Week 6: All Complex Everything- You Can't Miss This

Last week was a let down for Complex's Art + Design blog. This week they brought it. Up first we have Yo Mama Jokes: Graphic Designer Edition. YOU HAVE TO READ THESE! My favorite would be "Yo mam so poor, she pirates from Dafont." Ha! (via welikethat.de)

We're going to keep it going with these infographic-esque designs. This next one pits geeks vs. hipsters. (Via Visual.ly) Click on it to blow it up.

This last thing is my favorite. If you've seen the background on the computer you would know why. The Jordan shoe brand is one of the most unique brands of all time. No other athlete or shoe company for that matter has been able to touch what Michael Jordan and his Nike team have built. I do love Jordans. But I don't love every Jordan. I only wear the 3's. They're the black shoes I wear pretty much every day. Here's a visual. And yes, that smell is Kanye molecules filling the air, again, on my blog.

The reason why I only wear the 3's because of one thing: the elephant print. Here's a close up.

Urban beauty at it's finest. The Jordan brand sponsors a few high schools across the country and one high school basketbal team just got extremely fresh.

That's elephant print letters and numbers. I'm not crazy about the typeface, but the texture and look of the elephant print takes me there. 

(via Complex)

Week 6: The week there was no Vox- Response

Ahh, Pop. Mechanic. I have to say, this wasn't as painful as I thought it was going to be. I actually had fun with it. Looking at the covers was definitely inspring. Seeing what these designers could do with an illustration was remarkable.

Overall, the interior design was underwhelming. Maybe it was the 150 pages of ads to sift through. I'm going to check out Popular Mechanics this weekend when I go for my weekly B&N trip. Sidenote:This weekend I'm going to quiz my former editor at Vox that's now at Pop. Mech. about some of the mag's history to see what he's made of.

Also, props to LeeAnn for 35-minute Ladies Home Journal presentation.

Week 6: The week there was no Vox- Critique

Before I go into this critique I guess I should preface you all about RESPECT. Magazine. It's a national hip-hop magazine based in New York City, and I interned there last summer. They liked me, so I was able to stay on remotely since I left for school back in August. Since then, I have turned into the website's unofficial feature designer. When we are able to get original photographs or courtesy art for bigger interviews, I try to design something that puts that RESPECT. stamp of approval on it. I pitched the idea of doing weekly web covers for the bigger features this week and the editors liked the idea "originally."

For reference, here's some previous RESPECT. print covers. RESPECT.'s design steez is definitely clean. I believe we use three fonts for the entire magazine. For a hip-hop magazine, it's probably one of the most conservative design-wise. The Tyler, The Creator cover was a collector's cover so that's why there are no sell lines.

Here's the web cover prototype I sent.

It still the print feel, but I tagged it as a "RESPECT-MAG.COM COVER." I loved it, naturally. The feedback wasn't what I expected, exactly. It looked to much like the magazine and the web cover idea wasn't clear enough. An hour later, I sent this in.

I figured I would cement the online web cover factor with the addition of a second "-mag.com" tag. Also, notice "The Krista" on his head with the logo. My feedback came back, and the powers that be still weren't feeling the magazine feel. As it turns out, we had a miscommunication with the concept. I kept on saying web cover, but the editor was thinking, more or less, a feature image with some type and a logo on it. Alas, I had to settle.

...

Not crazy about it, but compromise is the name of the game.

Prototypes and Bics (Week 5)- You can't miss this

Complex Art has this extremely funny, and sometimes inspiring, reoccuring section online called We Tumblforya. It highlights tumblr pages that focus on something super, super niche. For example, there's this: kanyewithwhitepeople. For this week's post, I'm going to highlight Complex's We Tumblforya: BIC Lighters.

Super simple. super effective. I love when artists incorporate something that's so everyday and mix it with something super fresh and inspiring. It's the little things that count. Tupac flicking some off everything you flick a BIC is just something awesome to think about.

For anybody that still has Lin fever, this has been my favorite so far. 

I'm my opinion, Brooklyn is the most inspiring places on earth, so obviously I love this.

Prototypes and Bics (Week 5)- Response

The prototypes my group presented were all really good. I think the most interesting part of the presentation was seeing however perceived the magazine as. I don't think any of us had a similar feature on any page. I love the diversity.

The diversity helped everyone out. Our editorial team liked something from everyone. My challenge, now, is to translate those likes and needs all into one concise piece of art. I love that challenge, and it was exactly what I was looking for coming into this class.  

I've heard it's a lot more work from previous prototype CD's, but I'm definitely looking forward to it. We have a ton of talent on the team, and the whole concept of the magazine has a lot of potential, especially if they let us push it.

Prototypes and Bics (Week 5)- Critique

Last week I presented my prototype rough draft. Rough is an understatement.

Clearly not my best offering. There's no drive, no love and no direction. I'm glad I got that one out of my system. If anything, showing this in front of everybody and hearing them critique something I know I could have done something 10x better made me realize I should hold take more pride in whatever I put out. With that thought mulling around my mind the entire week and weekend, I created this...

With the cover, I wanted to go for an atypical food magazine look. The logo takes on a very modern, fashionable look, but, still, the first thing you notice in eat. I kept the time element with the eye, but it's pretty slick, so some might just overlook it. I quieted the "now" too. I love the softness of it. I love playing with typography so I decided to go for it on a food cover. It's not really common for food mags to do typography stuff on covers it goes with the logo being left field a bit.  The cropped burger is uncommon too. I think that meat looks great. Ha!

Sticking with the left field theme, I decided to give the editorial side of my group something to think about. Both these stories sell themselves in a different way. The top spread has a science, deeper-than-recipes feel and look it. The bottom spread has a men's consumer mag feel to it while keeping with the environment photo essence too.

Overall, I am much more excited about showing my second drafts. I'm also glad to say my second design  earned me the Creative Director title for my group. This will be a fun and excited experience, and my other talented and creative designers will make my life easier as a CD.

L. Boogz!

Week 4: A Weekend @ Lonnie's & More Secular Stuff

Critique

Woooo! I'm done with the Lonnie Barker feature. Well not done, but the rest will just be tinking with things. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Without further ado.

This took waaaay longer than expected. But what doesn't in this class? Anyway, let's start with the first spread. I messed around with the cable for a long time. If you remember, it looked pretty pixelated. Finally, I just had to redo it in Indesign with the pen tool. I just traced over the .png I placed In Indesign previously. I added a drop shadow and embossed it. It turned out pretty good. I added the headphone jack last minute because the microphone wasn't cutting it. I really like the headphone jack because it looks realistic. Gradients are your friend in Illustrator, for sure.

The second and third spreads were totally different up until about 7 o'clock Saturday evening. I literally deleted everything and started over. After talking to Timmy, he gave me a clear view for the photo direction so I wasn't too afraid to start fresh. Timmy's got some really good ideas. I for sure won't hesitate to ask for his advice next time.

As far as the new theme, I wanted to keep it somewhat tame since the splash has so much hip-hop on it. The red and black color palette went well with the photo choices plus it just looks hip-hop and tasteful at the same time.

Spacing was tricky with this, but it worked out in the end. I was given a sidebar Friday, so after a quick brainstorm, I decided to go with an iTouch/iPhone look. I would love to take ownership of making that iPhone, but I can only take ownership of about 40% of it. I tweaked it a bit and laid a text box over it.

The side bar has changed. The top and right sides of the box are now microphone cable.

I know I spent a ton of time on the splash page, but it's the little things that count, right?
These are some of my favorite things to come from this project.

Wilderness covers

Not going to lie. When I got the email about the T/F cover group being switched to the Wilderness cover I was heated. T/F is a big issue a lot of people will look at. Who wouldn't want the chance to have that cover? Anyway. I got over it, and I think I produced some proper pieces. I'll show my illustrations and Typography choices for now.

My typography is super simple, but it has a few elements to it. The font is my favorite. I traced a font used by a popular rapper from Toronto.  It works perfectly for this. The image in the words gives it depth. I know the editors, Jan and whoever else will say it needs texture. After I consulted Timmy randomly about texture he gave me a few pointers. If you check your iPhone 4s and look in a folder you should be a flint grey linen texture in the group. I was going for that. It looks really good in a light grey too. It goes with the outdoors, organic feel too.

My illustrations might look like a children's book cover, but that doesn't mean they're not dope! I love 'em. Super playful and it gives the story a twist. If you can walk by that on a newsstand and not look twice, I'll buy you a hot dog outside Quinton's at 1 in the morning. Here we go.

The animals are all me in Illustrator. The backgrounds not so much... I love the texture of the first one, but in the second one the illustrations look like they're coming out of the shadowy depths of the forest to tear you apart journalistically.

And lastly, the iPad material. This is still in the process, but I decided to go with an alternative splash page. I like it, but I don't love it as much as the cable type I made. Oh, well. It's still super hip-hop. RUN DMC.

Response: Prototypes

Building something from scratch is pretty tough. A lot of people have some great starts. I was most impressed with Jordin's design. That photo was made for that story. The logo was one of the most creative (yet still simple) things I've seen all semester. I also really liked Andrea P's first cover. The elements where there. I'm super excited to work on that with her. Although, I'm still not sold on the name, she totally made it work.

Hearing what Theresa and jan said about making the viewer believe in what they say and what you're telling them really made me start thinking deeper about everything I designed. Nothing went with what I was going for, so it's safe to say I'm scrapping all that. I'm diving into the typography and colors book as well. There's so much more than what looks good, and that's what I'm most excited about learning in this class.

Lastly, I'm going to make it my personal mission to make meat look good on a page. That is all.


You Can't Miss This: Lambo Ads

Complex Graphic Design aggregated these from Automotive Advertising. Apparently Lamborghini's steez isn't really print ads. Well, these eye catching, somewhat controversial ads are definitely working for the luxury sports car brand. When I think of Lamborghinis, I see a model mixed with the prowess of a big cat (cheesy much?). These bodily images are left field and I love that! My favorite is the bullet through the brain. I wouldn't mind being able to make illustrations like these in my near future, especially for Lamborghini.

Why I love hip-hop. Period.

It's really not fair when these two do something this beautiful, amazing, dope, inspiring, jaw dropping, artistic, classic, ignorant, fresh, cray, all the above, incredible, stunning, cool and, uhhh great.

The Givenchy symbols. The kaleidoscope. Will Ferrell. Everything. Kanye Directed.

It's also the inspiration behind my twitter handle. NickIsInParis

I feel Kanye would respect that.

Week 3: Gospel Rappers And Some Secular Stuff

Critique: L. Boogie

SUPER ROUGH DRAFT.

This Lonnie Barker piece started off kind of lackluster. I didn't really know he was a gospel rapper until I researched him. So, admittedly, when I learned that I was kind of bummed.  But I did find some fun stuff like he did a song with a friend of mine from St. Louis. Any who, I guess I should explain why I have a thing against faith stuff.  I did a feature on faith last semester that was pretty tough to design. it was last minute, and it was just hard to really get into.

Now, to the inspiration. I can say I know hip-hop. Putting that in to visual form with a religious twist was kind of hard, at first.  Hip-hop is supposed to be raw and unpredictable, but still it should be aesthetically pleasing. after mulling over possible illustrations  I decided to go with a microphone wire/cable looking font. I thought this would be pretty easy to find. Was it? Nope! Back to Illustrator.

My first inspirations for the mic wire were a couple of artists' logos that I love.

That's Machine Gun Kelly and Wale's logos respectively. I love the idea of the shoelaces, but I needed something to send the hip-hop message across. As a I was looking for the Wale cover I glanced at this:

That's Wale. With a microphone cable wrapped around him. I was sold on the microphone cable. Now I just had to execute it. I figured I'd just find a font then lay an outer layer on it then just fill it in with a brush. Not that easy. That just flat out didn't work.  So I googled microphone cable font and this is what I got.

It is a vector file so when I downloaded it, I got to see how it was made. As it turned out, there was no lazy/easy way around it. I just had to use the pen tool and draw out each letter for "Rockin With The Blessed."

That "Rockin With The Blessed" comes from a "Rockin With The Best" ad lib from Diddy or Puff Daddy whatever you want to call him. If Diddy's known for anything (besides being a filthy rich) it is ad libs. Diddy's pretty corny too, and I feel the first thought that comes to mind with gospel rappers is probably the corny factor.

Anyway, after my first design had a full page photo with the typography over it, Theresa said it was better to go with a one page photo. It was pretty tough to read so I definitely agreed. I went with the cross/studio picture to hit home the "Rockin' With the Blessed" idea.

The actually words were nothing of annoying and finicky. I have to tweak it so much with the white arrow and the add points pen tool. I decided that I didn't want a perfectly straight orientation for my letters. I wanted them to have a raw look to them, and look like they were strung up on a wall. Here's what I got.

As far as the feature layout, I needed this story to be chunked. It was way to long to just be one flowing narrative. It needed some design element to making it easier to swallow. That's still a work in progress. So I guess I'll leave this as to be continued.

Response: The Spring Preview pieces

I loved how everyone got super creative for the covers/splash pages/spreads. I've been getting a lot of support for my cover, and I have to say, all of you are motivating me. Krista's bee cover was so dope. I know I said I didn't want to do anything that was cliche, but Krista put her foot in that bee design. (That means she executed it extremely well). LeeAnn went totally left field with her cats and it worked. The same thing with Brittany's. The trippy look of hers doesn't scream spring, but it will definitely catch your eye walking past it. I thought Katie Wood's spread page was spot on for Vox. That's definitely a good thing though. Some might have went left field, but she showed a strong skill to have when design: discipline.

Overall, seeing everyone's design really pushed me for this Lonnie Barker feature. I thought about scrapping the cable letters, but after I read all the comments on my preview cover and hearing "I can't wait to see what you do next" a few times, I almost have to do the cable letters.  Even now, I'm thinking about what I can add to that splash page to make it look better. So, to all, thank you!

Can't miss this: Logos In The Safe Zone

No, this is not a political post. I won't take it there. I promise. So, Complex's Graphic Design section aggregated this material yesterday. Basically, the post calls out a bunch of logos that play it safe with wavy lines and red, white and blue. I've never been a fan of politically logos. Obama's was kind of cool. I mean this:

I think a bunch of them lack creativity. I understand the flag colors, but you can take chances in logo design. As a designer, if I saw a campaign logo that was creative and different, I would probably give him/her another look. I'm not saying I'd vote for him/her, but hey, you never know.

I hate safe. I know good designers have to have some discipline, but safe is a whole other subject. Besides Complex, you'll probably hear me blab about Kanye West a lot. I think i gave a mini rant about how awesome Kanye is in my first blog. Anyway, here we go. The thing I love about Kanye and his creative team is that there follow no rules. There is still some discipline though. You can see this in the way they pay homage to great works. His Coachella set last year was fa beyond any hip-hop stage I've ever seen. It was Kanye not giving a damn about what was hot then. Instead, he wanted to show the classic Greek style in a different light via hip-hop.

Maybe his ego makes him believe he's larger than these mammoth statues. Maybe, not. Either way, he pushes the culture forward.

These logos... Not so much.

Weekly Blog Post Number 2 For Your Spring Previewing Pleasure

I came into this class knowing if I really wanted to do something in graphic design, Illustrator and I would have to get to know each other very, very well. I can officially say Illustrator and I got pretty close that Thursday night before the Spring Preview was due. I'm very proud of what I produced. Here's the final product.

I first sat down to think about this theme Monday night. I thought about everything that was Spring, and I decided not to do that. I know we have some stud designers in this class so the only way to win one of these competitions is to come with something totally original and creative. After I got about half way done, I realized, "Oh shoot, drive-ins are more summer." I was too far in to turn back. I showed this draft to Theresa for her feed back and she told me I needed more texture to match the upper part of my cover. Here's that draft:

She was definitely right.  (Ignore the wrong text on the screen). The top had depth, texture and glow. The bottom looked like I was afraid to go any further. To add texture, I fooled with the grass, added wood grain to the fence and added some sheen to the cars. I hate those cars, so the extra two hours spent making the final cover cars was totally worth it.

 Illustrator and I spent a lot time together that week. I went through about 5 tutorials for adding neon. Tutorials are a great way to get started on an effect, but you will be so much more pleased with your end result if you put your own twist on it. I went through a handful of different neon looks because I was fearful of it looking cheesy. I think the final product is awesome. It sticks out, but it still is a functional Vox logo.
I did the same trial and error process with the fence/wood texture, grass and car materials. I probably logged 30 hours in Illustrator that week. Her and I pretty much go steady now.

With everything going on my cover, I wanted to keep with splash page as concise as possible. I wanted it to be a welcoming entrance to the heart of the preview. I pretty much did this in one take. I incorporated the same neon technique as the cover and added some glow for texture, depth. I'm pretty happy with it. Although I do understand that on Vox paper it probably would haven't looked so great.

Notice I said concise, not simple.

Here's my visual inspirations.

I'll save your eyes from the despair that was my spread pages. They will be reworked.

Response: The September Issue reflection and  Sh*t Creative Directors Say

I've seen The September Issue before. Twice actually. (I had an ex who was a fashion major) Anywho, I forgot how cold Wintour was. I hate immediate answers without sustenance. She did a lot of that. I could only imagine having to take that on  daily basis. Last summer, I had an editor somewhat like Wintour. He wasn't nearly as bad, but he had his times were it just wasn't needed. I told myself at the end of the summer when I make it to his level I will have not achieved that position the way he did. I might be naive, but I don't want to make it by burying people in my way. #NiceGuy.

Grace Coddington is a genius. Conceptualizing can't be taught. That's god-given. The day I can put together a shoot like the 20's shoot she imagined is the day Jan invites me back to Mizzou to give a lecture and takes me out to dinner for war stories the night before. If I could commend her for anything else, it would be her patience and her ability to read Wintour.

My dad is a huge influence in my art. He just has one of those eyes for art that you can't BS. He's always the last person I show my designs too. I have to be prepared for whatever he questions. I feel this is how Wintour and Coddington interact too. Wintour definitely isn't the first to see her photos and Coddington knows what Wintour is going to throw at her when she sees them. If there's one thing my dad was instilled in me it is to stand behind my art. Coddington does this, but it sucks when the lady making the final call is a luminary like Wintour. Those 20's shots were brilliant. I saw what Coddington saw.

Her reaction prompted me to think about that viral "Sh*t ____ say." So I decided to put together a Sh*t designers say (to editors)."

Editor: There's not enough room.
Designer: But it's perfect.

Editor: I don't like the blue....
Designer: Why?
Editor: it doesn't work?
Designer: Why?
Editor it doesn.....
Designer: Why?

Editor: I hate it.
Designer: I love it.

Editor: I love it.
Designer: I hate it.

Editor: This design is missing something cool.
Designer: Maybe I should add some comic sans...

Editor: It's missing something. There's no wow. The white space isn't working and my hed is better.
Designer: mmmmmhhhhmmmmmm ahuh.

You Can't Miss This: Drugs and Cats

Quite the combination, I know. But Complex Art and Design kind of let me down this week. Nonetheless, this drug book they featured is bright, creative and educational. I listen to a lot of hip-hop so you think I would know all of these. The colors are gorgeous, and the illustrations are pretty funny. I really dig these.

Definitely click the link to see the rest of them. 

The book is called The ABC's of Drug Slang by Melanie Chernock, a design student.


Now onto the cats portion of this post. This more or less caught my eye because every time I see LeeAnn in the Vox office she's looking at cats. Complex aggregated these iconic paintings that now feature cats thanks to Photoshop. Here's the original link. Sorry, it's in Russian. Anyway, here's my favorite cat piece, a Dali work sans the tigers.