breast cancer feature final critique

critique of breast cancer cover and feature: I worked really hard on this design. especially on the cover concept. I proabably played around with at least three other cover ideas before this one struck me. it was a frusturating process, but it was a good feeling when i stumbled upon my final idea. I think the biggest challenge of this story was illustrating its three major themes/topics without being kitschy or confusing to the reader. the themes of humor, breast cancer and putting on a show or play jumped out from the story the most as the most dominant points. so, the process began: i first played around with the idea of using a clown nose, but i figured that approach might be pretty common, so then i played around with a pill bottle image with a label that said comic relief...i also made a cover with a comedy mask whose string formed a breast cancer ribbon. anyway, none of those turned out well, and it wasn't until i was at my work at ticketmaster, that the idea of play tickets struck me. so i used those to make a ribbon, and i kept the background black to convey the mood of a dark theatre. i'm sure some people will freak out because the background is black, and the color black on its most base level is considred dark, depressing and dreary...etc...but I LOVE black, and i think it makes the image pop, and i think it can also lend itself to producing a sophisticated mood especially with such a simplified, stark graphic. anyway, i was really happy with my cover, although i will admit trying to convey comedy through the image wasn't successful. i relied on the cover text for that.



my feature i kept simple. I actually played around a lot with it as well--with different images, etc...but with my past experience doing features for vox, both of which i used heavy, illustrative design elements, i felt they didn't translate all too well from computer to newsprint. perhaps if vox were a glossy, i would feel that it could carry heavier designs more successfully, so instead, i chose to stay more airy and simple with my feature design. i played with the text, using showlights as the font to convey the theatre mood once again and let pink be my driving color. i also think it's important to play up the images, so i kept those large as well. looking back, i think my feature looks a bit text heavy, and i probably should have found a way to loosen it up a little bit--maybe a little too newspapery...