Critique: Books & Burning (but don't worry, not burning books).
This week there was a lot to look at. Everyone in our class is entering the Uncovered book design contest, creating a cover for a class novel. We were each assigned to create 10 different covers and presented them in class on Tuesday. Who knew coming up with ten separate co ncepts and ideas would be such a challenge? After about cover 6, I was tapped. Maybe it was because of the short time frame and other focuses I had but man, my creativity was gone. I wanted to keep Pinocchio simple and have a clear focus of his nose. My first one is definitely my favorite and coincidentally one of the easiest sketches I have done. I had an idea for having the nose almost act like branches that weave around the page and have Pinocchio peaking through it, however it did not go the way I wanted. It turned into something I wasn’t really a fan of but I am glad I tried it. Something that I have found as a challenge in my work this semester has been coming up with a concept and having to continue with that concept whether I liked it or not. I think with designing ten different covers, I was able to work through these concepts and see how they worked out without them having to be my final product, which I enjoyed. After some class feedback, I will have another week to pare down my covers to five and improve the designs to present next Thursday.
I also started my first drafts of the Vox feature story I am designing for the March 19 issue. The story takes on a big topic: death. There has been a little bit of editorial and creative contrast in the art for this feature and what is ok to publish. The images are from a crematorium and our photographers have had incredible access. While the image selection wasn’t finalized, I got a lot of feedback regarding design elements and am going to continue to work through those for revisions next week.