Response: Meredith Corporation

After visiting with the four Meredith employees earlier this week, I'm really excited to work on the publishing project with the other class. I think it'll be a lot of fun to incorporate some of the Meredith principles, such as the excellent photography, with some younger designs in magazines. I think it'll be fun and interesting to find ways to update some of their ideas.

It was really great to get the perspective on the differences between class and job as well. It was interesting to hear about how turning in a design on the job doesn't mean that you're done and some of the other challenges faced in a design job that don't necessarily exist in a class environment.

Critique: Baby Beauty Pagent

I worked on the Baby Beauty Pageant competition this week.

Based on the tone of the photos and the text, I didn't want to try anything crazy or that could seem as if it were making fun of the sources. The story was respectful of the people involved and didn't have any of the poking fun aspect that's part of Toddler's and Tiaras.

I've also been working as a designer for Global Journalist, which has a more conservative design style than Vox, and I think I had a hard time adjusting to that.




As I was designing, I felt a little as if were still designing for Global Journalist. I tried to be a little more risky, but I'm not sure I succeeded.

I also wanted to play up the father because he's such a huge part of the story.



















Another struggle was the cover. It's been quite some time since I designed one and I was running out of creativity for a cover. I like the idea of this cover, but I would have preferred something a little more focused on the Dad and child.








I'll be focusing on the spring preview for the next couple of days. I'm also hoping to do a couple of fun posters, but we'll see about how much time I have left.

You Can't Miss: National Geographic, Internet Sites

From National Geographic: an interactive map of last names around the country.
It was fun to click around and try and figure out where the most Morris' live in the U.S. However, I had a hard time reading many of the names, mostly because of the transparency on the text. This was especially hard with blue, which is the color Mina Liu and Oliver Uberti decided to use for England. It seems that most American's last names come from England, so it's a consistent problem. I also wish that you could search a last name and find an area. It would be cool to search "Morris" and find everywhere with an overwhelming population, instead of searching throughout the entire graphic.

On MadeByMany's blog, there was an interesting post on the worth of internet sites. The author, Tim Malbon, takes the reader through a brief history of the must-haves of website design, including micro-sites, Flash and now a connection to social media. He makes the point that without interesting content, all the video, recipes and interactivity won't make a bit of difference to the consumer. One of the commenters noted that true engagement with the consumer happens when companies interact with consumers about what they like, not the product the company is trying to sell. It serves as a reminder to design around the user, not about what's cool or to show off what we can do.

About me

I'm Sarah Morris, a 22-year-old grad student at the Missouri School of Journalism. I'm here to learn about information graphics and magazine design. I'll be blogging about both throughout the semester.

I'm currently a designer for Vox magazine and Assistant News Editor at the Columbia Missourian. I've been the Interim Graphics Editor at the Missourian, as well as Assistant Graphics Editor, Graphics staff and reporter.