critique my bookmark.

[Critter04]

I created this bookmark to promote a website our organization recently developed. Our target audience was Teachers, Students, people interested in maps, history and the Great Lakes. Front could be done in 4-color process, and back-side had to be one color.

BTW, it is actually a real cool site. All the maps are zoomified. They are originally gigantic and date back as far as the 1600's. Basically, it is a collection of the oldest maps in existence that focus on the Great Lakes.

Let me know what you think. Crit.

P.S. resolution is a little low here. Maps will be very detailed.

http://i354.photobucket.com/albums/r425/Cripwalk04/bookmark_3_Page_1.png




http://i354.photobucket.com/albums/r425/Cripwalk04/bookmark_3_Page_2.png (http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/forum/%5BIMG%5Dhttp://i354.photobucket.com/albums/r425/Cripwalk04/bookmark_3_Page_2.png%5B/IMG%5D)

[mojoprime]

well, number one, is that ghosty thing at the bottom on the front supposed to be a compass? if so, you might back off the effects on it. it's a little hard to tell what it is.

on the back, don't underline the text on the headers. they should stand on their own, and might pop out more if you didn't bold all of the body copy. it's kind of hard to do it when you're using two serif fonts, but it should be ok.

is there any way to shrink the copyright line any more?

[steve2112]

All the effects are way over done and the typeface makes everything very bold and blotchy for my tastes. The compass looks horrible and should be redone a little more tastefully as well as all the effects. You might not need them as much as you think.

steve

[WannaBrie]

I like the font you chose for the backside, but agree you should not bold the body copy and remove the underlines. Get rid of the effects/colored glows, they just crap up what could be a very elegant piece. Work with brightening up the background image, perhaps burn the edges, but if its nice and bright you wont' need the effects in order to overlay the text.

[Yossarian]

The "l" in Explore is running awkwardly close to the top edge. I'm not a big fan of the Zapfino either. It's almost like the new Papyrus. Nice enough in it's own way, but way too overused. The other rustic font seems just a little too rustic and rough.

The glows behind all the words could stand to be toned down, especially the orange. Would it be possible to use a background image that is more recognizable as the Great Lakes?

*edit*
One more thing I meant to mention is maybe add another period behind Explore. Only having 2 just looks weird.

[Sweet Tee]

I am interested in seeing how the burning of the edges looks, like WannaBrie suggested. Overall, go for the "less is more" attitude for this piece. Way too many photoshop effects tend to make things less professional, in my opinion. The text doesn't need all of those glows.

[Critter04]

thanks for the feedback everyone, I'll take everything into consideration. One of the major issues I dealt with was getting the text on the front to stand out from the background map, especially since there is a good deal of text on the map itself.

The outer glow was my answer, but I'll explore other options. thanks again.

[mojoprime]

maybe a simple reverse, or a bright colored type? you could even ad a soft dropshadow if it needed more definition.

it's a cool thing, though. these types of projects don't come around all the time, so it's fun sometimes to make things look old-fashioned.

[WannaBrie]

*edit*
One more thing I meant to mention is maybe add another period behind Explore. Only having 2 just looks weird.


Thats not a period, its called an ellipses. ;) And generally, if it is an unfinished sentence, you use three. If it ends the sentence, use 4.

[Bladez]

The front of it looks to formal for something that seems like it's exciting and rustic. I'd lose the centre alignment of everything. Move explore more to the left and make it smaller. Seems that the website should be more of a focal point than the word explore.

As for the back, I'd have to agree with what's been said above. Only other thing that's bugging me is the black outline.