Photo Inspiration: Sunset

This week my photo inspiration is one I took from my iPhone. I was taking the back road to school from my "home" home (Fulton, MO) and I had to snap a picture of this beautiful sunset and the clouds.

You Can't Miss This: Daily Dishonesty & Spooner's Twitter Background Tutorial

A. One simple google search for design blogs led me to a college grad's blog that I am now obsessed with. From www.thedsgnblog.com, I was linked to a girl named Lauren Hom's blog titled "Hom Sweet Hom." Clever, right? But Hom's best design work (in my opinion) was something I found on her blog titled "Daily Dishonesty." Hom explains that she got the idea as a senior in college so it was no surprise that I immediately liked it. She used her love for typography, copywriting and illustration to come up with these designs. She described the phrases as "lies I tell myself on a regular basis." I know I can agree with many. My favorite is her illustrations for her "Self Medicate With Chocolate" design. She went through many different sketches and designs on the computer before executing the final design. The images are protected but the following link will send you to all of them. Clicking on the first image will lead to the next.

http://laurennicolehom.com/Daily-Dishonesty-1

Directly from thedsgnblog.com I found Hom's work she did designing for a restaurant known especially for their hot peppers. The following designs were appealing to me. It almost reminded me of Chipotle's designs, which makes sense because this restaurant also focuses on the natural quality of their food. Hom uses a nice variety of typography.

B. I emailed you all saying my blog pick from the list was linedandunlined.com but they haven't updated their posts in awhile. My new blog I'll be following this semester is http://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/

For this week on Blog.Spoon Graphics I checked out an article about a customized Twitter background. Chris Spooner explains different techniques he uses to create an appealing and unique background for Twitter. These backgrounds put mine to shame...

To get spacing accuracy for his background design, Spooner took a screen shot of his Twitter screen, so he could place it in his design program. Reducing the transparency helped him see where the background belonged and what dimensions to use. The complete tutorial is here: 

http://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/articles/the-making-of-my-new-twitter-background-design

This is what Chris Spooner's Twitter backgrounds looked like in 2009 and 2010. He has since updated I believe. 

Response: Ch. 2-5 iPad Design Lab

After reading some of iPad Design Lab-Storytelling in the Age of the Tablet, I realized the difference between designing for print rather than a tablet. The chapters about pop-ups were most effective for me. I think a lot of thought goes into when to include pop-ups and how to include them. For example, captions could be used on photos, or even mini stories to go along with long-form writing. Not only is it important to tell the story in an interesting way, but on a tablet we need to remember to tell the story in an aesthetically appealing way.

Also, we discussed in class the importance of keeping your audience in mind for tablet design. For someone who wants news and wants to read it quickly, the colorful pop ups and links or photos are unnecessary. Many magazines, however, will have stories that will be much more exciting with multimedia effects. For example, a profile on a musician or a band could be much more interesting to read with audio playing in the background or by a click of a button.

A takeaway from reading from the iPad Design Lab is that you should first identify your publication completely in other platforms before designing for the tablet. You should know what the publication stands for and keep that consistent throughout all platforms. Readers should be able to see common features comparing print and digital publications, but also enjoy differences in the interaction and design elements.

Critique: "Raising Ryleigh" Cover

I really enjoyed working on this photo story, yet looking back now I would make many changes. I was very content with the photo I chose for the cover. I thought it was powerful and would make the readers intrigued and wanting to read the story. However, I should have taken into consideration that our Vox audience, who has not yet heard Ryleigh's story, may get the wrong idea. The photo of Ryleigh's legs and the hand, yet intimate, can sensationalize the story which I didn't necessarily wish to do. I think a different photograph, perhaps one of Ryleigh without graphic medical details, would have been more successful. As far as my font, I liked it's elegance. However, seeing it printed I would like to see it downsized. I plan on diligently revising this cover for my portfolio.

I am currently working on ideas for Vox's Spring Preview issue. I also will be brainstorming ideas for our 10/5 assignment, which will include designs for Vox Talk or the Vox calendar advertisements.