Critique: a graphic

I feel like I should be critiquing my first round of Cupboard designs, but all of the content is changing so much that I don't think it's worth it. They're adding a person, we're shooting photos and adding a lot of sidebars. So, instead, I offer a full-page graphic I'm working on for a special section for the Missourian.

It's basically a bunch of stats gleaned from the Census that people expect and should know about, but the editors didn't want to write a story about. I turned it into this idea of getting to know the type of people that make up Columbia. We are (mostly) young, female, single and possess a Bachelor's degree.

I'll be playing around with the colors so more to get a better feeling of dominance. I don't think I have enough room to really play around with graph sizes or more design features, so I'm going to have to use color, but I think it's a good start.

Response: Prototypes

It was a lot of fun seeing everyone's prototypes this week in class, and I'm excited to see where everyone will take there's when we're done.

Shindig: This magazine seems like it's a lot of fun to work on. I really like the sleek and slightly retro, but still contemporary, look to it. It seems very polished and the closest to complete. Some of it felt a little decorative to me, but I really enjoyed looking at the spreads.

Nosh: I like the concept for this magazine, though I'm definitely the type of person who eats three meals a day. Theresa's got a great start to everything, and all of the other designers will do really well.

Plaid Dad: I loved the steel strip going down the side. It's a nice "manly" feature to through it, and I didn't even notice it at first. It fit so well with the magazine that I glanced over it, but it added to the masculine feel of the magazine.

Modern Midwest: I think they're facing a big challenge in the lack of place-type photos in Meredith's library, but I think they'll overcome it. I like the younger feel they have going with the magazine and can't wait to see what it looks like.

You Can't Miss: Color for the color-blind and favorite mobile apps

A friend of mine emailed this site to me the other day: colorbrewer. It's a site that will give you RGB, CMYK and HEX codes for different color shades for maps, including combinations that work for those that are color-blind, as well as "print-friendly" and "photo-copy safe." It's a pretty neat website that will let you see what a segmented map will look like with different color combinations.

This week in Made by Many, there's a blog post that's a Q&A with Ivo Jansch, who started up a mobile app company. He said something that resonated with me, and I think speaks to some of what Kristin was getting at in her presentation. He talks about a iPad app called Flipboard, which turns Facebook status updates and tweets into a magazine-like reading experience.

Jansch says, "It turns your Twitter and Facebook feeds into a very visual digital magazine. It's a very pleasant reading experience. The people at Flipboard understand the tablet use case and they understand how people like to read content these days."

Kristin made the point that iPads are an opportunity to combine the best of web and print, and I think Jansch is getting at that point by selecting Flipboard as his favorite app and describing it the way he did.

Response: SJI logos

It was fun seeing everyone's logos this past week. This was probably the hardest design assignments I've ever done because it's so different from news design.

It was also interesting getting Greg's design advice. He takes design literally, instead of figuratively, which is very different from a lot of what we do. But I think it's also good for us to experience because it's how non-designers see design.

Critique: Food challenge covers, rd. 2

During last week's critique, I was given the option of reworking the David and Goliath cover or the fighting cover. I ended up doing both.

For the fighting cover, I think it really needs to be a photo shoot. The cut-out isn't the best, but I still love the concept. I think it's a funny concept that really deserves to be done right.

I think the David and Goliath cover is also a good concept, and it isn't as technically intricate, which is nice.

I like them both, so it'll be interesting to see what everyone else brings tomorrow and which cover the editorial team will choose.

You Can't Miss: Games and Graphics in Augmented Reality

I'm in the process of thinking of a game to create to go with the special section The Missourian will be putting out next month. I'm one of two people working on graphics, and there's an emphasis on interactives this year. I'm really excited about it, and I was really excited to see this post on Made by Many. It's about how we can leverage games to make them do more than what they do on Facebook.

In the post, it's more about the psychology behind games, but it'll be interesting to see how I can turn it into something useful for news. One thing that really hit home was that games need to satisfy the PERMA rule: Positive Emotions, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishment. If anyone has an idea about how to create some of this in a quiz, I'd love to hear it.

The blog Cool Infographics showcased a graphic given in a bit of a different style: augmented reality. Hans Rosling did this for a talk that illustrated the changes in quality of life over the past 200 years. Check it out! It's so cool to see innovations like this.

You Can't Miss: Holler Gram and Movie Barcodes

In order to gear up for SXSW, Made by Many created an iPad app. In the blog post, they talk about how they did the animations for it, as well as distribute the code for the animations. I thought it provided great insight into the thought process behind many of the decision making we'll be doing for our iPad apps and gives us some more information about the iPad.

I also found these great movie barcodes on chartjunk. They stretched each scene out vertically and smashed each scene together.

Critique: Food challenge covers

With double production, this food challenge feature is running over Spring Break, but is being designed now. The idea is much like the Man v. Food tv show, so I wanted to find different ways to illustrate that idea.

The first one is pretty clear to get the concept, I think. My biggest problem with it right now is that I think it could also work as a cover for a story about obesity.

The second one is my favorite concept, with a man and food squaring off in the boxing ring. I'm not a fan of the typography, so if anyone has any suggestions on that, I'd appreciate it.

The third one is a man vs. the local food challenges. The story features four different food challenges around town, and I would like to photograph each of the four challenges and use them instead of the stock art I pulled.

Response: iPad conference

There was so much going on this past week, it's hard to settle on just one thing to talk about. But I think the most design-relevant event was the iPad conference. I went to the Popular Science talk and the BHG talk.

I really enjoyed the part where everyone seemed to be making it up as they goes along. The don't know what they're doing any better than we do.

I also appreciated seeing two different perspectives on getting involved. With Popular Science, they released their iPad app the same day as the iPad. BHG is timidly testing the market until things settle and there is a standard for what should be done.

Critique: Logos

So, I've actually spent most of my time this week tracing over a hundred years of Missouri Congressional state boundaries. It's boring, tedious work that will actually make a pretty cool interactive graphic when I'm done.

But other than that, I've been working on logos for SJI. I've posted a sampling of what I've come up with so far. My favorite is actually the blue one on the bottom because of the color and the emphasis on the more journalism-y aspect. I might add the Institute's tagline above the 'S' somewhere.

This week, I'll keep plugging away on the interactive graphic and more logos. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else has done.

You Can't Miss: Redesigning the health report and Google's relationship with the news

First off, this has been out for awhile, but I think it's a great example of how good design can improve the lives of everyone. In December, Wired did a piece on how redesigning medical tests can empower patients to understand what is going one with their bodies. It's an example of how great design can change someone's life for the better.

Secondly, Made By Many blogged about a bunch of different links this past week, one of which was very interesting to me. Google is partnering with the International Press Institute for a news innovation product competition. They've allocated $2.7 million to the project. It's interesting to see how many of these products are created, and how design plays a role in their success.

Response: Historical perspectives

It was fascinating to see the change in design from the 1950s to the 1960s. As Jan said, there wasn't a lot of difference in the design during the decades until then.

It was especially interesting to see the differences in Esquire. I had looked at the 1940s, but the design in that decade was a page of text, a page of image. There was actually a decent amount of difference between the '40s and '50s, but with the amount of color and more unique illustrations used in the '60s, there was an even bigger difference.