More Magazines Books and Posters

This last week and a half has been pretty crazy as usual. Each week we've been getting more and more done on our magazine projects. This week we were responsible (again) for creating 4-6 new spreads and redoing everything that's come before. That totals up to eight spreads and two covers. I'm getting somewhere with these slowly but surely. It's more difficult to do these spreads than I imagined it would be. In the real world we would have a budget and illustrators and photographers to work with. Here we have to use our resourcefulness and ingenuity to come up with stellar images that are clear enough conceptually and good enough quality to be placed on a 11 x 17 spread. Additionally we're learning to use innovative and handsome typography. All this in the quantity required of us is certainly a challenge, but, as always, I'm glad we're being put through this. I'm starting to come up with good, doable ideas quicker, recognize good design in other publications and attempting to create my own original well-designed spreads.

For the other design class we are working in groups to create posters and book layouts for the juniors. The juniors are going to use these as part of their projects helping to revitalize a neighborhood in the city of Syracuse. Last week we met with our groups to share our research as well as come up with, mock up and prepare to present our design ideas for the poster and book. The design created by my group was the design the juniors chose. We were very proud. This week we plugged our information into the templates and created color schemes and collages to go on our multiple roughs to be presented this week. Both the morning section and the afternoon section, the two professors and a slew of juniors met this afternoon to critique the posters and make more adjustments to the templates. It was exciting to have designers of all different levels working together on a single project.

As for my other classes, I turned in a paper for my writing class on Monday, and I got a test back and a project proposal back from my history class. Both were pretty good. In ceramics I'm making even more bowls and plates. The professor demonstrated how to make different kinds of vessels with lids. In painting we had a critique of our large paintings of "light." In symposium we heard from an award-winning airbrush caricaturist.

So I'm a very busy individual, but that can be expected with as little time left in the semester as I have. The improving weather is making everyone happy. It's very pleasant to walk to and fro and to sit and wait for buses. Every one's bringing out their warmer weather jackets and smiling. I love it.

That's about it for the last week. I'm sure I'll have a whole bunch to tell about next time around. Until then, take care!