The award that coulda been

Last week was the first-ever MIN awards ceremony. We entered Entrepreneur for a few categories, and were very happy to be finalists (and to receive honorary mentions) in both the Best Covers and Most Improved categories. The editorial and art departments have worked extremely hard over the last year, and to be a finalist in these categories was a win! To be in the company of Harper's Bazaar and Fitness (who ended up winning) was a victory in itself.

...and yet MORE covers

I could go all day, people. See what I mean about the touch of humor? (see "Bosshole" cover). There's a great story behind that one, but I'll save it for another day.

Cool thing: after we did the August 2009 cover and feature on the entrepreneurs of New Orleans and their huge effort to rebuild after Katrina, they actually gave our Editor-in-Chief the keys to the city (for a day, of course). Pretty cool to be reaching and helping such smart, inspired people.

Oh, and Youngstown, OH created a giant, building-sized flag out of their "Best Cities" cover. How funny!

Covers, covers and more covers

Cover design samples for Entrepreneur magazine (newsstand and subscription cover samples). Subscription covers focus mostly on a single entrepreneur, while newsstand tend to be typography-driven.

Covers are notoriously difficult. It's a balance of design and edit, which ideally play off each other and work as a marketing tool for each issue. I like to add a little fun to covers where appropriate, whether it's using fun typography, colors or imagery.

The inaugural post

Welcome to my first blog post! I'm feeling a bit pressured to start off my blog on a great note. However, I think the best way is to just be myself, so here goes. I'll try to keep the sarcasm to a minimum, since it doesn't translate well online--much like em-dashes, ampersands, cool typefaces and other fun things I find enjoyable.

But already, I digress. It's not that I'm unfocused; it's more that I have so much going on inside my brain it's easy to be distracted by the small things. Or, for that matter, the big things! But one thing is constant, and is even aided by my multi-tasking brain: I work my ass off to do great, kickass work and to collaborate with talented photographers, illustrators and other designers.

On this blog you'll find some of my samples and perhaps some commentary on designisms, industry to-dos and all that good, juicy stuff involving media, publishing and editorial design.

High aspirations, but here goes! Let's get this show on the road.