Critique...Shindig is coming close to the end!

With next week being the final week that we will be working on our commissioned pieces, I thought it would be nice to critique what we've ended up with! We've all being working extremely hard on our designs and I think we're all looking forward to seeing the final pieces after they've been printed.

Departments
Cheers, Baking with Booze: After a bit of concern about how many recipes we were planning on including and then determining the art (it's always the art that seems to be the issue) we landed on three awesome recipes and some great photos, including one I shot myself (a unique, textured border for the top of the right page).

Feast, Basket Case: This spread was definitely not a picnic, but it is one of our most well written pieces from the entire magazine. One difficultly we've had in discussion with our publishers is how reasonable it would be to find artwork for our spreads when we are given very little resources outside of the photo database we are granted permission to and actually shooting the photographs ourself.

Mingle, Hostess Guide: Vintage was our goal and, with the help of Etsy.com, we were able to find great art for our hostess gifts and as I see it, the spread turned out a lot like a product spread I would see in a department of a real magazine.

Flair, Make It or Break It: This is BY FAR my favorite of all the spreads I designed for Shindig. The photo, taken by me, turned out exactly how I had pictured it in my head. I'm not sure about everyone else, but rarely does it actually turn out how I see it in my head. 

Features
Luxe for Less: Lucky us! We found a wine bottle that fit our design needs perfectly. Because, while Photoshop is a wonder and I'm sure I have much to learn about it's capabilities -- I am not a wiz at turning a standard wine bottle into a silver and black one. I say lucky us, because we happened to find one while at one of our photo shoots for the project! That addition to the spread, and a change of color palette completely transformed this piece into another one of my favorites.

Game On: Unfortunately, we got the text for this piece a little late, so we're running behind on the designs, but they're going well and will definitely be ready come the end of next week!

Photos to come after we've submitted our final pieces!!