So Leah, Arielle and I were working on the magazine design this past week, July 13-17. One day, Arielle had to met with some local people about the design we had done. I had designed something with Scott’s images and in the black space we put other students’ photography. We really want one image for the front but we have not seen that lone image yet.
So when Arielle got back she said that she had bad news. I was like “ok, what is it?” The
This was the design the people from the art school made for the front cover. There were several similar versions like this one. Photo By Patrick Armstrong
people evidently did not like our design for the front. They said it looked 80s’ and cheap. Now, I was going to go to that meeting but I had to do some other work. Had I had been there, it might not have been pretty. I would probably have given them my opinion of their design since they had given their opinion of mine.
Then it hit me; this is a difference of cultural backgrounds. Their design was more academic than commercial. They were going for the wrong target audience. I was taught to create something your viewers would want to see. American tourists want it straightforward not something with so much art thrown in their faces. Our critics don’t have the same “journalistic” background that I do. So after evaluating this, I found it kind of funny.
) 
Style disagreements are often intriguing because they’re so difficult to explain. That doesn’t make the disagreement invalid, just hard to frame as factual dispute. Good luck!