Critique

I will be up front and honest, I am my own toughest critic. This past week I got my first assignment for VOX magazine: a cover and feature competition. Along with 16 other designers, we each came up with our own concept and designs. 

No pressure right? Wrong! I sketched for a couple days trying to come up with ideas, I brainstormed for hours, but literally the the light bulb never turned on. With lack of creative juice flowing in my veins for the past several days, I was stuck. Eventually I had to stop avoiding the assignment and just do it... whether or not I got inspired. 

Result = disaster... trash... an embarrassing product. 

Working on the cover I thought, "

okay this is going to be cool, I can do a lot of things with this." Too ba

d I tried to think "symbolically" and missed the boat by several feet. After working on a photo illustration of a couple band members in an ornate building, I 

decided that it was good, but not relative. Therefore I went back to the starting block. "Be seen. Be heard..." I got attached to this head because it was a literal interpretation of my symbolic graphic. The cover story is about musicians who are beginning  to license out individual songs as opposed to waiting to be signed with a company. These songs are being used in television shows, movies, etc. 

Secondly, the feature. A story about the economy, but localized. The story is amazing and I really wish I could have done something to give it justice, but this might have been one of the worst designs I've actually saved, and printed. 

A redesign of both will be coming soon, including an improvement.