Above is the feature and cover I designed over the weekend for VOX as part of our Beginning Assignment in Advanced Magazine Design.
Last week the Advanced Magazine Design class was given the first assignment of the semester, a contest to create a design for cover and a four page feature article for the following week's issue of VOX. All designs were turned into the VOX office on Monday, Jan. 26 where they would be examined by the team of editors and where, ultimately, one cover and one feature design would be chosen.
Since it was my first design for VOX, let alone my first editorial design work at a magazine, I was pretty nervous. The deadline extension from Thursday to Monday morning didn't help either, as my academic obligations for the rest of my class schedule began to increase and I waited to do the assignment on the weekend.
By the deadline on Monday, I was not pleased with my design, but I had to turn in what I had. I wasn't disappointed with the news that mine wasn't chosen for publication, and considered the whole thing a learning experience. I took the regular Magazine Design class one year ago, so I'm a little rusty with the style of magazine design, especially because I worked as a newspaper designer last semester at the Columbia Missourian. But I know I will get better soon.
I felt that my designs were very much like newspaper features. They felt very rigid, very formatted. There was also a lot of text for that feature story, so I felt that also constrained my design. Originally I had an illustration on the left page of the opening spread, but went with the current photo instead. It was a last minute decision to change that. But like I suggested today in lecture about a redesign for the feature, it could be a symbol of how the economy is hurting a family, and I could add it into my re-design due next week. So I will take this next week to look over my current design for both the feature story and the cover and also try to incorporate ideas I saw today during the CRMA judging session.
On a side note, I tried using royalty free art from stock.xchng for this beginning assignment. I already had a free account, but I can't seem to be able to download royalty free images off there. Does anyone know why I am not able to do that?
On deck for next week:
1) Continue taking pictures for the Shutter graffiti/photographic field notes assignment.
2) Revise the Beginning Assignment, which was the feature and cover I just mentioned above.
3) Figure out what is being pitched for the Feb. 19 Short Talk section of VOX so I can begin brainstorming and gathering art for it.
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