On the Cutting Room Floor, Part One

Flashback, Family First 320. Everyone loved the picture that appeared on cover. It was taken by Jolee Photography, nice! What the people out there do not know is that it wasn't the only option. While making the cover, we often agonize over what is the best picture to use that will best represent the article. FYI, the most challenging covers are the holiday covers. Since the amount of stock Jewish Holiday are limited,  we often have to be more creative and yes, sometimes dish out some cash for special photo shoots  So in this case find below some other options. Did we make the right choice? 

(click to enlarge)

Biased I am, the kid on the right is my son. Otherwise,I love them both!!! 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS (I'm refering to Chanukah, Oy Oy Oy)

Picassos Blue Period

"Hey, I'z no dummy. One of dem pictures is not a Picasso" you might be saying. True my friend, you are correct. What these pictures do have in common is that they all have a under lying color of blue. Most pictures coming in through a digital camera will have a blue tinge. It is hard to notice, but when taken out, the difference becomes much more apparent  So when working on images, especially that go to print you must take out the blue.

How its done:
Its quite simple. In Photoshop while working in RGB, go to the Curve channel. In the Curves menu, select the blue Channel. After that, lower the blue, and you will 9 out of 10 times see a world of difference on the screen. With such a method you will see a great difference in the printed picture. If this is not done then the pictures usually print as if the subject has a blue overlay.

Leave the Blue Peroid to Picasso and keep your pictures more alive and realistic. I will thank you and so will will Pablo for not trying to rip him off. Adios!

P.S. I forgot to take the blue out of the picture on the cover, it could have that much better. :-(

who needs gettyimages...we do!!! (maybe)

A great place to get some inspiration is gettyimages.com.  Pricey, but certainly the address to see some very creative images taken by today's top stock photographers. For the cover for FF 321 we needed to find the right picture that had the right mood. We found a picture on Getty that seemed to have the right blend of lighting and color, but something wasn't really working (picture on right). So we, at the graphic hub,  put on our thinking caps ( mine happened to be surprisingly rather new, barely used in elementary school) and put together our our photo shoot  This resulted in  in this weeks cover. Special thanks for Brachi Rosenes to help out and making this happen

Creative Direction: Menachem Weinreb

Photo Stylists: Brachi Rosenes, Aviva Kohn, Simi Field, Leah Pinsky

Production: Faigy Hutner

Pray for the Victims of Sandy

I think hurricane Sandy not only effected those in the States, I feel like I have be effected as well. Swept up in an under current of news stories and personal tales I have been very involved. My heart goes out to the real victims. Now most people are getting back to normal, I need to get back as well. Need to get back into it, need to finish the illustrations. I have Part 2 of Rabbi Yeshoua Ben Lavi almost done with a side bar on vows and what is a valid vow and what isn't. Well, if you dont like that, the story is great anyway. I hope to be done at the end of the week. Pray for me

Sol Linero illustrator

Take a look at the last post. Now take a look at this illustrator site and style. Could this style work for Info-graphics  If so, why? Or why not?

but even if u don't have an opinion, you'll love these illustrations. http://www.sollinero.com/

Let the graphics hit 'em

Happy to see that Mishpacha Magazine is making the strong move towards more Infographics. With the demise of Good Magazine, a former leader in offering infographics, Mishpacha is picking up the slack and offering more informational eye-candy. Two great examples of this, power outage article and one other in the election supplement. I know this is just a sampling of what we are going to see in the future. For those that want to expand there minds a bit further see what my friends at  http://visual.ly/ are producing daily.

Creative Direction: Menachem Weinreb

Graphic Design: Simi Feld

How I'm supposed to feel?

Included in this post, a cover from the New Yorker. Interesting  like all New Yorker covers. However, is it on target for the feelings of the people of America? The people of New York?. Maybe, I don't  know. I guess if it has to be explained I just missed the point. What I do know is that late on Sunday I received one of the best titles for a cover that matched the picture. No, the story about the hurricane is not new, we are not exposing a new story. We are all too aware of many details of this event found on the Internet , print and stories told by family and friends. What is often hard to formulate is the overall impact of such an event. How are we supposed to feel? I'm not telling you how to feel, I'm just telling you to look at the magazine cover. Take it from there