Most art schools wisely teach graphic design as a general practice, the theory being that the orchestration of type and image, whether on paper or screen, is always based on the same fundamental formal principles. Different media, however, have different requirements. Editorial design is not the same as advertising; advertising is not the same as book design. Each has a unique focus and target. In most cases, the tools are similar but the methodologies are not. Many graphic designers perform a broad range of tasks, switching media as clients and jobs demand. A designer cannot always afford to specialize because the volume of work in a specialty may not warrant it or competition may be too intense. Therefore, it is prudent at the outset of a career to learn about and practice all the disciplines that strike your interest and fancy as well as those that are growth areas for employment. Although it is not necessary to be expert in everything, it is useful to be fluent in as many forms as possible, at least while you are looking for a career niche. How is this accomplished? For those bound for art school, there may be no choice. The average design program provides instruction in the basics while spotlighting specialties such as magazine layout, book and record covers, posters, advertising, and Web design in order to provide students with a well-rounded professional portfolio. Once out of school, however, specialization usually calls. If you are hired by a general design firm, exposure to a variety of disciplines is very likely. But if you are hired by an in-house art/design department, specialization is inevitable. A junior designer at a design firm usually assists on different aspects of various projects, from annual reports to brochures to Web pages. Even if you do not feel entirely confident with a particularly new medium, never refuse an opportunity – in fact, volunteer for as much extra duty as possible within the limits of monetary remuneration (learn as much as you can, but do not allow yourself to become financially exploited in the process). A junior designer at an in-house corporate or business art/design department is often given a single task. While it is important to build expertise in whatever field this may be, it is also consequential to expand your potential knowledge base. If possible, volunteer for additional jobs that depart from your basic assignment. If the company art department has several divisions, such as print, Web, and exhibition, attempt to assist outside your own area; there is a very good chance you will be given the opportunity to do so. This advice is not aimed exclusively at neophytes. Experienced designers must also continually broaden their range of expertise, if only to thwart impending obsolescence. For example, when digital technology entered the realm of graphic design, many dedicated print designers turned their attention toward CD-ROM and Internet opportunities. A few enrolled in graduate schools to get more intensive training; others gave up senior print jobs to apprentice or assist others already working in the digital arena. Moving from print to electronic media is not the only possible career change. Many designers who fall into a specialty without previous exposure elsewhere want new challenges and so switch from, say, advertising to editorial, perhaps accepting a lower position to get on-the-job training until achieving proficiency in the new discipline. Ultimately, the majority of designers pick a specialty (or specialties) and stick with it (them) until the learning curve flattens out or the projects become routine. Of course, depending on their comfort level, some designers spend their entire lives in one job either moving up the corporate hierarchy or, if content with the status quo, remaining at the same basic level. Everyone’s ambition is individual and depends on personal needs, wants, drive, and ability. If one hungers for creative challenges, then general practice is preferred; if one longs for consistency, then specialization is a good option. Your decision to practice in a specific discipline should be considered thoughtfully. While it is true that many designers stumble into a specialty simply because a particular job is available to them, others carefully reconnoiter the job market for the position that most appeals to their passion or interest. Then there is the hip factor: Some job seekers simply want to be hired by the hippest firms – MTV and Nickelodeon Networks rate high among that demographic. There is nothing wrong with this goal – except, of course, that you must be aware that these sought-after companies receive hundreds of applications for comparatively few openings. It is axiomatic that more is much better than less knowledge, which means that it is important to know what disciplines are available, what they require of a prospective candidate, and how to apply for the job. This section examines genres that hire the greatest number of graphic designers and offers basic information concerning the nature of each at the entry and senior levels. Becoming a graphic designer in any of these showcased disciplines is based on skill and accomplishment – graphic design is nothing if not a meritocracy. When your portfolio is professional (no loose or disorganized scraps of paper), well edited (the number of pieces is limited to the few that show how proficient you are), and smartly paced (showing that you know how to make ideas appear dynamic), then you have a greater likelihood of influencing a prospective employer, if not for the job being considered, then for other possibilities and referrals. Even if you don’t get the job, it is important to make a positive impression so that you are remembered for future positions. Knowing the field is one important way to maximize your chances of entering it. Each specialty has unique needs and wants. Job candidates who desire to make a good impression should design a portfolio that indicates interest, and at least a modicum of expertise, in the selected area.
FACTS AND FIGURES issued by the United States Department of Labor are sketchy about exactly which medium is the largest employer of graphic designers. Nonetheless, it is a sound assumption that magazines and newspapers give opportunities to a large percentage of junior and senior designers and art directors. Within a magazine or newspaper infrastructure, design duties are often divided into two fundamental groups: editorial and promotion. The latter, which administers advertising and publicity, including the conception and design of ads, billboards, and collateral materials such as advertising rate cards, subscription campaigns, and promotional booklets and brochures, may be large or small, depending on the priorities of the specific company. The former, however, is the creative heart of an institution. Editorial designers are the people who give the publication its aura, image, and format. And yet the editorial art department is configured differently from publication to publication, so it is not always possible for a job candidate to know the makeup of specific departments before interviewing for a job (which may or may not help anyway).The following are typical scenarios that illustrate the variety of editorial opportunities.
MAGAZINES COME in various shapes, sizes, and frequencies. In any given year, thousands are published on such a wide range of subjects that it is difficult to list them all here. The quality of their design also ranges widely from high to low, with a great deal in between.While this book is not a critical guide to design quality, one important part of any professional equation is indeed the publication’s design standard. Does the publisher expect the highest and most rigorous quality or merely competent work? The evidence is usually clear from the look of the magazine itself. The job seeker should decide whether working for a particular publication is going to enhance or detract from future prospects — and from compiling good portfolio samples. Of course, this is ultimately a personal decision. Sometimes acquiring experience is more important than any other concern; sometimes working on the best not only encourages the best but results in greater opportunities later. Design positions at magazines are frequently available for all experience levels.The intense and constant workflow that goes into periodical design and production demands many participants. A typical hierarchy begins at the top with a design director or art director, who manages the overall design department and design of the magazine, including the format (which either he or an outside design consultant originally designed); this may include overseeing the work of senior and junior page designers and designing pages and covers himself. It may also involve assigning illustration, photography, and typography. (When the budget allows, custom typefaces are also commissioned.) In addition, the art director is involved In the art department of small publications, such as a neighborhood newspaper, it is possible to rise from production artist to art director in a short time. A veteran art director relates his phenomenal accession: “I was hired right out of high school for what I thought would be a summer job as a mechanical artist for a small New York newspaper. Within a month, after the art director taught me the job — at that time, doing pasteups — he was hired to be the art director of a larger, more prestigious magazine. With barely two weeks’ notice, I was plunged into the role of art director while the publisher looked for a replacement. I don’t know why, but fortuitously, no good applicants emerged and by default I was given the job. It was an incredible experience — a frightening one, too, as I knew absolutely nothing about art direction. But I was forced to learn very quickly. I remained art director for a year, until the newspaper folded, by which time I was hooked on publication design. I decided not to continue with my liberal arts studies at college, briefly enrolled in art school, and continued to get increasingly better art directorial jobs at magazines and newspapers.”
The Case of the Default Art Director in meetings with editors (and sometimes authors) concerning article presentation. Some of these duties are invariably delegated to a deputy or associate art director, who does many of the same design tasks as the art director and also may manage, depending on the workload.The deputy or associate may be on a track to move into the art director’s position, should it open, or, after acquiring the requisite experience, move on to an art director position at another magazine. On the next-lower level, senior and junior designers are responsible for designing components of a magazine (features, columns, inserts, etc.). Some design entire spreads or pages and commission the artwork and photography; others design elements of a feature and use the illustrations supplied to them by the art director or the deputy. Some are better typographers than users of art.The difference between senior and junior is usually the degree of experience and talent.The former may have been a junior first or may have been hired directly as a senior from another job; the latter is often right out of school or was an intern while a student. Based on achievement, a senior or junior designer can be promoted to a deputy or associate position.There are no codified rules of acceleration other than merit and need.Therefore, it is not impossible for a junior to be so professionally adept that promotion to the next level is fairly swift. Conversely,merely competent progress in a job is rarely rewarded. The junior designer position is often at the entry level. Some magazines have additional entry-level jobs, such as unpaid interns or paid assistants who do less critical, yet nevertheless necessary, support work.The most common task is production, such as scanning images into the computer or maintaining electronic files; occasionally, a minimal amount of layout or design work on tightly formatted pages may be assigned. In addition, the intern or assistant is invariably required to act as a gofer, attending to all the odd jobs that need to be done.This is actually a critical juncture for the wannabe because an employer can measure the relative competence or excellence of a worker. Even the lowliest job can result in significant advancement. The art department is only one nerve junction of a magazine. In some environments, it is on a par with the editorial department (editors and writers), while in others it is the handmaiden. The relative importance of art and design is often linked to the comparative strength and power of the design or art director.Whatever the hierarchy, it is important that editorial designers (at any level) be aware of the editorial process – not merely the schedule but the editorial philosophy of the magazine. Too many bad relationships between design and editorial departments exist because their missions are not in sync.The two departments must complement each other; achieving this is one of the jobs of the design or art director. But even the lowest-level designer must have a precise understanding of what is being editorially communicated in order for the design to not only carry but enhance the content of the publication. ALTHOUGH FINANCIAL analysts report that, due to fierce competition with television and online services, newspapers are currently a faltering industry, nonetheless there is an increased demand for art directors, designers, graphics editors, and production personnel at newspapers today.The reasons are fairly simple.Once many newspapers (afternoon, morning, and evening editions) competed in the same locales for the same readership and advertisers. That number has been radically reduced (for example, from their peak in the 1950s, New York City’s dailies have been reduced from twelve to three). In most cases, this means that the remaining few papers are larger in size and offer more extensive coverage.
In addition, over the past two decades, newspapers have augmented hard news with soft news features, such as lifestyle and home sections. At the same time, printing technology has significantly advanced to allow more innovative visual display (including full-color reproduction). In the past, newspaper composition was carried out by editorial makeup persons who were not trained as artists or designers; today, art directors and designers are responsible for the basic look and feel of the average newspaper. Another paradox that makes newspapers a welcoming job market is the precipitous decline in the number of art directors and designers specifically trained for this medium.Despite the newspaper’s ubiquity, few art schools and colleges offer courses dedicated to its design. If they exist at all, they are folded into a general publication design curriculum.Many who work in newspaper design departments never formally studied the discipline in school classes – they came through school newspapers, internships/apprenticeships, or junior or senior design positions at magazines – hence the current demand for designers exclusively trained in the newspaper environment. Various journalism schools have started news design courses, but getting a newspaper job and learning from hands-on experience is still a viable option at the entry-level stage. Over the past decade, newspapers have introduced new job categories unique to this industry. One notable entry is the graphics editor, a hybrid of editor and designer, who is responsible for the information graphics (charts, graphs, and maps) that appear regularly in most newspapers. This new sub-genre has become essential to contemporary newspaper content. The newspaper industry has distinct hierarchies, but each newspaper has different jobs and job descriptions; the following are typical. Beginning at the entry level, the best way to start is as an intern. All newspapers employ seasonal (usually paid) interns as junior copypersons, who act as assistants-in-training to the various news desks. Likewise, the art department (which is often under the wing of the news department) employs a design intern to work directly with designers or art directors.The New York Times, for example, hires one intern a year for a ten-week stint.Often, art department interns are selected from art schools or universities with publication design programs (the candidates need not have had newspaper experience, although some newspaper work is a definite advantage).The tasks given the intern vary depending on the publication; one newspaper may offer intensive training in design, production, and information graphics, while another may have the intern do gofer work (scanning, making copies, or whatever clerk-like tasks are necessary). Internships sometimes lead to permanent employment; sometimes they do not. An internship is a kind of test for an employer to ascertain how well an individual fits, professionally and personally, into a specific art department. The next level is usually more permanent. If a newspaper has junior designer or design assistant positions, these are often full-time jobs with various responsibilities. The experience necessary may be an internship at a newspaper or magazine or a junior position, preferably at a newspaper. Regardless of experience, juniors may be hired on the formal and conceptual strength of the portfolio. Every newspaper art department is organized differently, so the assistant in one may work closely with the senior designer or art director actually designing some of the pages of a hard or soft news section, or the junior may assist many designers in the daily process, which might include doing routine production chores (such as electronic mechanical, color preparation, and photo processing). The degree of responsibility is based on the volume of work and the art director’s desire to delegate. In many newspapers, the junior or assistant is a union job, which means that salary, benefits, etc., are governed and job security is ensured by the union contract. Membership in a guild or union is mandatory at this level, and the security offered is both good and bad – good for the obvious reasons and bad because it encourages people to stay in their jobs for a long time, which is not always good for creativity. In fact, in many union shops there is so little movement that the junior may be stuck with the same title for an excessively long time – and this is an important consideration in joining a newspaper art department. A certain amount of design know-how can be obtained by osmosis on the job. The ambitious neophyte who lands a production job at a periodical is in an excellent position to learn practical skills as well as the procedures involved in that specific publication. But the likelihood of promotion to a design job is minimal without additional design experience. One way to convince an employer that your ambition should be rewarded is to enroll in continuing education classes specializing in publication design. Most art schools and some colleges offer intermediate and advanced courses. Some are under the desktop publishing umbrella; others are components of broader graphic design programs. Most classes of this kind are at night, but some of the larger art schools offer intensive editorial design workshops during the summer months. Supplementing on-the-job experience with classroom instruction pays off in the long run.
Continuing Education The next job designation is senior designer or art director. (In some newspapers the title graphics editor is also given to those who design hard and soft news sections.) Experience required is almost always a periodical design job, whether as a junior or a senior at a magazine or newspaper. Designers without this experience or training are rarely qualified.Nonetheless, opportunities exist in locales where few newspaper or magazine design specialists are found.The responsibilities vary depending on the size of the newspaper.An art director may design a specific section of a newspaper, assign the illustration and photography, and design the so-called dress or feature pages. (An assistant designer or, at many newspapers, a makeup editor,may design the more routine pages.) The senior designer or art director works with text editors, picture editors, and graphics editors (when that designation applies only to information graphics).Usually, a production person or production editor works in concert with the senior designer to translate the design layouts into a final electronic or mechanical form. The senior designer may work on one or more sections of a newspaper; at a small paper, the job may involve many subject areas. Parallel to the senior designer or art director is the graphics editor responsible for information graphics.The experience required is a combination of reporting and graphic expertise. In many instances, the prospective candidate must pass a test that determines news judgment and editing skills as well as the ability to consolidate raw data into accessible visual form.The requirements are no less rigorous than for designers and, in fact, are more complex because of the intersection of news and art disciplines. In some newspapers, this job involves page design; in others it is limited to information design alone. The graphics editor works with the news and feature editors, who decide on the daily news report, to conceive and shape a particular graphic presentation.The graphics editor coordinates work with the senior designer in order to achieve a seamless overall page design. For those who are interested in typography, graphics, and research and reporting, this is a wide-open area in which to seek employment. The top level at a newspaper is called the design director, senior art director, senior graphics editor, or, in some places, the managing editor for design, who is supported by a deputy, assistant, or managing design director. Extensive experience is required for this job, including the administration and management skills needed to oversee a staff of designers and production personnel. The design director is usually responsible for maintaining the overall design quality and is often the original designer of the formats within which senior designer and art directors work. Sometimes the design director has a hands-on role in the design of special features, but often the demands of a newsroom require that such work be delegated to others under watchful supervision. Newspaper design is essentially different from magazine design. First, it is expressed on a larger scale – more editorial components must be balanced on the broadsheet pages. Second, it occurs at a different frequency – the luxury of a weekly or monthly magazine deadline allows for more detail work, whereas at a daily newspaper, little time is available for the nuances of design.Third, the production values are not as high – working with newsprint on web-offset presses does not allow for the fine printing common to most glossy magazines.And yet the newspaper is every bit as challenging and offers equal creative possibilities for the designer who is interested, indeed passionate, about editorial work.While one can use a newspaper job as a stepping stone to other job opportunities, a majority of newspaper designers find that this medium provides a good place to build a career. Most magazines and newspapers hire freelance designers and support personnel to meet excess creative and production needs. Over the past fifteen years, freelance employees have become prevalent throughout the publishing industries, especially because seasonal shifts in editorial emphasis (special issues and sections) add to the workload. Freelancers are hired to do secondary design and production tasks, and skilled freelance designers are often assigned to work on primary components of a publication. For the junior, this kind of work is experientially important; for the senior, it can be creatively (and financially) beneficial. Freelance assignments can be either long- or short-term and are perfect for designers who are not yet, or have no desire to be, committed to any specific discipline. Most freelancers work in the art department of the publication on their equipment.
Entry level Most entry-level portfolios include a large percentage of school assignments, often one or two redesigns of existing magazines or fantasy magazines. This work exhibits original thinking unfettered by the constraints of a real job, and yet the solutions are realistic. The editorial portfolio should include mostly editorial work, but general samples (posters, brochures, letterheads) are useful to gauge typography and layout skills. Contents Ten to twenty samples:
a. Feature pages and spread designs (showing range of stylistic and conceptual thinking)
b. Cover designs (showing two or three logo and illustration approaches)
c. Department pages (to show how routine editorial material is designed)
d. Two to four noneditorial examples Junior/Senior Designer By this stage, portfolios should include a large percentage of published work.
The junior may continue to include school projects, but the senior should jettison them. The samples should be of high quality. Not everything in print rates showing in a portfolio. Through these samples, the important thing is to show your taste, talent, and expertise. Contents Fifteen to twenty-five samples:
a. Feature pages and spreads from published periodicals
b. Cover designs (if available)
c. Examples of illustration and photograph assignments (if available)
d. Department pages (if available)
e. Two noneditorial examples Format 35mm slides (in tray) are still applicable, but increasingly this method is being phased out in favor of CD and DVD in the following formats: Flash, Power Point, and iPhoto.
JANET FROELICH
Design Director, The New York Times Magazine, Times Style Magazines, New York City
Did you go straight into editorial design, or did you dabble first? I did a lot of freelance work. I tried to get as many jobs as I could. I did lots of brochures. I did a lot of what now might be called pro bono work. And then I worked for Look magazine for a very short while as a freelance gig until I answered an ad in the New York Times for a magazine art director. It turned out to be for the Daily News. I went up there with my portfolio, and the man who ultimately hired me told me that I did not have enough experience – but he needed a young designer and he took a chance. I started out doing newspaper pages at the Daily News. The thing that I remember most was that I took every bit of it really seriously and I would sit there for hours struggling with pages trying to make them look as good as I could.
Was it a conscious decision to go into editorial design, or did the newspaper job lead you there? Well, I fit well with journalism. I just love the news. I love designing magazine pages because there’s an immediacy to them and it happens very quickly and it turns around constantly; it repeats. Every week you have another challenge. You don’t sit there for a month or two designing one thing.
Have you ever had any interest in doing another form of design? I can’t say that I never had an interest. I’ve toyed with it from time to time. Everybody would sit around and sort of assess their career or their life and think about moving in another direction. But there was never a natural opportunity or reason to move out of the path that I was in.
As the design director of The New York Times Magazine, what is the most fulfilling aspect of your job? The personal relationships. I know that may be funny to say for a designer, but I just love working with the people I work with. They challenge me, they question things. We develop ideas together. I love to listen to them talk about writing and what makes good writing, and to talk about events and how you turn events into a story. The other part of my job is that I really think of myself as a sort of impresario or team builder. What is really crucial when you’re managing a department, when you’re art-directing or being a creative director, is your ability to choose good people, to nurture them, to make the atmosphere satisfying for them to do good work in, to create an atmosphere in which they get along well with each other and feel like they contribute.
What is the single most important skill a designer needs to be successful? The ability to be self-critical. In order to get anywhere, you need to be able to look at your own work and see how it solves a problem, what works well and what doesn’t. To be able to judge your own work and to be able to know how to push it to another place is the most important skill of all. Content Dictates Style
CHRISWELL LAPPIN
Art Director, Metropolis Magazine, New York City
How did you become a magazine designer/art director? After a stint as an exhibition designer at the Cooper-Hewitt, two former colleagues told me about an opening at Metropolis. I met with Susan Szenasy, the editor in chief, and we talked for almost two hours before she asked to see my work. I was not looking for a magazine job – I could count the number of publications that interested me on one hand – but two things made my decision easy: the content of the magazine and the value it places on art direction. It’s like still being in graduate school – with tighter deadlines.
Designing a design magazine gets considerable scrutiny from designers. How do you design for this audience? We design a magazine for our peers. Producing a design magazine provides a greater opportunity for visual exploration because our audience understands the subtleties of design. But we are probably more scrutinized for visual decisions that are unclear or confusing.
How do you collaborate with your associate designers? We have a small, remarkable staff. If we do not collaborate, we die. Any time you have an opportunity to work with smart people, it makes your work better. I work with smart people. We make each other look good.
Do you design according to a grid, or are your decisions more ad hoc?The grid in the feature well is flexible. The content of the story often dictates the approach. So the visual look of this section often varies from story to story. The rest of the magazine is more standardized. There is an organized grid system that is meant to accommodate shorter stories on a single page and help segregate editorial content from advertising. But the entire magazine evolves from month to month. We make design adjustments – adding new pages, trying new fonts, reworking systems – on a regular basis.
Metropolis has an identity. Does it have a style too? Style should not dictate content; content dictates style. Helping the reader understand the story is the first priority. A designer’s “voice” comes out naturally if you focus on problem solving.
What is the makeup of your staff, and what do you look for in staff members?I work with one other designer. Together with our photo editor we form a mighty design version of Voltron. (Google it.) I look for designers who: -think conceptually -recognize the importance of typography -can generate their own imagery -can communicate verbally -have a sense of humor
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