Critique: Roll On

We meet again! Safe to say I survived week one of magazine design, not without a few pitfalls though.  Week one was to design six pages total for the feature, Roll On, or whatever they have decided to change the name to since then.  To be quite honest, it was tough for me to get back in the swing of the design world since I haven't taken any design classes for a few semesters. But yadda yadda yadda, here's the finished project:

 *Sidenote: The "Roll On" was a different font in both of them - it was an italicized script as a finished project.

Now to walk you through my design process.  I wanted to give the feel of community and comfort, so the first thing I decided on was an off-white background for the feature.  To me, the white felt too stark and the off-white seemed to reflect more of the paper that cigarettes are rolled with.  I pulled the wine and gray color scheme from the rest of the photos.  Also, when I spoke to the writer about his story he said, "He (the owner) talks about the fresh tobacco blends as if they are wines - different hints of this or that." This further supported my initial reaction to use the wine-ish color.  I was challenged with the placement of the photos throughout the story.  I didn't want to crop any of the pictures, due to the fact that it was indeed a photo essay.  I also wanted the pictures to be large enough to be able to see the texture and movement within the photos.  Looking back, I definitely think that I could have used more pictures with a larger variety of sizes.  My design process was a little too safe, like Jan was talking about, and I should have tried to step outside of the box a little bit more.  Today, it definitely hit me that working at VOX this semester is the perfect opportunity to take all of the risks that I may not be able to take if (hopefully when) I work at a professional publication.  (I'm not saying that VOX isn't professional... you know what I mean!)

Next up on the design list, I'll be tackling the books/bob department pages this weekend.  Also, I'm about to start design project two, so I'll let you all in on my master-mind plans once I get a little more in depth.  I know, I know, you're all on the edge of your seats out of anticipation...