GMWDesign

2 great things about the new January edition of 944

Both ads in the current Lady Gaga cover’d issue.

1. I think this Haze double spread looks great. Without loading it up with a bunch of overlays and flare, this turned out to be really clean. Whether or not you like the people in the ad, most of them have pop success right now. The design didn’t take away from the paid acts.

I’ve had to design these double spreads before and dammit if I wasn’t told to add “more flare” or the dreaded “it doesn’t pop” comment.

2. Check out the smile on this chick. The ad says there’s an American Apparel in downtown LA so I know I’ve never see it. This ad got my attention pretty damn quick.

Water Street Car Show, Henderson Nevada

I may not not a lot about cars, but I know what cars look cool to me. I got to snap a few photos from the car show in Henderson this weekend. Wish I could have stayed longer, but the temp hit 100 for the last time this summer and the fam was getting annoying. I can only hear “it’s hot, i’m tired, this is boring” so many times before I blow a gasket. Anyway.. Enjoy. See the full flickr gallery here.

Bad use of inner shadow

I get that the designer wanted to accent this part of the ad but an inner shadow was a bad idea.

The rest of the text on the page has crisp text. And The Cadillac logo below has a vivid glow. Even with the glow you can see the clean edge.

I think the shadowed text would have benefitted from the same glow on the SRX and turned down a little on the text for top & bottom lines. The inner shadow just makes it hard to read.