When I first read the personal story I knew that was the one that I wanted to choose. I had a lot of different versions of the same design that came to mind. I wanted to make sure that the image was conceptual enough but was easy to get the message of the article. I wanted to symbolize how technology helps keep people in touch with those that they would have a hard time doing without it. Color played a major role in my design, especially the blues. I wanted the phone and the hand coming in from the top to be the same color to represent that the hand was the technology. The spark-like glow in the center is there tp help show the power that the connection gives to the people that use it. How it is a positive thing like the article talked about. The hardest part for me was making the story fit and work well with the design. I had trouble trying to make the design work in the magazine spread-type design. I wanted there to be limited text on the first page because the main point is the conceptual illustration. For the second page of the spread I also had trouble thinking of how to fill the space. I ended up using the spark like shape on the side of the second spread to bring some of the images to the second page. I added the sidebar to add more and help connect the first two pages to the next two. Making sure that everything was easy to read was harder on the first pages since I wanted there to be fewer hyphenated words when using the text wrap. I think the sidebar on the second spread helped to make the whole spread come together as a whole. Overall, I think the project does a great job of showing the main point of the article.
For this project, I chose the story about smart houses. I have always been curious about smart houses and if they are really worth it, so this article stuck out to me. After reading through this article and hearing about this persons debate about the pros and cons of a smart home, I was inspired. I instantly knew I wanted to do a scale showing the traditional key and the “smart key” of a phone. I wanted to show the weight of the two. Taking the term “smart home,” I wanted to show a home with a light bulb because the image of a light bulb means smart and sparks an idea. The font choice I went with reminds me of the fonts they use on HGTV. That was the first thing I thought about because they have done shows that have dealt with smart homes. I think the big, bold font is the type of font used to describe DIYs. I wanted to put an iPhone instead of the “i” to show that this is an article about technology and houses. I went with blue because I wanted a light color to contrast with the black colors. I wanted this to look simple, so I went with simple black outlines of all the artwork. One of the biggest challenges, was just getting started, which always is a problem for me. Getting in the mindset to create an idea is always difficult. Overall, I enjoyed this project. I enjoyed taking a story and turning it into a magazine spread. I think my skills have improved since I did the magazine project in graphic design 1. I am pleased with the way this turned out. I believe I executed the simplistic magazine spread pretty well. There are some ways I can improve. I think I could’ve taken the design a little farther but I am happy with the overall design.
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For this project, I chose the Personal Touch story because initially I had the most conceptual sketch ideas for that concept compared to the other two story options. I chose to make my design two hands reaching for each other, with one hand coming in from the left (off the screen), and one hand from the right coming out of the phone. I positioned them this way and made them two different colors to make the differentiation that one hand (red) is a person in real space, reaching for a friend/loved one on an online space (blue). I thought this concept especially worked with the story because the author talks about connecting with his friend who has passed away by looking at his social media often to keep his memory alive. I also included the finger prints in my design because I thought that besides being a literal manifestation of the word “touch”, they also represent two people being connected by touching/holding hands. I also thought that they fit the element of technology throughout the story because many people associate finger prints with unlocking/locking of technology (like a password for your phone, computer, etc). In my second spread page, I included these finger prints in a heart-overlapping shape in the bottom left corner because I thought it was a sweet way to display a connection between two people in an online space, by forming a heart, a shape associated with connection and love. I also included some black lines that curved around my pages as an element to resemble a “string”. For me, this was relevant to my design because in my head I thought of a string connecting two people, no matter how far away they may be, as a non-physical or physical representation of connection and love. I also thought that it was a nice touch to add some dynamic movement to my pages when I had lots of negative white space and I wanted to add some movement as the readers eyes moved across the pages when they were reading. For my headline font, I chose this font because I thought the curviness of the letters mimicked that of the finger prints which were included repeatedly in my design. I also chose red and blue for my colors of the hands/some text in my design because I associated those colors with 3D glasses, which while not explicitly related to the story/concept, I thought was another way to connect to a technological aspect when it came to my color palette.
I enjoyed creating this design because InDesign is one of my favorite Adobe applications to work in and it reminded me of the magazine assignment from Graphic Design I which I had a fun time with. I like messing around with the copy, font, margins and columns to arrange the spreads and doing this assignment makes me want to make more mockups for magazine spreads in the future on my own time.
For my conceptual illustration poster, I decided to represent the story of how personal technology shapes our lives, often resulting in both beneficial and damaging influences in our lives. Therefore, for the main headline of this article, I decided to use the phrase “Connection and Chaos”. I felt that this title expressed how our mobile devices, while connecting us to the world, also have the power to overwhelm and consume us.
In terms of design choices, I first chose the orange color scheme to symbolize a balance between the red hue of frustration and the yellow hue of contentment. My goal was to connect this orange color to the state many of us find ourselves in when it comes to our relationships with our phones. Furthermore, the main imagery of my design depicts a small human figure gazing up at a large phone. I represented the imagery in this way to emphasize how our lives can become engulfed by our devices, symbolizing their overpowering presence.
In terms of typography, this played a crucial role in conveying the message I was trying to express. I utilized a blurred version of chaos in the text to emphasize something that is unstable, as well as a more stable font with connecting lines for the word connection. Overall, my choice for this was to reiterate the coexistence of these two forces felt when it comes to our personal technology.
In addition, for the sidebar, I used text message bubbles to add a unique element to the layout while also reiterating the theme. The separation of the sidebar from the main text, in my opinion, helped create a good visual distinction.
Overall, I am pleased with my execution of this project. I believe that I conveyed the message of the story in a minimalistic way, allowing the readers to grasp the main idea without being too overwhelmed. With my consideration of the color, typography, and layout, I believe that I achieved my goal of creating a visually engaging spread for readers. This was one of my favorite projects that we have done so far.
This was the third project I completed in J465. I picked the story old tech because it resonated most with me and it was an opportunity to illustrate something I was interested in. I started my creative process by looking at pictures of old tech and finding out which route I wanted to go.
After doing some sketches to brainstorm, I landed on the idea of illustrating old cameras that have came back around. Although the entire story is about all old tech, I wanted to focus on the camera aspect. To do this, I began with putting letters into Polaroid pictures and made them look like they were scattered like they would be on a floor. I picked up colors for these letters from the background I chose, which reminds me of a film camera. For the main illustrative element, I really wanted to express in some way how old tech came back around. At first, I started with a line across the page to represent a timeline, but eventually I decided that a circle would best show how things “came back around.” I kept the circle in other parts of my design on the second spread to make everything more cohesive throughout. I illustrated each type of camera based on an image of a real one. Although there are far too many types of cameras to include on my page, I ended up picking the ones that seemed most popular and in-use to me. For example, in 2016 Instax Mini cameras were the coolest thing, which are comparable to a Polaroid camera from the 90s. Same thing with digital cameras. I remember as a child, my mom had one, and now they are “cool” again in 2024. The iPhone is on there to represent the break in physical cameras and the transition to phones being the preferred type of camera. However, we know now that it is used in addition to old tech even though it can do a lot of things the old tech can.
The headline I chose was to tie in the idea of “keeping in touch” with old technology even though we have improved technology now. I also thought it would be clever to put the word touch inside of the Polaroid pictures since they are something you can physically pick up.
On the following spread, I really wanted to tie in my colors and background, so I found another photo that gave vibes of a film camera for the side bar and I pulled colors from the initial spread into my text. I wanted the photos I used in this second part to have a little more edge and not look like a stock photo. So, I found an image of a record player to highlight before the article, since that’s what it talks about in the first parts. The image definitely adds something to the sea of text. This is also why I chose to highlight certain sentences by changing the font, color, and size so that the reader was not bored with the endless amount of black text. On the right page, I also made my text align to the circle for more visual interest and to bring more attention to the recurring “timeline” idea.
Something I’ve never done before, but I ended up liking, was putting my sidebar on the left side of the right page. I felt like this once again broke up the text nicely and was a main focal point for that page. If I had placed it on the right side, I think it would’ve been too heavy. For the sidebar, I used an image similar to the one on the opening spread. Like I said, I didn’t want my images to look too much like a stock photo, so I carefully chose the ones that went with the vibe of my story for the sidebar and I think they blended nicely. Overall, I was happy with my sidebar, but the biggest challenge was including enough description for each piece of old tech without being too much.
Overall, I’m extremely happy with how my project turned out. It was a challenge at first to land on a final idea, but I liked the one I chose because it resonated heavily with me. My favorite part of this design is the background I picked and I’ve been wanting to design something with it for a while! This project took a lot of critical thinking in ways that I could conceptually represent the resurgence of old tech, but I think I did a great job of representing it with the circular timeline.
To start my creative process, I first picked the story that I could resonate with the most which was the personal one after reading it. In the article, the idea of a digital footprint was mentioned so I knew that I wanted my conceptual drawing to have something to do with a digital footprint. To make the print look digital, I used a circuit board type texture inside of the feet as well as made them pixelated. I also gave them an outer glow like a phone screen has. I finally chose the color blue to represent the “blue light” that comes off of our phone screens. Lastly, inside the feet are family photos that are melting away but, they persist on inside of the digital footprint. This goes with the theme of the story: being able to remember moments of people from their social media even after they are gone. I did most of the feet in Photoshop except for the texture and actual drawing of the feet which were done in Illustrator.
The font is also pixelated on the opening spread to match the pixelated feet. I also gave the text here an outer glow like the feet have. In the background I also used the same circuit board texture from the feet to give a little more depth to the spread and not just have it be a solid color.
The headline itself came from the fact that as it was told to me, people may not pick up immediately the digital footprint idea so I had to put it in the headline. “Never fading footprints” was chosen because people always tell us to be careful what we put online because it stays there forever hence, “never fading.”
Even though the article was more about the personal touch of social media, I chose to lean more into the digitalization of memories for my theme as can be seen in the opening spread. I continue this idea by making a very organized and almos computer like layout for the article. It is a three column page but, text only takes up two of the columns where a more literal image of social media takes up the two innermost columns and has the “screen glow” like the feet from the opening spread. I also use the same texture that is on the opening spread as well as inside the feet as a background for the page but I lowered the opacity so it wasn’t as hard to read the article. Coming from the central image, I made the same circuit like lines that are in the texture but I connected them to the words on the article to keep up with the digitalization theme. After the article was over, I put the social media by the numbers side bar to take up the remaining space. There was still a little bit of awkward white space after this so I put the feet from the opening spread along the bottom to fill it and make the design even more cohesive with the opening spread.
To finish off the design, I had it looked over and, at first, I had the headline in the middle of the page but, it was pointed out to me that people would not be able to read this in a real magazine so I moved it to the left and have what we see here now.
I have always enjoyed doing magazine projects. Although, I struggle in the beginning, I tend to find my stride and come up with some of my favorite designs. For this design, I wanted to make sure I stuck to a theme for the entirety of the spreads. I chose my theme to coincide with my story and everything is a reference to vintage technology. I originally had the main spread covering the entire front two pages, but I did not like the idea of someone opening a magazine and seeing 2 full pages as if they were a title page.
With this idea, I decided to reduce my title page to the left and to have a teaser story on the right. I was attempting to find ideas on how to format the idea on the right and so I decided to encase the story in an arcade machine. For the rest of my story I went with more of a minimal design with some artistic elements in difference spaces. I did not want to overload my 4 pages with a bunch of visual elements. I figured this would take away from the story itself so that is where I came up with the plain text element.
For the alternative story form / sidebar I decided to format the small story into the visual element itself. I wanted to take the “5 pieces of “obsolete” technology” and place them onto polaroids in some form or another. I ended up taking the design and covering it over an entire page because I did not want to compress the text further to where it was almost unreadable if I had it as just a sidebar. This creates a sidebar effect but in a proportion that is still legible to the reader.
This project was fun because I created/altered every graphic composition except for the NES and Walkman. It was fun to take elements of nostalgic tech and implement them into a story format. I think my title page could be done better to be more cohesive to the page next to it, but the deadline approached faster than I expected.
For our conceptual project, I chose the D.I.Y. House story. I chose this story because while I was reading all of the stories, this story was the one that made my creative juices go the most. I started by trying to come up with a headline for the story. I wanted to emphasize how hard home technology can be for users and i also wanted it to be attention-grabbing. So I came up with “Smart Homes are Making Life Harder” to exaggerate a bit but also get the main idea of the story across.
For the visual concept, I started by thinking of how to visualize smart homes and it malfunctioning. I had a concept where I wanted it to be a house with a lot of pop-up errors like the no wifi symbol and on the inside of the house it would technology circuit going all around. Although it seemed like a cool idea, I didn’t think it emphasized life being hard so i scrapped the idea.
I ended up going with a maze because I think it is a great way to visualize something being hard and challenging. I also wanted to somehow keep the no wifi symbol in the visual to show how something so small like that can make life hard.
I had a hard time figuring out what shape to make the maze. I almost wish I made it more like a usual square, but I wanted the readers to be led to the text so that is why it looks different. I also think it was a great way to put it into my sidebar. I tried to lead the reader to each security camera.
Overall I had a lot of fun doing this project and I like how it turned out.
I really enjoyed this project; it felt very simple and took me back to basic graphic design skills that we had learned in J365. What I particularly enjoyed was the creative freedom we had with the conceptual design. I could have chosen to include actual pictures in Photoshop and change the pictures, or choose a classic “drawn” graphic. I had a lot of fun playing around in Illustrator to come up with my two visual elements that tied in to the story and gave the story another dimension. It was tedious to design because, although it is very simple-looking, there were a lot of different details that went into each graphic. The other detail that I had trouble with and had to play around with for a bit was the fact that the journalist story was really short and there was not much text to fill in white space. For this detail, I tried to play around with a minimalistic design, and then it also gave me another opportunity for a second graphic on my second spread. Looking through magazine examples before starting my project, I saw all these minimalistic, very simple designs and wanted to model mine off of that, partly because I liked the design but also because I figured it could speed up the design process if I was not putting too much on my pages. This is very deceiving. For me, holding true to this type of design style proved harder than it looked. I think because I was trying to put less on my pages, this may have been harder than a busy design because you have to make sure each of your elements is cohesive and working together, and everything has to be placed, particularly because if one detail is off, it will be very noticeable. Rather, if I were to model a more busy design, detail could get lost, and there is not as much pressure to make everything look exact. Overall, I enjoyed the process of designing this project and am proud of the end result. It challenged me to think more critically about design elements and how they interact with each other, and I learned a lot about balance and cohesion in design.
