In September of last year I answered a Craigslist ad after being on the job search for a few months. I enjoy freelancing, but was looking forward to the opportunity of working on larger projects and being part of a team again. I had sent my resumes everywhere and signed up with a few creative agencies...and yielded nothing. After what felt like an eternity of sending resumes out into a void in space somewhere, I got a response right away.
Unfortunetly, this past week I was laid off due to company wide restructuring of departments. It is always a sad thing, I enjoyed learning from my coworkers and was looking forward to new projects. But I am leaving with a better perspective on what I am capable of. It was an environment with tight deadlines and high expectations which really refined my ability to work under pressure, maintain deadlines, work with a team, and prioritize my tasks. It was a wonderful opportunity and I couldn't have had a better experience. I look forward to put them to use!
"When do you want to come in?"
"I want to be the first one in on Monday morning!"
Publications International, LTD. publishes everything from children's books to cooking books and brain games. I was an Associate Art Director in the largest department: Children's Electronics. We had several formats and all had sound components. We worked with several large licensors, such as Disney, Nickelodeon, Sesame Street, and countless others.
They immediately threw me into the pool, so to speak, and I was assigned a project with the Eric Carle license (if it doesn't sound familiar, it's the Very Hungry Caterpillar guy.) It sounded easy when I would explain to friends what I did. You have a library of images drawn by the artists and you have to lay it out with the text. However, licenses all have very strict rules with what you can do. You can't flip Eric Carle images, or scale them too much, or change the color...but it is your job to make it look new and engaging. It was totally a challenge, but I learnt so much in that project alone.
My favorite part was when I got to add my own illustrations to projects. You need Mickey Mouse eating a pizza? Well, we don't have any pizza's in the database. More often than not, extensive photo-manipulation went into creating what you needed for the story but, obviously, it had to be seamless. And I was proud of the few items I produced because Disney, or Sesame Street, or whoever- had to ok it. In my free time, I learned to emulate some of my favorite styles. We were encouraged to decorate our cubes and every so often I would put up my newest attempt.
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| 1 bat! Ach ach ach.... |
My job was two fold: the projects and the comp department. Comp's just refers to materials that we mock-up for Sales presentations, tradeshows, and photo shoots. It serves to give clients an idea of what upcoming books or formats will look like. Complexity ranged greatly- it could be just a spray mounted front cover, to creating entire books with diecuts, pop-ups, or flaps, or cutting and assembling new packaging. This was a large chunk of my workload but it was one of my favorite parts. I had always enjoyed making things and it gave me a chance to learn how to make actual books by hand. During my lunch period, I was often trying to figure out more efficient ways to go about my work and teach myself how to make more realistic looking books. Needless to say, I can wield an Exacto knife like no ones business!
While it might just seem like menial work on surface, it showed me how important it is to physically hold something than just see a picture of it. It makes the difference with clients to show rather than to just tell them. Also, there is no better way to go about designing a box or a pop-up book without first building and/or tearing apart a few.
A good example of this would my Little Sound Book: Disney Planes book, which was developed to coincide with the new movies' release. Originally I had made vignettes to go with the fading textures found in the original art. However, what looked good on screen didn't translate so well in the real thing. Being able to put all the pieces together was a great way to troubleshoot issues before they got the print stage. This was especially true when dealing with the more complex formats.
Unfortunetly, this past week I was laid off due to company wide restructuring of departments. It is always a sad thing, I enjoyed learning from my coworkers and was looking forward to new projects. But I am leaving with a better perspective on what I am capable of. It was an environment with tight deadlines and high expectations which really refined my ability to work under pressure, maintain deadlines, work with a team, and prioritize my tasks. It was a wonderful opportunity and I couldn't have had a better experience. I look forward to put them to use!
