I finished up a two, two-page spread for a story that will be published next January in the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s annual alumni magazine, Maryland magazine. The design is completely different from anything that has appeared in the magazine before. The feedback has been positive, but I think the higher-ups may not be comfortable with it.

The story starts off with this compelling paragraph:

Imagine falling asleep at night to the sound of shotgun blasts. Or coming home from school to find your belongings strewn on the street, again, because your family can’t pay the rent. Or hoping that your mother’s boyfriend doesn’t get high and hurt you like he’s done before. For some children who live on the fringes in Baltimore’s urban neighborhoods, traumatic events like these make up their everyday lives.

The article concentrates on the a local center helping families deal with different types of trauma, and the success of repairing families that wouldn’t otherwise receive help.

No, not the movie. (Which had one of the worst endings ever!) Let’s talk bleeds. The term bleed is used for all objects overlapping the border of your document. That is to say, it an element touches the edge of your document, you want it to bleed off the page. The bleed in your document gives the printer some cropping  wiggle room.

Printer National has a useful synopsis on a document bleed, as well as step-by-step instructions for setting them up in your document. Yes, this can be done in Adobe InDesign. It could not be done in Quark. (Not sure if Quark 7 has this capability or not.)

A curious note: Printer National lists 1/8″ as standard bleed dimensions for the United States. I typically setup my documents to have 1/4″ bleed. That way, I can see it.

In searching for inspiration for classifications, I came across an interesting ad campaign in Coastal Living from Delta (the faucet people). Created by Young & Laramore Advertising, based in Indianapolis, the campaign is something very different for a company that designs faucets for kitchens and bathrooms.

The campaign is at least a year old. Last year, Thomas L. Collins of DirectMag.com wrote in length about Delta’s campaign, and even took it upon himself to come up with a redesign. He calls the campaign witty, but pointless.

His main issue is the fact that the headlines are “Loofah,” “Plantain,” “Sponge” and “Toothbrush”.

I don’t mind that so much. Sure, it isn’t the product that is being sold, but that isn’t really the point of the ad. For me, the headline clearly states “what” is doing the talking. It doesn’t bother me so much.

While I agree with some of the points he makes, I still prefer the original ad over his redesign.

AIGA’s event is tomorrow night at Geppi’s Entertainment Museum on Camden Street. I’ve never been, but am thinking about attending. What can I expect?

HOW Design is having a poster contest. No categories, just everything grouped together. All entries need to be submitted online and the ten winners chosen will be featured on Howdesign.com and receive a How magazine subscription plus $150 of books. Sounds good. How Design is a great magazine for those that don’t know.

All the details can be found at http://www.howdesign.com/posterdesignawards.

So, will anyone be entering their poster in this contest?

I’m curious to learn where people go to print out their rough drafts, comps and revisions. Before project three, I’ve printing everything at work. The upside is that I do not incur any costs, but the downside is that the printer is not properly calibrated and tends to print colors much darker than they actually are.

At the start of project three, I used Kinko’s. This is a place that is absolutely evil in my eyes, so to use their services again is costing me on so many levels: personal pride, wallet, time, frustration, energy.

I haven’t used the lab on campus yet because I’m never in the neighborhood. I’m wondering how everyone else is handling things.

WWF Paper Towel Dispenser

The World Wildlife Foundation altered a regular paper towel dispenser to show how paper use depletes rain forests in South America.

As written at Inhabitat:

These paper towel dispensers have a cut out the shape of South America through which a stack of green paper towels illustrates the green rain forest canopy of the continent. As the paper towel dispenser is slowly drained of its green paper towels, we see the greenness slowly drained out of South America, symbolizing the nasty environmental impact of disposable paper towels.

I’ll be traveling to Charlotte, North Carolina tomorrow. I hope find inspiration on the road. There are tons of billboard signs on I-83 heading into North Carolina from Virginia. There’s also a bunch on I-95 going through Richmond. Every once in a while, I’ll see a clever one. Hoping for more of the same on this trip.