You Can't Miss This: Alphabet and Other Things Not Kanye

Wooo for Complex this week!

The first thing I bring to you is a visual interpretation of the alphabet brought to you by The Pompadaur. 

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The next treat I have for you from Complex is a minimal look at Disnet movies. Eat Now has an essence of minimalism to it, so I can appreciate these. Here are some of my faves. Check out the rest here. They're pretty awesome.

Lastly, I have for you some rap stuff because what would a Nick Williams blog be without something rap. Here we have classic rap album covers with comic book characters. I'm not comic buff, but these still make me chuckle. My fave is the Biggie cover. I'll show you the original first.

Its considered a classic design and sonically. Now here's the comic interpretation. 

Here's another classic by Nas. Illmatic.

Aaand here we have the comic remix.

Not as awesome as the Biggie one, but still pretty funny.

Response: Dear John

Presenting these M word projects have been pretty intense. I ran into some last second problems on the presentation side of things last week. Thanks Issuu for failing me. Anyway, The Eat Now design team showed something way more put together than what I presented on Tuesday. There's still some edits to take care of, but Eat Now is shaping up to be super awesome. Dare I say dope.

Impressing John has become a strange obsession of mine. He has an anonymous vibe to him and he's terribly difficult to read. I thought he loathed my first designs I presented to the publishing team. Again, I thought he hated the latest designs I showed. However, as the presentation winded down he said something awesome. He called the magazine, as a whole, "fresh." I might be looking into that a tad too much, but to me that's exactly what I wanted to do with Eat Now. I wanted something new, original all the while not coming off to pretentious but still super "artsy."

Critique: Book covers

This assignment was a pain at times, but it was a nice departure from  the M word designs. I'll talk about some of my faves.

This was one of those star aligning moments. Easily my favorite, I was kind of bummed at first because the bars weren't really lighting up like I wanted them to. They popped like I wanted them too when I placed the silhouette there. It's pretty conceptual, so I don't think conservative minds will go for the whole drunken flag thing. Anyway, I love it.

This was a design I had to get out of my mind a la Ms. Hall. I had the title stuck in my head, so I went for it. I'll switch the title out for the right now and attempt to make some sticker-esque beer cans and women for the helmet.

Low key, this was one of my favorites too. I'm on a morphing photos together kick lately. This kick was definitely an influence from Ms. Landis.  This particular cover didn't garner many votes, but noneless I loved it.

There's another morph job.

These book covers were pretty fun, and I'm definitely looking forward to showing the publishing folks some "atypical" stuff.

You Can't Miss This: Complex's G.O.A.T. Graphic Designers

For those of you who don't know, G.O.A.T. means Greatest Of All Time. If you don't know anything about Complex, know they love lists. That's what they do, and they do it well! The list that caught my eye this week was The 20 G.O.A.T.  Graphic designers.

For the sake and integrity of this blog, we'll call these designers the O.G. Triple O.G. (That's like the godfather or O.G.'s)

the first O.G. Triple O.G. is George Lois. He help build Esquire as designing giant. He did the "I want my MTV!" campaign along with Tommy Hilfiger and VH1 designs. His Muhammad Ali cover is one of my favorite covers of all time.

The next and last O.G. Triple O.G. I will discuss is Milton Glasor. If you own a I <3 NY shirt, you're wearing his design. He founded New York Magazine. The I <3 NY logo is an iconic as anything New York. Iconic isn't a stretch either. His design is the definition of iconic.  I love his Dylan design too. As a self-proclaimed neo-hippie (I shower), I naturally love it.

For Schitz and giggles here's I photo I took of a swing on Dylan's property in Woodstock this summer. Miss that place. 

Critique: My TFA lesson designs

A little more than a month ago I decided to apply for Teach For America. I was lucky enough to get a final interview so I was faced with the deciding what to do for my 5 minute lesson. At first I was leaning towards something basic like addition or subtraction, but I realized if I'm going to do something that represents who I am I need to do something with art. After solo brainstorming, I decided to go with a personal branding exercise that allows students to draft their own logo using their initials in some sort of creative way. We'll see how it goes over, but I have high hopes! Here's my handout.

And here is the template for the business cards the students with design.

I think it's pretty creative, so hopefully the interviewers agree. That's my only design for the week! Crazy, I know.

Reponse: Portfolio reviews

Earlier this afternoon I had my first portfolio review with Jan.  Unlike my in-class review, I had a few more pieces to round out my portfolio. If only I had the will power to upload all those images up. You're in for a treat, though, because I am going to show you some stuff I left out. I still have to iron these puppies out, but I think they deserve to be seen.

These certainly aren't the headliners of my portfolio, but they have a special place in my design heart. I designed these when I had no clue what I was doing. This was before I dove into design, reading everything  I could about it and really studying what was going on in the field. 

Anyway, Jan has a great eye for everything. I tried to self edit, but she found things I wouldn't have thought of. While Jan and Theresa definitely praised some of my work, I left my portfolio feeling I had to work even harder than I have before. And I'm OK with that.

Critique: Just Dance

This dance cover was pretty much straight forward. I wanted to make something that showed off a few dance styles. However, the photos were really good, and I wanted to push myself to do an effective photo cover. So, here what I came up with.

I really liked my iTunes idea. I was kind of sad the editors didn't comment on it, but I was super stoked they liked my ballet photo cover. I wanted to keep everything soft, so the photo "could speak."

I'm not done editing it, but here's what I have so far. Just a few tweaks, but I will do some more.