KevinKeeganPro.com Blog

Sometimes all you need to make your design more interesting, is to use some kind of element or symbol to help draw the composition together. A resource is right at your finger tips. Your keyboard. Let’s take a business card for example. Maybe it’s something relevant to your email address like an “@”. An “@” that is oversized (it’s vector-based, so it won’t pixelate), maybe a contrasting color, can all help set off a certain part of your design that you want to emphasize.

A graphical element can be a very simple and powerful asset to a design. It’s something that catches the eye and can be very relevant and literal to the point you’re trying to get across or it can be a little something that ties it all together visually, or both. So, if you’re missing just a little something, don’t forget to look down.

So the ninth issue for Wrecked Magazine and the sixth issue for me, is complete. This one was on a time crunch as usual, with a week and a half to the due date, I just scraped by. We needed it out within a week of the Long Beach Formula D opening event.

In the last two issues, I’ve incorporated shots from my D90 into the layouts. They help with story telling and assist with text organization and flow. With this issue, I was able to use two. One was for the Formula D preview; the section contains relatively tight lipped info regarding cars being built for the 2009 Formula D season.

And the other was for 2009 Formula D Predictions. My fiance and copy editor for Wrecked Magazine, Ashley, brainstormed a bit for this one. Other ideas that came up were a poker theme or dice, a crystal ball and even a justice scale. But in the end I opted for the fortune cookie. It was cheaper to do and with the cookies and use of a spare rim and falken tire I had in my garage, it came together rather well considering the time frame I was working with. And it never hurts to utilize an advertisers product in a spread.

I’ve definitely noticed a shift in my design direction with the last issue or two. I’m leaning towards using the photography in its relatively untouched state rather than creating graphics that in the end, take away from the photo. This is probably due towards my increasing interest in photography in my personal work. I still feel there is an appropriate time to use graphics. For instance, the Tanner Foust spread from Issue 6, where I wanted to put the “focus” on him, as a driver. I always try and apply an appropriate theme that a series of spreads requires, whether it be a graphical focal point to draw the viewer to the subject of the article or a simple fortune cookie to represent “predictions.”