As you might have noticed in our first announcement, Be A Design Group is pleased to share one of the biggest things to happen to our blog since Movable Type. In collaboration with STEP Inside Design magazine, we will be designing their cover for the world to see. This will be for the March/April issue, which is their STEP 100 Design Annual. In front of your very eyes you will see four teams of our authors design and revise to STEP’s content. It should be a fascinating experience for the authors, STEP and you … the faithful readers and commenters of BADG. The comments section will be open on these posts, so you can be an influence in this entire process as well.

Stay tuned and come check out the initial concepts. The rapid fire that will be called “STEP Off” will begin tomorrow and will end when the folks at STEP decide on the final cover on January 20th. This will work much like the Design Off between Nate Voss and I, except the teams will consist of four pairs of BADG authors. One designer will start with an initial concept and will pass the files off to his partner.

Here are the initial concepts from our four teams. We thought it might be nice to NOT tell you who designed which cover for the first few rounds, so you don’t feel restricted when you make comments and suggestions. If you missed the post on how the STEP Off would work, the information is here. If you click on the thumbnails above, you will get an enlarged version of each concept. Descriptions from each of the teams are in the continue reading section. Let’s hear what you have to say.

Just a little info, so you know the names and positions of the decision makers at STEP. Emily Potts (Editor); Mike Ulrich (Art Director). There may be others from STEP that comment here, but Emily and Mike should be the main participants. We might even get a surprise visit from Gus Venditto, who is in the end, the final decision maker.

It looks as though we have all heard the comments and revised accordingly. Whether it was going back to the drawing boards (literally), or just taking a new visual direction, there are some pretty major changes to the covers. Click on the thumbnails above for a better look. Keep the comments coming and we will keep improving these concepts.

If you missed the late addition of the design brief in last round’s post, you might want check it to see if the four teams are on track. If you want to link to the entire process and not just one post, we have a page where all of the STEP Off posts will be archived. www.beadesigngroup.com/blog/archives/step_off/

Ding Ding Ding. Round 2 is on, so STEP Off…

It doesn’t look like the major changes have slowed down in round three. I think we have a jab, an upper-cut, a right hook and maybe even a hit below the belt. These covers are looking better and better all the time. Imagine that.

We are liking the comfort level that everyone is feeling with all of us being anonymous, so we are going to keep it that way for at least a couple more rounds. Thanks for your comments in the past, and keep helping us work to make the best possible cover.

No girls in bikinis holding up giant numbers here, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t Round Three. Let’s get it on.

Round 4 is in session. It is Friday the 13th, but with the new designs, I can’t help but to be optimistic.

There is something I want to share that might not have been obvious from the onset of this competition. In order for the process to be interesting to watch, I encouraged all the designers to post initial ideas and not to make them too developed. While it may be unusual to show a client (in this case STEP) your first concepts, it shows a side of design that we usually don’t share with the rest of the world. We have put it all on the line and have been rewarded and shot down at the same time. Of course we knew this would happen, but it still stings a bit. It has been a learning process. Now that we are past half way, the designs are gelling better and adhering to the design brief a little closer. While we have been instructed to make our designs “provocative” and “unexpected”, it might have been a little late for this round to see the results. We will let you be the judge of that.

We have made it to round five and the designs keep getting more distilled and potent. I wouldn’t want to be the one that decides on which cover to use. Only one more round to go.

Now on to some of the most exiting news of the entire STEP Off. STEP Inside Design has agreed to donate the standard cover design fee to the AIGA Disaster Relief Fund, which was set up in conjunction with Displaced Designer. If you are not familiar with what Displaced Designer was set up to do, here is a brief description from their website. “Displaced Designer is a resource for those in the creative industry recently displaced by the disaster in New Orleans and the Gulf States.”

We have reached the end my friends. We have shared our designs and you have shared your varied opinions. The designs have leaped forward and fallen behind, but they have all progressed in their own way. While these final covers will most likely need “cover line” tweaks and other refinements, they are all very unique and visually rich solutions to this challenge. While Emily, Michael and Gus won’t be commenting this round, we still welcome and encourage your feedback. We might not be able to change the designs, but please throw your opinion into the mix to help sway the fabuolus team over at STEP. This has been a fascinating experience/experiment and we have all learned a great deal. We thank STEP for trusting us with this challenge and we thank the readers and commenters for making this so eventful. Don’t forget that the entire process is archived here.

We will be posting the winner and the identity of the teams this coming Monday.

Will this round bring a knockout? You decide.

And the winner of the STEP Off is … Team 4. This is a bit strange to make the announcement, since I was one of the members of Team 4. My partner in this was Donovan Beery. Thank you everyone for making this entire process a success.

In Emily Pott’s own words:
“We’ve decided to go with Team 4’s cover on Trends. We all really like the concept and design of this piece. We’ll work on fine tuning the cover lines on our end. Congrats to Team 4! 

The runner up is Team 3’s ‘Unlocking the Secrets of Design’ cover. 

Thanks to all of the designers for participating in this sometimes painful process. We’re very pleased with the cover we’ve selected, and appreciate all the hard work that went into the cover designs. The magazine will be on newsstands March 1.

Emily Potts, STEP Inside Design”

The other teams identities goes as follows:
Team 1: Drew Davies & Clinton Carlson
Team 2: Adrian Hanft & David Kadavy
Team 3: Nate Voss & Paul Berkbigler
Team 4: Bennett Holzworth & Donovan Beery

The magazine and its cover will be on newsstands and in your mailbox very soon. The timeline copy and cover lines were rewritten by STEP and a couple of minor changes were made as well. The design was kept almost entirely intact and the general spirit of the timeline text came through as well.

STEP has also just published an exclusive online interview with all eight of the BADG designers about their STEP Off experience. We thought it might be interesting to turn the tables and interview Emily and Michael from STEP on Be A Design Group. I think you will find their responses candid and honest.

The BADG designers will be asking the questions and will be represented by their first names.
Emily Potts (STEP Editor) will be represented as EP.
Michael Ulrich (STEP Art Director) will be represented as MU.

A big thank you all to all the readers, commenters, Emily, Michael, Gus Venditto and the rest of the BADG authors.

It has been a good six months since eight of us BADG authors put it all out on the line and designed a cover in real time for the world to watch (and rip apart). While the process was both rewarding and trying, we all learned a great deal.

We recently received word from STEP Inside Design’s new editor, Tom Biederbeck, that the March/April 2006 issue has officially become the Best-selling STEP cover in the magazine’s history!

Thank you to everyone (the readers, commenters, the STEP staff and the BADG design teams) for making this experiment a huge success. We also want to give a big thank you to Emily Potts for making our crazy idea a reality, and we wish her luck in her future endeavors!