aspect and the photo of the intertwined legs because it speaks so much to the feel of the place. My overall goal was to go for something with a European feel. Not sure if I accomplished that, but as Sonja is German and her style of photography has a very European feel I thought that would be a good approach. In the end I felt these photos complimented each other well which was the most important thing to me.
I was on the fence about the white space in the lower left-hand corner of the spread, but I tried it with a pull quote there and it just didn't feel right. Also, there was only one actual quote in the text and it was how the story ended, so it didn't seem to work anyway.
Finally, I felt like my closing page was the best example of my strengths and weaknesses. I just couldn't make the text work and so this page seems a little unfinished. I definitely could have worked this a little harder. Not that I mind the white space, but I just couldn't figure out a way to make it work. And I used the quote which I am sure wouldn't have cut it if my design had actually been chosen to be published as it was the closer to the story. It goes great with the photo, but it would have hurt the story impact. Still, I loved playing this photo large. It is one of the most fulfilling closing photos I've ever seen. It tells you so much about the guy and it works great as an ender with all the chairs put up on the tables and him cleaning up.
So, overall, I am pretty happy with how the design turned out, but I know there are some things I need to figure out if I am going to use this in my portfolio.
In the works:
I started on my Valentine's Day Gift Guide with Sydney Berry tonight. It took 3+ hours to sketch out the design. So we are off to a good start, but I have a lot of work ahead to make it look good.
Also need to come up with an illustration for the app that lets you prerecord a message from beyond the grave to be posted on your fb profile when you die. Any suggestions?
Looks like I won't be getting into the Spring Preview design work much until tomorrow.
And I think that is it for now. Until next week....
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