Mock magazine cover, need opinions

I’m currently working on a mock magazine cover for one of my major classes (SMAD 201) and am contemplating between two covers. I started one off them first and then saved it and worked of the copy to recreate a slightly different look. What I need to know is what looks better from a fresh eye. So tell me which is it going to be.. (click to enlarge)

or

or what should be changed?

P.S. Everything’s made up on the magazine (except for David Downton, of course).

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UPDATE:

So I’ve made another “encanto” cover, only it has a softer feeling..(see below) and I’m working on an in-between of the above two pieces. Will update soon…

Any thoughts?

10/25/07 D.C., SND Design Quickcourse #1

I apologize to my readers (hopefully you) for not posting in a while. I’ve been away at the D.C. ACP/CMA Convention the past couple of days. On Wednesday following newspaper production, it was straight up to NOVA, then to the Hilton Washington the next day for basically nine hours of design workshops. Totally, my kind of day. No, really. I got super excited. Especially the hour on type. If any of you thought it would be difficult to get excited about x-height and descenders at 8:30 a.m.–it’s not. Yeah, I know, super nerdy. The good news is I’m planning on publishing a series of posts on all the ingenious information I’ve learned or re-learned at the convention for three days, so be on the lookout.

Enough introduction. Let’s get to the good stuff.

DESIGN TIPS, as told by Tracy Collins, The Arizona Republic, and Ron Johnson, Kansas State Univeristy, and retold by me.

 

1. Content drives the design.

2. Tell the story the best way, whether that be words, illustrations, graphics, infographics, etc.

3. Typography is your navigation tool and should be kept simple for good communication with the reader.

4. Be conservative with type, remembering special effects are usually unecessary noise.

5. Keep body text at an optimum size (9-10.5 pt) and stick to serif. Avoid wide text lines, optimum 14-18 picas.

6. Infographics won’t help your design. They’re just an additional layer of information.

7. Be a reader advocate!

8. Have “big, honkin’ dominance,” a large lead package with lead information in a dominant rectangle with lots of white space.

9. Don’t mislead the reader by presenting unrelated information as related.

10.    Play off your dominant visual with a much smaller, differing shape. Don’t let secondary visuals compete with the dominant photo.

11.    Don’t overdesign. Keep it simple.

12.    Color has power. Don’t abuse it. Color should be used as a navigational tool for the reader.

13.    White space empowers adjacent elements and improves ease of readability.

 

David Downton, stunning fashion illustrator

Just thought I would share some information on one of my favorite artists, David Downton. He is a very talented UK-based fashion illustrator, whose work I find to be absolutely stunning. It is the lack of lines and lack of certain, expected elements that makes his art so unique; so “Downton.”

David Downton in an interview with Tony Glenville

What makes an interesting fashion subject?
I think the most important thing is the sense of the body in the clothes. After that, proportion, colour, a detail. Anything can catch the eye – but what is interesting in fashion terms isn’t necessarily what makes a good drawing and vice versa.

Lets talk about your work methods. How do you arrive at the elimination of detail?
For me this is the hardest and the most interesting thing. In order to leave something out, first you have to put it in, or at least understand how every thing works. I do dozens of drawings on to layout paper taking the best from each one as I go. When the drawing looks right I start to eliminate, to de-construct if you like. I keep working until it looks spontaneous.

What methods do you use to apply colour?
It depends on the result I want to achieve and what is most appropriate to the subject. I use watercolour or gouache for small scale pieces. If I need flat saturated colour I use cut paper collage and then apply line using an acetate overlay.

What about the pure line drawing?
I use black Indian ink on acetate or paper.

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Some of my favorites:

Campus briefs redesign

Briefs are a standing element on the Breeze’s campus page, which is nice, but while I was designing this page, I realized how always running the briefs on the left column was restricting my design for the rest of the page. It felt like it was the same design issue after issue. So with the consent of the bosses (aka Mary and Evan), the briefs have moved to the bottom of the page and usually run with a 10% yellow background. Here are some of the before and afters:

Before

White space

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with white space and using it in my Breeze page designs. Obsessed enough to dedicate an entry to it.  

Here’s a quick introduction to white space:

White space, also known as negative space, is the term describing open space between design elements. It can be between letters, words, or paragraphs of text; space in and outside of graphics, and between all of the elements of the page. It is essential for providing spatial relationships between visual items, and actually guides your reader’s eye from one point to another.

White space takes on an added importance on the web because more of a strain is placed on the eyes than with print material. You’ll find that going through the same amount of web pages as print pages can be more visually demanding, one of the reasons being that you usually find yourself staring up at monitor flickering pixels coarser than printed ink. White space provides our brains with much-needed breathing room to absorb the material displayed before us.

It’s imptortant to remember there are two kinds of white space:

•  Active white space is space that’s deliberately left blank to better structure the page and emphasize different areas of content.
• Passive white space is empty space around the outside of the page or blank areas inside the content that result from a poor design.

Baby steps

After coming to the realization that if I didn’t get started soon, I would be left behind in the new waves of technology, I have finally decided to start a blog..! (pauses for applause) I’m not exactly sure what should be my first post, but I’ve got to start somewhere, right? So the best thing (next to sliced bread) I can think of is to upload some page designs I have done in the past with JMU’s student newspaper, The Breeze, and USA Today. (Constructive) criticism is more than welcomed.