A Designers Journal

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(12) Finalising IKO

2013-05-11T12:46:00.001-07:00

Final Thoughts & Amendments

I've completely finished designing my IKO magazine and I think I'm happy with it. It does need quite a few improvements for the moment, I'm satisfied with the outcome. I would have liked for the magazine to look more "flashy" in order to appeal to a wider audience. I know that I've definitely drifted away from my brief to a great extent but at the same time, I'm happy that I did. I think that if I would have stuck to my brief, I would have ended up making something mainstream and obvious. Here are a few thumbnails of my final design for the magazine:

UPDATE:
I've just recently finished my work placement at Green Hat Design. The creative director, who used to be the junior designer for Time Out Magazine many years ago, was nice enough to give me some constructive criticism on my magazine. He explained to me that my magazine is too personalised and contains way too much white space to be considered a magazine for everyday girls. The magazine would be be best suited as a coffee table book. This meant that the book was better off as something for display and pure entertainment.
So, I've decided to split my magazine into three parts and call it a collection of Coffee table books. Each book will be about different topics. This could be something that can be collected Separately depending on the buyers interests. Here's an example of a coffee table book:

As you can see, the coffee table book is full of white space and the content is sparse. Most of what the viewer is expected to look at is the aesthetics rather than the information. Turning my magazine into a series of coffee table books sounds like a very interesting idea. I'm going to attempt this before the deadline!

(9) Vintage

2013-05-11T12:01:00.003-07:00

Researching Vintage Style and Design

Now that I know I want my magazine to be slightly vintage, I've been researching a range of artists, styles and font in order to gather some ideas for my new layouts. I've been looking at different kinds of layouts most of all!
Lately, I've been a very much inspired by the designs of modern art editors rather than the classic ones. I think that I'd rather have a magazine that some vintage elements but with a modern layout. For example, I'm going to keep all of the images black and white, sepia etc and experiment with a variety of 1940-50s fonts. I've been looking at colour palettes firstly. This is so that I have an idea as to what colours will stand out on my magazine. Here's an example of the sort of palettes I've been considering:

The font that I have been looking at have been tall, thin and slightly condensed. I really like this look and I think it could appeal to wide audience seeing as it doesn't look too old fashioned. I'm going to try and experiment with a few of the fonts that I have found and see what happens with them.

(8) Artists Block!

2013-05-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

Redesigning IKO

My magazine so far hasn't been going in the direction that I want it to. So, I've decided to recreate my entire idea and design. One of the main reasons for my change in the designs is that I want my magazine to have some solid and obvious consistency. I've gone to the library a few times to have a look at some layout and magazine design books. I desperately need some new inspiration before I get started!

I picked up a very useful book called The Last Magazine. This book has given me a great deal of ideas to try out. A lot of the designs I've seen in the book so far, look easy to mimic and recreate. So, I'm going to attempt some brand new layouts and see what happens!

(11) Front Cover Ideas?

2013-05-10T20:34:00.002-07:00

Front Covers

I've finally made a start on some front cover Ideas for my magazine. I quite like the idea of create a front cover that isn't as clustered as modern day magazine covers. Vintage magazines all have very little wording on the front cover. The photography or illustration was usually inviting enough on it's own! That's exactly what I want from my front cover. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about:

I started a few experiments and quickly decided on a final cover. This was the cover that my tutors and peers thought suited the magazine best. I think the cover's quite basic. There isn't much to it and the theme is consistent throughout the front and back. You can see that I tested out the look and measurements of the front cover on an existing A4 magazine.

So far, I'm happy with the cover. The colours and photography give the audience an idea what to expect inside which is good. It could be a lot more exciting, but simplicity is what I'm going for.

(10) Second Attempt!

2013-05-10T20:21:00.001-07:00

Second Set of Ideas

I've decided to give the magazine another go and try something different. Instead of cluttering up my pages, I'm going to try and simplify things to make it look less busy. I've been trying to create pages with plenty of white space and a lot of emphasis on the layout rather than image. Here's an example of what I've started working on:

I'm going to attempt a few more experiments and see if I can form some kind of consistency or theme throughout my magazine. So, I'm feeling confident about the red strip photo but I could try and make something a bit more exciting!

(7) Looking For Photographs!

2013-05-08T14:44:00.002-07:00

Photography

I need a photographer! I've been contemplating on the idea of hiring a photographer, talking some photos myself or asking for of my old Photography friends for some thumbnail images in the mean time. I have an idea of what sort of photography I want. I would like images that are clean but have a vintage and stylish look to it.
I've been doing a lot of research into photography lately. I came across an amazing talk via TED.com and discovered a photographer who believes in receiving equal rights for the LGBT community. Her photography is raw, natural and exactly the sort of style that I'm looking to create for my project.

This image especially is sort of style that I'd like for my magazine. It's clearly a modern photo but the style and effects in the photography make it look like something old and vintage. I like this sort of look and I'm hoping to find a photographer who can supply this sort of photography for my magazine.

You can see that majority of her photos are black and white. They're candid and beautiful in presentation. They also have an almost vintage feel to it.

I've also been research an old photographer called Sir Norman Parkinson. I came across his photography a while ago when searching for vintage images. Here are some examples of his photography:

"Parkinson's brilliance has everything to do with time, and defying it – for he managed to be something that should be logically impossible, a "timeless" fashion photographer whose art danced through the decades and always remained in style.

Born just before the first world war, Parkinson lived through a century of extreme change and yet his pictures did not get relegated to yesterday's model. He defined the look of Vogue in the mid-20th century with pictures like his monochrome shot of a thin lady in a very wide hat. Surely, style like that should have made him old hat when the 1960s, miniskirts and sex blew 50s elegance out of the water, yet Parkinson took stunning images that captured the revolution of the 60s. His 1960 photograph Traffic, Queen is a phenomenal distillation of the new spirit. A woman is posed in front of a moving bus: in a typical Parkinson device, she is in sharp focus while everything else is allowed to blur. The bus becomes an abstract mass of speed – Parkinson's use of colour is scintillating, with the slender model wearing a red cap and black dress and leaning against a black and white pelican-crossing signpost."

(6) First Set of Designs!

2013-05-08T14:30:00.002-07:00

My First Attempt

I'm trying out a few layouts of my magazine and so far, I'm not as pleased as I want to be with my designs. I don't feel as though I have an structure with it. However, I'm only trying out a few experiments and enjoying the process so far. Here are a few images of what I've done so far:

This image shows a design of what I wanted to use as an editors page. I wanted something similar to the designs of Baron but it didn't come out how I wanted it to. The page was supposed to be crowded with the large words, however, after looking back at it a few times, I'm not completely satisfied with it.

This next spread is something that I attempted in the beginning of my research. I wanted something slightly vintage but still modern. To some extent, the spread does have a vintage feel but the image on the right clashes with everything! The colours are also quite dull, so I need to research some colour palettes.

These next few spread are my attempt at a contemporary layout. I tried to do something with some of the photographs I had and it's starting to go somewhere. I think that I just need to find some kind of consistency is my layouts. Because I'm still not entirely sure what I want for my magazine, my designs are all over the place. I'll draw up some new ideas!

(5) Researching Fabien Baron

2013-05-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

Fabien Baron

I've been researching an artist known as Fabien Baron. So far, he has become one of my favourite artists in the editorial design sector. His work is very abstract but still well accepted among the mainstream audience. I've seen a lot of his previous work in old Vogue issues and some websites. Here are some examples of work that he's done:

You can see that Baron is a huge fan of large headings and lettering. This is something that I'm hoping to incorporate into my designs. I like the idea of crowding an entire page with a title and or just a simple letter and photography. It's clean but still contains a wealth of aesthetically qualities to appeal to a large audience. This is exactly what I'm hoping to incorporate into my magazine. Here's some information I've found out about Fabien Baron:

"Fabien Baron is well known as one of the leading creative directors of our time. Vanity Fair magazine has called him “the most sought-after creative director in the world. Great names in fashion flock to him to bring a certain cool, understated elegance to their public images.”

"Condé Nast soon moved Baron to Milan, Italy, to redesign Italian Vogue in 1988 under editor Franca Sozzani. After a year and a half, he returned to New York to become creative director of Interview magazine during its 1990 relaunch. He turned Interview into a showcase for the best in contemporary photography, illustration and typographic design.

In 1992, the late editor-in-chief Liz Tilberis asked Baron to join her dream team to reinvent Harper’s Bazaar. His elegantly innovative new design and creative direction earned the magazine two Ellie’s, the most esteemed award in the magazine world, from the American Society of Magazine Editors"

(4) Researching Hans J Barschel

2013-05-08T12:03:00.001-07:00

Hans J Barschel

I've been looking at a few artists as part of my research for my editorial project and I came across an Art Editor known as Hans J Barschel. He's not the most popular magazine designer, but I've seen some examples of work that he's done. Here are a few examples:

I quite like the complexity of his illustrations but they're not the kind of designs I want as part of my project. The work he's done for Harper Bazaar is interesting but not soft enough for what I'm looking to achieve. I've decided to keep examples of his work as a guide and inspiration for the time being. I've also found out some interesting infromation about him:

"Barschel's own promising career as a freelance designer and art director for the Deutsche Reichsbahn came to an end when he decided to leave Germany himself, eventually landing in New York City with few prospects. A fortunate connection with the entrepreneur and graphic arts patron Dr. Robert Leslie led to many commissions, and Barschel soon found himself in high demand. His innovative cover designs for Fortune, including the celebrated German U-boat "torpedo aiming-sight" image, established his reputation as a designer of imagination and with an eye for relevant detail. His covers for Town & Country, Alegheny Ludlum Steel Corporation's Steel Horizons, along with many dust jacket designs for publishers, helped him flourish during a period described by Dr. Leslie as the "creative forties." His circle of friends and design influences included Will Burtin, Paul Rand, George Giusti, Lucian Bernhard, McKnight Kauffer, and Joseph Binder. Later in the decade, his career moved in another direction and he began to design progressive graphics for the pharmaceutical firms of CIBA, Sharp, and Dohme and La Roche.

Moving to Rochester, New York in the early 1950's, he taught art and design at RIT, moving the program towards a modernist visual communications curriculum. His achievements were recognized through many awards, and his career has been documented in numerous periodicals, including PM Magazine, Arts & Industry, IDEA, and Gebrauchsgraphic. -- DP"

From the information I've gathered so far about him, Barschel is very well accomplished as a graphic designer but not specifically as an art editor. I'd like to find more artists that are accomplished specifically in art editing.

(2) Names & Mast Head

2013-05-07T14:15:00.002-07:00

Naming The Magazine

I had the option of creating a series of spreads for an existing magazine but I decided it would definitely be more interesting and challenging if I created my own magazine. It gave me the chance to come up with a name and my own complete style for the magazine.
For the last week and half, I've been drawing up a list of ideas for a magazine name. Names have been a bit of on issue seeing as most of the obvious names have already been taken. Here's a small part of this of names that I came up with during the week:

RIOT!

Pump

Kandy

M83

Anthem

Aztec

Sahara

Rouge

Bleu

Blank

Blanc

Monroe

1992

Ombre

Dame

Cheri

It's taken me a while to come up with something original and easy to remember. I wanted something that has few syllables, short and straight to the point. I came up another list of titles for my magazine a little while ago. After a quick chat with my tutor, I've settled on the name, IKO. It's Japanese for "let's go" apparently. I'm not entirely sure if the meaning is correct but I like the sound of the word and it's short and simple.

UPDATE

So, I've been researching mastheads and have started designing a few ideas of my own.

Here are some examples of the sort of mastheads I'm aiming to design:

Because I'd like my masthead to be simple but still interesting, I've decided to incorporate the idea of Japanese symbols into my design. Here are some examples of what I've been working on:

I used a very simple font and turned it 90 degrees in order to get a Japanese print signature look. I'm hoping that my masthead has that sort of look. Here's an example of what Japanese signature marks look like:

(3) Researching Alexy Brodovitch

2013-05-07T14:06:00.004-07:00

Alexy Brodovitch

I've recently been researching an artist known as Alexy Brodovitch. I've been searching for artists that specialise in editorial design. I thought that this might be a good way to get some inspiration and ideas for my magazine. Here's some information I've found about Alexy Brodovitch:

"Alexey Brodovitch is remembered today as the art director of Harper's Bazaar for nearly a quarter of a century. But the volatile Russian emigré's influence was much broader and more complex than his long tenure at a fashion magazine might suggest. He played a crucial role in introducing into the United States a radically simplified, “modern” graphic design style forged in Europe in the 1920s from an amalgam of vanguard movements in art and design. Through his teaching, he created a generation of designers sympathetic to his belief in the primacy of visual freshness and immediacy. Fascinated with photography, he made it the backbone of modern magazine design, and he fostered the development of an expressionistic, almost primal style of picture-taking that became the dominant style of photographic practice in the 1950s."

Here's an example of some of Alexy Brodovitch:

"Brodovitch created a harmonious and meaningful whole using avant-garde photography, typography and illustration. After being hired he asked several old friends like Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, Raoul Dufy, Marc Chagall and A.M. Cassandre to work for the magazine. Cassandre created several of the Bazaar covers between 1937 and 1940. Brodovitch was the first art director to integrate image and text. Most american magazines at that time used text and illustration seperately, dividing them by wide white margins."

So far, Alexy Brodovitch is becoming one of my favourite Art editors. His work was quite ahead for his time. His designs look like something you might find in a modern magazine. The front covers are definitely something that I'd like to incorporate into my designs. They're not too busy and they look almost like art pieces on their own. This is exactly what I'm looking to recreate in my work.

(1) Self Initiated Project 2013 !

2013-04-21T11:25:00.002-07:00

Self Iniated Project

Alas, we've all been given the responsibility to create and complete our own projects. I have decided to create a 44-52 page magazine based on contemporary fashion. I thoroughly enjoyed the projects that we completed for our previous semester and to some extent, some of the work that we did influenced my decision to create a simple look book.

I have been looking at sites from other universities that display their final major projects. One of the students was confident enough to create a 100 page magazine for her final major project before graduating. I thought that would be interested to see if could create something simpler for my second year project (with less pages obviously).

Although we haven't started yet, I've already gotten some ideas of my own. I have decided that I want my magazine to posses and almost vintage feel. I would like to contain vintage photography and resemble to work of some art editors from the 1930s. This is obviously going to require some thorough research, but I'm very excited to get started!

Here are some images of what I'd like my magazine to look like:

You can see from all of these images that I have a very specific idea for my project. I want simplicity but an eye-catching appearance.

20. Finalising My Logos

2012-12-27T07:36:00.000-08:00

Clothing and Final Logos

I'm not sure if I have a final logo yet, but so far I'm happy with how it looks on the hoodies and T-shirts. I simple used some basic vector images and copied my logo unto to them. I also tried to add some shadow effects to the t-shirts to make it look more realistic. Here's how my t-shirts and hoodies turned out:

As you can see, they turned out quite well. The style of the T-shirts are very simple and wearable.The look of the logos on the shirt also makes it look slightly more appealing and trendy. At moment, I'm very happy with the way my hoodies look and the black designs of my T-shirts. The black designs look more urban and unisex. Almost like street attire.

In terms of improvement, I think I might create some more feminines styles that might appeal to the female audience.

19. Second Set of Logos

2012-12-26T17:20:00.000-08:00

Initial Ideas

I've finally used the my images in Illustrator to create a new set of logos. So far, I'm a lot happier with how these turned out. The logos itself don't look that exciting of professional, but they came out somewhat interesting. Here's what I created:

As you can see, the logos look more urban and have more a street style design to it. I'm not entirely sure what more I could do to it. But, so far I think that it's heading in a decent direction. I've been trying to be as enthusiastic about the project as possible, but like I mentioned before, Branding and Logo design just isn't my forte and I find it quite difficult.

Here's an image of what my logos looked like with some colour and a few adjustments. Some of them don't look as readable as I would like them too but overall, they represent they idea of nature and urban life.

I'm hoping that once I try them out on some clothing items, they might look a bit more appealing.

18. Blowing The Paint!

2012-12-26T15:57:00.001-08:00

Experimenting

This week was spent experimenting with Atomization. This is a process in which you blow ink or paint through a straw. Seeing as I didn't get the exact result that I wanted with the spray painting experiment, I decided to go ahead and try to achieve the results I want using an atomizer.

Here's what I ended up with. So far, I'm quite happy with these experiments because I had slightly more control of the end result. I was able to blow more paint in certain areas than others to create the running paint effect that I want. I was also able to create splashed effects on some of the image and I quite liked the way that looked.

Here's another image of how my experiment turned out. I wanted some splashes for my sub logos so I did some free blowing on some blank areas and made sure to create splashes that were runny. This is how it turned out! So far, I'm happy with the result. I'm hoping that once I use it in Illustrator, I could make it look more animated and softer.

17. First Set of Logos!

2012-12-26T12:33:00.001-08:00

Initial Ideas

I went ahead and used the set of spray painted paws to create a series of ideas for my logo. These are just some simple ideas that I may improve later on if they have some potential. Here's some of what I created:

You can see that I didn't create my own font for the logo and just downloaded something that I found on Dafont.com. I distorted the image slightly and added a few drips to make it look as if I was part of my spray painted logo. I'm certainly not happy with the overall turn of the experiments because it just looks messy and rushed. However, this is just the first set. I tried to create a completely solid idea with the same paw prints and here are some of the results:

These are the ideas that I came up. The colours are just some simple ideas but I'm still not entirely sure about the designs. I would like for it to look more solid and professional and just messy and splashed together. I still feel like I could think of more interesting ideas. But at the moment, I'm struggling a lot with the whole logo and branding project. I'm hoping the project will get easier at some point. Maybe when I've come up with a more stable idea.

16. Spray Painting Experiment

2012-12-26T11:38:00.003-08:00

Initial Ideas

I was inspired to try this idea when doing some brief research about what children are into lately. I noticed that kids were very much interested in urban arts and music, I've decided to lean towards that sort of style.
In order to incorporate images of nature into the design, I decided to use an image of an animal paw. I chose a wild animal such a wolf and cut it out of a card board sheet in order to make a stencil. I wasn't entirely sure how the whole experiment might turn out but I thought it might still be interesting to try it out.
I was given a few cans of spray paint and some A3 sheets of paper so that I spray paint my paw stencil. Here's how my images turned out:

As you can the results of my spray painted paws aren't so bad. I definitely had fun creating the paws and experimenting with colours.

After I've done a few more during the week, I'll see how I can use them and edit them on Illustrator. I'm not sure if I'll be using the same colours as the ones in the actually paw prints but I do like how it turned out. Once I showed the results to my tutor, I was advised to create more paw prints that have more running paint in order to create a more messy effect. Too much of a neat image might not look as child friendly.

I'm hoping to create an effect similar to this image.

15. What Do Kids Like?

2012-12-26T10:29:00.002-08:00

Research

For the next few days, I'm going to spend time researching into the latest trends among children and children's media. I'm not entirely sure what kids are in to these days so I'm collecting a series of images and ideas that might help me understand what children are into. The images might inspire me to create something includes all of these things. I want to create a logo that kids will be able to relate to and familiarise themselves with.

Here are a few images in fashion and music that I found.

I'm hoping to combine all of these sources to create something that kids will understand and easily recognise. I've decided to lean towards a sort of urban and graffiti style. Something that kids are used to seeing every time they step outside. Graffiti and urban art are the most popular with kids, so I'll try and create something along those lines.

14. We've Gone Live!

2012-12-26T10:06:00.000-08:00

Live Project

For the remained of the semester, we will be completing a live project. The project is based on a potential show for children ages 6 - 12 years old. The show will consist of out door activities such as sports and nature. So, we basically have to create a brand for the show that will go along with their outdoors theme.

Logo design is not my forte.

Branding has never been of interest to me. I've always found it difficult to create logos and construct one simple simple that represents someone. When we ere introduced to the project, I wasn't exactly pleased, seeing as we had already covered branding in Year 1.
Despite the fact I'm not too fund of the project, I decided to approach it with enthusiasm. I've already started conjuring up ideas for the logos and sub logos.

Here are a few examples of the sort of logos that I will be looking at for inspiration.

I've also been looking at a website that's filled with beautiful examples of logo designs. The site is called http://smashinghub.com/30-cool-illustration-logos.htm
So, I'll be using this site as inspiration also.

13 Finalising My Editorial Project

2012-12-26T09:13:00.000-08:00

Final Design For Editorial Project

I've finally finished my editorial project and created a short series of spreads including my front cover and back cover. Overall, I am somewhat satisfied with the turn out of my work. I would have liked if the spread was more vibrant and classy. But, with the way it looks, I believe that it may appeal to a very young audience such teenage girls.

These were the spreads I was hoping to use for my final designs but I felt that they were too plain and simple for. For my final pieces, I decided to increase the size of my icons and spread them across the the left page. For thee Front cover, I made the collage slightly busier and increased the size of the images. As for the image with the woman, I decided not to use it and use my back up spread instead.

Here's an image what my magazine spread turned out to look like. The images are simple, colourful and different. I would have loved if the front was a lot fuller and spread across both of the pages.

My feedback for the spreads was exactly as I had expected it to be. I could have done a lot more to make the spreads look classy and "fashiony" but as I ran out of time, I became overwhelmed.

12 Front Cover

2012-12-24T08:00:00.002-08:00

Final Front Cover Design

I've decided to create something that looks slightly abstract and also quite simple. I was inspired to create a collage front cover when browesing the internet for magazine front cover ideas. I saw the idea on the front cover of popshot magazine. Here are a few examples of the sort of idea I had for my magazine front cover.

Popshot magazine are quite popular for being an illustration based magazine. They also use quite a few abstract images in their spreads and front covers. I've decided to lean in this direction for my magazine. Here, I'll show you the process I went through to create my collage front cover for my magazine.

Here, I cut out a few images from magazines, newspapers and such and then placed them in various positions in and scanned them. I would have added more to the collage but I thought I'd start of simple just in case the image didn't come out exactly how I'd visualised it.

You can see that I also experimented with various background textures. I've also tried to shuffle some of the images around to create something different. After I had scanned the image, I went ahead and opened it up in Illustrator so that I could get on with some further experimenting. Here are a few images of what I tried in Illustrator in order to get some results.

As you can see, I've live traced the image and left it black and white. I wanted the image to look simple but leaving black and white was too plain and boring. So, I continued my experiment by using colours and mixing the collage with my other collage layouts. Here's an example of what I ended up with.

I like the look of the collage but I'm not too happy with how the overall double page turned out. It looks to plain and just placed there rather blended in and professional. I still left it as it is and decided that the next time I look at it, I'll create a more vibrant collage and possibly have the entire image blend in together. Overall, I'm happy with the experiments but I would be a lot happier if it turned out more vibrant.

11 Screen Print Please!

2012-12-24T06:50:00.003-08:00

Front Cover Experiments

I've been exploring the idea of using a screen printed image as my front cover. Vintage bikes have been a trend in Bristol, so I'd like to focus the theme of my front cover on the spread as well the vintage bike trend in Bristol I would like the spread to look quite rough and full of texture to illustrate a sort of vintage and grungy feel.

In order to do this, I went to the screen printing room for a print session and experimented with a few of images to see if I actually liked the effect of the screen print. Here's what my images turned out to look like.

As you can see I did end up with some slightly rough textures in my screen printed images. I wanted to screen print images in layers over each other to create a full portrait. But after this result, I decided to discontinue the experiment and focus on something else. The images didn't come out how i expected and the overall look seemed too plain in comparison to what i had in mind.

I may come back to the idea again for my final major project but for now, I'm just going to leave this behind. Despite the fact that I wasn't too happy with the image, I still experimented with the screen prints. Here's what I created quickly on Illustrator.

It isn't exactly what I had in mind but It looked interesting.

10 Spreading Out Ideas!

2012-12-24T06:21:00.001-08:00

Initial Ideas For Spread (2)

So far, I've created a short series of ideas I'd like to use for my final designs. They're still rough ideas and I haven't decided on anything solid but at the moment, I'm somewhat pleased with the outcome of the layout rather than the design. Here are a few examples of what I have done so far.

This spread design is meant to be simple and not too overpowering. I wanted a lot of white space on the page to make sure that it's easy to look at and the article is still visible and readable. The heading is a font that I downloaded from Da font online and thought that the tyre track texture really went well with the bike article.

Here's the second page of the article. I'm approaching the second page of the article with simplicity here. Seeing as it's just a continuation of the previous page, I decided to keep the colours and the illustration consistent. The icons are images that I gathered online and traced on illustrator. I thought it might add a bit of excitement to the right side of the double spread rather than leaving it bare.

Here's an optional third page that I created for the spread that I created for the project. I wanted the entire right page to be consumed with an image and for the left side to look less busy. The idea was to create something abstract and grungy.

As you can see I browsed through a great deal of illustration themed magazines to get an idea of the sort of look I'm going for. I was more interested in getting simple looking illustrations that are straight to the point but still aesthetically pleasing. I didn't want the image to be too busy and messy.
Because I want the magazine article to appeal to woman with varied styles, I decided to create something that was diverse and not too feminine. A spread that consists of "girly" features but still tough and masculine in some aspects.
I still have quite a bit to improve and clean up but, overall I'm somewhat satisfied with the outcome. It isn't exactly what I had in mind but it's getting there!