You can't miss: Interactive print ads

I got one of my favorite magazines in the mail on Saturday. Usually Entertainment Weekly comes on Fridays, but since I got my Kindle, I've been downloading the e-version earlier and earlier in the week. I found something in my hard copy of the magazine this week, though, that wouldn't have been the same on a Kindle screen. It was an ad for Mio, the new(ish) water flavor things. It was the first page I turned to because it was an obnoxiously thick paper in the middle of the thin pages of the magazine. It looked like this:

The words read "Drop this ad in water and watch your whole world change."

The small black letters are fairly striking, and they intrigued me. It says, "Drop this ad in water and watch your whole world change." So naturally, I did what it said. I had no idea what to expect, but it was awesome.

I filled a cookie sheet about half way with water.

The change was instant.

Pretty cool, right? It actually makes me want to try this Mio stuff. Well-played, advertisers. Well-played.

You can't miss: The making of a cover

You can't miss. Remember those, avid blog readers? (Or maybe just fellow Advanced Design girls who still follow my blog) Well, I got this article from one of my former classmates, too! It is all about the making of this week's New York Times Magazine cover.

Courtesy of NYTimes.com

I like the article for a variety of reasons.

No. 1: It's cool for people not in the business to see how the process works. We don't always just make a decision in the beginning and stick with it all the way through to the end. You can see that in the article. The look and feel of the cover drastically changed from the beginning (and probably even the beginning you couldn't see) to the end.

No. 2: I like to see all of the tools at NYT's disposal. Hiring a famed walpaper artist to do something and not using his work in the end? I wish we had those resources. With many most publications, there are only a handful of designers and what they can do is what you're going to get. Especially when you throw money into the problem.

No. 3: New York Times Magazine is one of my favorite-designed magazines ever.