Critique: Assignment 2 - Spring Preview

My body will not allow me to stay awake all night. That's too bad because the second page of my spring preview needed me to.

The concept of my cover and spread was the changing of season, the foliage that people look forward to and the events that pop up in the springtime. I showed that change in a non-traditonal way by dividing an illustration of a dogwood, Missouri's state tree, into a grid and then showing the progression of the season change in the different squares. The three spreads were to each contain an image of the tree showing what it would look like at that time of the year.

I feel like the concept was strong but needed to be more tied to content. Yes, it is the spring preview, but the feature is more than just saying "hey, it's spring!" The weakest part of my design was the right page of the feature spread. It is difficult to organize all of that information and make it fit. I was noble in my efforts to not cut content despite the fact that it was dummy text. Boy was it tempting.

As I complete each assignment, I'm making revisions and addressing the problem areas in my design. Designs from my first two assignments may not have ran in Vox, but I've gained some insight into what works and what doesn't for the publication as well as what is feasible for the turn-around time I have for a design piece.