This is what three years of work looks like in publishing. It’s a tangible, take-home proof of what you do day in and day out. This was my life for six years. Deadline. Rest. Deadline. Rest. Despite the cycle, I loved this work and still proudly include it in my portfolio (a few samples in gallery below).

I thrive under pressure. I’m driven by deadlines. I make lists to cross things off. Two months before graduating college with a Communications degree and minor in Art History, I needed a job. That’s the next step, right? I worked hard for my degree, learned the ins and outs of media law and history, took crash-courses in AP style and wrote many a research paper in Turabian. But no way was I working at newspaper. Long format was my one true love. Magazines it was. I found the one local publication I could tolerate and called the editor. It had four employees, published every other month (maybe) and the small team worked out of an equally small house.

A willingness to sell ads was my in. I had no idea it would lead to being art director and turn my career upside down.

That stack of magazines three years in the making shaped me into the designer I am today. Looming deadlines, late nights and way too many deli sandwiches were masked by practically free reign. I clicked and deleted and designed every issue to appease my harshest critic—me. I fell in love with page design. All along the way I was spoiled with the most wonderful counterpart and editor an art director could ask to know. We were on a mission. From 64 saddle-stitch pages six times a year to 112 perfect-bound pages every month, we were living the magazine dream all on our own.  Behind that desk I met one of the best friends of my life as well as a pair of colleagues that truly opened my eyes to the host of characters that inhabit the South. I found all of this in Montgomery, Alabama, at a city magazine. Anything can happen, folks.

Despite the freedom and friends this position afforded, after six years, it was time for a change. I was done distilling files. So I abandoned the post and became a photographer.

Four years of being behind a lens has helped my aesthetic as a designer continue to evolve. Marrying the ability to match images I see in my head with the end result I wish for on the page is both a gift and a challenge. Styling my own portfolio shots is pure freedom. I love traveling from idea to printed piece and tying back in the original inspiration to show the true heart and soul of a design. When it’s all done, what you see is so much more than ink printed on paper, folks. It’s a mere flicker of a concept made concrete and progressing through this creative process is why I love
what I do.