Article Review: Killing Your Darlings

I found the article, "Kill Your Darlings" Book Designers' Favorite Covers Don't Always See the Light of Day by Peter Terzian for Print magazine very interesting. The article explored several different book cover designs that never made it to the shelves for many different reasons such as new book titles, disapproval from the authors or the bookstores and much more. I think I found this article really interesting because I never really thought about this issue. I just assumed that once a design is finalized, the author would just accept it and make it work. It must be really hard as the designer, to have your designs rejected and have to start from square one, especially when you were extremely fond of your original design. Let's take the above image, for example, in Carol Devine Carson's first design (top left) she depicted the story in a successful way, and in my opinion this is the best cover of the three. However, the author felt it was kind of "sinister and mocking" and they went with a close-up of a canine (bottom left) instead. Personally, I believe that a cover that invokes emotion in the viewers (like the dog-baby design) will sell more than something that plays it safe (like the canine close-up.)

On the other hand, sometimes a redesign is exactly what a book cover needs. As a fan of simplicity, I am fond of John Gall's original design for Remainder by Tom McCarthy (top right), but his final design (both right) is definitely much more interesting. Gall actually killed his own design, after it was approved because he felt it needed "some color", and I think he was absolutely right. As I said before, I am fond of his original design, but when compared to the final design I would definitely rather purchase the latter.

Thanks for reading, 

Brittany Rendon

www.behance.net/brittanyjade

Peer Review: Art Show Poster

Here is a picture I took of one of my classmate's poster designs for the Annual Juried Student Art Exhibition. This design was my favorite among all the posters. This poster is very bold, and straight to the point. The unified illustration is very intricate, and it definitely makes this piece stand out amongst its surroundings. I believe this design sends the message that art students at SUNY Oneonta have strong imaginations and great ideas which lead to great art. I can also see the frustration every college student experiences with the multitude of work, and issues on our mind through the hands grasping the face. This design is definitely unique. It combines pretty elements with quirky ones in a way that isn't cliche. I personally favor this design because I love the transcendence from a person's upper body to different nature elements and alien-like details. It sends me the message that we are more than just what we are, and we can be anything we want as long as we can think of it.

Thanks for reading,

Brittany Rendon

www.behance.net/brittanyjade

Pack It Up!

The current project I'm working on is a packaging redesign for an existing product. My graphic design class took a trip to the local Hannaford's grocery store and observed all the packaging of the products in our assigned category — my category is beauty, hygiene, and baby products. Initially, I was having a hard time finding a product that I felt I could successfully redesign. I noticed that baby products used a wide range of bold colors and intended to appear organic, appealing to parents. I didn't take an interest in redesigning any baby products. In the hygiene aisle, most products looked similar — plastic bottles with squirting tops. There were a few interesting bottles that stood out with different shapes and colors. I would definitely be more attracted to those rather than the typical ones while shopping. The most innovative packaging was definitely the Method hand soaps.

(Source: http://getconcentric.com)

 

( Source: http://www.disneybaby.com )

Examples of Method hand soaps' packaging I saw at the grocery store

I ended up choosing to redesign a beauty product. I feel comfortable doing this because I am very much interested in makeup and such things, so I think I can design something fun and different that I would actually use. I am torn between two products; Eco Tools organic makeup brushes and Baby Lips lip moisturizers. The Eco Tools packaging works, however it's is pretty dull and boring. On the contrary, the Baby Lips packaging is pretty tacky in my opinion. I have drawn up some sketches for both, now I just need to decide which one to do. My idea for the Eco Tools is to place the brush in a bamboo-inspired tube because the brushes are made from bamboo and other organic materials. The substrate will be recyclable, to keep within the organic theme. My idea for the Baby Lips is to place the item in a rectangular box (different colors for each different flavor) and have one letter of "BABY" and one letter of "LIPS" on each side of the box — sort of like toy blocks that children play with. I got this idea from a design my professor showed us in class of the packaging of scents for babies, I believe that's what it was. My other idea is to make the box in the shape of lips.  What do you think I should do?

Existing Baby Lips packaging for "05 Quenched"

Rough sketches of Baby Lips design ideas

The Dieline website offered some greats inspiration for my project. There are tons of packaging products and helpful info for package design on this site. The designs range from simple and clean to intricate and bold. If I do the Eco Tools brush I will be going for a simple design, but if I do the Baby Lips I think I want something in between. Pictures will be posted shortly of my progress, maybe you can get a better idea of what I'm thinking.

Photographs of final designs

Thanks for reading,
Brittany Rendon
www.behance.net/brittanyjade
Bjrendon31@gmail.com

Art Show Poster

SUNY Oneonta's Art department holds an Annual Juried Student Art Show every Spring and my graphic design class was asked to design a poster for the event. Each student's task is to design 3 variations of a poster, each with a different element being emphasized. The best poster will be chosen for the event to be used around campus and downtown to promote the show.

Before I began designing, I created a Mind Map with "Student Art Show" as the main focal point and I drew branches from there with anything that I mentally related with the SUNY Oneonta Art Show. The point of this was to be free of any judgement and let my ideas just flow onto the paper. It didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped, because a lot of the words I thought of were pretty cliche, but it definitely did help. I find that my biggest challenge when designing anything is choosing where to start. The Mind Map definitely did make it a little more simple for me to visually see my ideas, but I ended up trying about four completely different designs anyway, haha.

The first design I did was a very basic typography flyer with a simple color palette and not much visual interest. I quickly abandoned this idea and moved onto the next, which was a bit more quirky. I took an image of a fancy framed chalkboard from Google and used a simple typeface to add an unexpected contrast against the fancy frame. I loved this idea, but I am not sure if it is the perfect idea for this project. I reached a halt, trying to figure out how to make it look more interesting. My third idea was to create three different types of eyeglass frames to demonstrate the differences between every student. I want to add another meaningful element to this one but I also reached a halt. My last design is my favorite (most likely the one I am going to use). It combines a real photograph of a bird, with lines I have drawn in Illustrator around the bird to outline its shape and they all meet at the bottom left where I will have the text about the show. I love the contrast between realism and artificial design in this poster, it makes for a very intriguing concept.

First idea – Too Boring

Second idea – Didn't expand on it.

Third idea – Didn't know where to go with it

1 of 2 Final Designs

Which design do you like best?

Thanks for reading,

www.behance.net/brittanyjade

Bjrendon31@gmail.com