Illustration by Brett Jubinville
Mr. Magazine, AKA Samir Husni, the Director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi recently interviewed me for his website. In an article titled: Editorial & Good Design – What Magazine Making Has Brought Together, Let No Shrinking Budget Put Asunder we talk about budgets, client relations, the importance of how a magazine flows, and what keeps me up at night. Here are some sound bites:
"I was in college; I was going to design school and I was doing the cartoon for a local nightlife magazine in Phoenix, Arizona. I was basically a glorified intern; I really hadn’t designed anything of note. I had just been an illustrator. Late one night I walked into the office to turn in my cartoon and the publisher’s wife was there and she said that the art director had just quit and asked me to design the magazine. And I just said yes because that’s what we were taught to do; you never said no. So, the next day I started designing the magazine. I had never designed a magazine before. I thought I understood magazines, but that magazine was horrible. I did a horrible job designing it. They paid for my education in print production."
"I think the only way to truly overcome bad decision making is to spend a lot of time with the client educating them on what makes a magazine good, and how that affects the bottom line. So many of them believe that if they make it, readers will come. And so many go into it with the idea that all they have to do is get that first issue printed and the advertisers will come flocking. It’s a pretty rude awakening when that doesn’t happen."
You can read the full interview here.