National Logo Redesign

I did my logo change on USA TODAY.  The reason they decided to do the logo change was to symbolize the changes that are happening for the company.  They are implementing their logo on the newspaper, website, and their building.  My opinion of the logo change is positive.  I like the new look a lot and think it is more artsy than the old one.

                                                        old                                      new

Newspaper Ad

 Our next project is to create a newspaper ad for the Collegio which is our schools paper.  I chose to make my ad about an upcoming rally.  The target audience would be people who enjoy motorsports.  The call to action would be for them to go to the website and show up to the event.  The size of the final ad will be 5x5.75 which was determined by the Collegio's column widths.  This project will have no bleed with a .125 inch margin.  Since this is a newspaper ad it will be black and white.

Thumbs

Rough

For the master image list I used a reverse, raster silhouette, and a vector art.  Rally car image was from istock.  The trees are a vector from illustrator.  The logo element was created by me.

Direct mail

Our next project is a direct mail postcard.  The purpose of this piece is to send out to a specific list of people that match the criteria.  The call to action is to come into the store.  The target audience is college age men and women.  This project is 5X7 with 1/8" bleed and 1/4" margins.  It is two sided and full color.  I got a price quote for 500 of these for $153.16.

 thumbs

roughs

final

On this project I used three 4 color rasters, a reverse, and vector art from the master image list.  All images were from the istock photo folder which I have permission to use.  The logo element I created in illustrator.

Preflight Check List Process

Preflight is the act of inspecting files for errors prior to sending them for print.  The purpose of preflight is to help find mistakes and avoid money costing and time consuming errors.  Below is a link to a PDF of a well explained preflight check list.

Preflight.pdf

There are actually preflight jobs out there in the industry.  Prepress file prep specialist's job is to ensure the jobs are properly formatted for print.  The average salary is about $38,000 a year.


Sources:

http://www.ehow.com/info_7811006_average-prepress-file-prep-specialist.html

http://www.cmprintmail.com/4043CMPrin/Preflight.pdf

QR codes?

This somewhat ugly but useful thing is called a QR code.  Over the past few years these have been used more and more.  I work at Walmart (i hate it), and I see them on almost everything now.  QR codes are basically a way to bring print and multimedia together for the same purpose.  The idea is to scan this with your smartphone and it will take you to a link, video, picture, or a website.  If you scan the one above, it will take you back to this very blog you are reading.  As far as how small they can go and still be scanned themobilists say about 3/4".  They should be high contrast with the background.  The longer the url of the link the more complex the QR code is therefore being harder to read.  There should be a border around the code at least 1/8" wide.


Source: http://www.themobilists.com/2011/10/11/qr-code-best-practices-in-print/

Self Promo Notepad

Our first project of the semester is to design a self promotional notepad with a QR code on it that takes you to our blog.  The target audience is future employers and the call to action is to go to our blog.

These are my thumbnails.

And this is my rough.

This is what I ended up with for the final version.

For this project we had to get a quote for 100 black and white notepads at 50 sheets apiece with a chipboard backing.  To get 100 of these made it would cost $123.53 total.  

Gorilla Awakening

This is a project my friend came to me with.  The religious clubs at PSU wanted to throw together a fun night to hang out and listen to live music.  He asked me to do the poster for it and i said sure because its good experience.  He basically just gave me a few guidelines and some things he wanted on it.

  This is what I came up with.  I printed one for them to mark on and tell me what changes they wanted.

This is what the final copy ended up looking like.  Personally, I dont like it.  I think its too busy and there are too many fonts but they loved it and that's all that matters hahaha.