My Focus on the Designer: Real Person, Real Passion magazine section for print and correlating website mock-up layouts were the last set of practicum assessments for my first Hodges University online course in 2017 – Introduction to Graphic Communication. These projects were my favorites for many reasons.

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The assignments involved writing an original, biographical magazine article to inspire interest in the graphic arts for young, working adults. The artist I chose for my study was Wayne White. I started researching him while he was either preparing for or in the midst of several significant art installations. Reading about his work ethic and motivational being was certainly inspiring for me. I watched and really listened to him in his You Tube videos, and I learned of his passion for his creative work as well as his desire to promote his profession. This resonated with me and was exactly what I needed during the beginning stages of my career change. After almost 28 years in public school education, I was on a new adventure to become a web and graphic designer. Being able to learn from a man about his professional journey and resilience was the perfect assignment.

So much so that I had a hard time stopping at just the article. I decided to create the fictitious Focus on the Designer magazine special feature section, which I envisioned becoming a recurring section in art and design media to share Real Person, Real Passion journeys with others. Creating this section also gave me a chance to demonstrate my Adobe InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator skills.

The Focus on the Designer: Real Person, Real Passion special feature PDF is attached. Select the image above to view the magazine section's layout, articles and graphics. Technical requirements from this practicum assessment are summarized below if you’re interested in comparing the assessed skills for the magazine article with my design.

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Design Challenge Task: The importance of art and design in our culture is often under appreciated. Your task is to inform and inspire the target market's interest in art and design. Your challenge is to design two versions of a magazine article for an art and design publication. The topic of this article should be on a graphic designer highlighted in the course learning modules. Both versions must consist of at least four pages each and should be done primarily in Adobe InDesign.  [I'm including only one of the two versions in this portfolio.]

Deliverables: Design and create at least two versions of an article, each article should be at least four pages each, facing pages. Each page should be 8.5" x 11" with a resolution of 300 ppi. For the second version, adjust and rearrange the following elements to create a new composition.