(Re)Direction: Fiona Hayes, From Magazines to Arts Education

Welcome to (Re) Direction, an ongoing miniseries of 1:1 interviews that examines how all of the many skills we learn at magazines can be put to good use in other industries too! For our third installment, I spoke with art director and educator Fiona Hayes. Her 35-year career—much of it in magazine publishing—had its start in rural Ireland, where magazines such as “Smash Hits” and the “Observer Magazine” were her connection to the world. True to her philosophy “do interesting work in interesting places with interesting people,” Hayes has been a magazine art director in New York, Paris, Mumbai, Munich, Moscow and London. She is currently consulting and educating a new generation of designers and photographers.

Tell me a little bit about how your path originally took you to magazines. Was this a field you were always interested in?

I’ve had a lot of great jobs over the years, but one thing I’ve never had is a plan. And I don’t have goals. I tell students goals are fine for companies but not for people. What if your goal is to be art director by the age of 30, and it doesn’t happen? You’ll feel like a failure. But what if it does happen — how do you top that? Is it all downhill from there? Instead of goals I have a philosophy: do interesting work in interesting places with interesting people. It’s always served me well.

I always knew that I wanted to work in “art” in some way, but I remember very clearly, when I was about 11 or 12, my grandmother telling me I couldn’t be an artist because artists don’t make any money (I think her sister had married a painter, and she wasn’t impressed). Looking back, you’d never say something as negative as that to a young girl today, but I think it was quite useful advice in a way — it made me think properly about what I COULD do in the art world. I loved Victorian children’s book illustrators like Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, as well as Aubrey Beardsley and the Irish stained glass artist Harry Clarke. As a teenager I discovered Roger Dean, who designed amazing album covers for the prog rock band Yes (I’d no idea what the music was like, I just loved the landscape on Tales from Topographic Oceans), and an Irish fantasy artist named Jim Fitzpatrick, who did Thin Lizzy album sleeves: record sleeves, album cover art, was a huge part of our world in the 70s and 80s, and a major design influence. So, I decided I wanted to be an illustrator.

My university, the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland, didn’t have a dedicated illustration course, so I signed up for Visual Communication. My parents and school careers officer knew nothing about the art world and — like Granma — they were worried I’d never make a living, so they made me sign up for History of Art and Design too, in case I needed to be a teacher. Which, ironically, did turn out to be helpful, but only 35 years after I graduated!

Magazines were always important: when I was a teenager we lived in the Irish countryside, which felt very isolated, and magazines were a connection to other worlds. But it wasn’t necessarily the kind of magazines you might imagine — Vogue was incredibly boring to a teenager back in the 80s, and we didn’t get The Face in our local newsagents in Kildare. I loved Smash Hits, the pop music magazine, but also The Observer Magazine and things like Car magazine — I couldn’t drive, but they published cool artwork.

In College I discovered Rolling Stone—then art directed by Derek Ungless—and that blew my mind. In my final year at NCAD, the students all had to enter a design competition, and say what you’d do if you won (the prize was support for an internship). I said I’d go to New York, and Rolling Stone; and as you also had to prove you were serious about this internship, I wrote to Rolling Stone (and several other places) asking if I could intern with them—if I came to NYC all the way from Ireland.

They wrote back — everyone wrote back — and said yes.

I didn’t win the competition, but I did manage to fund a two-week visit to New York, which was definitely one of the greatest, most life-changing events I’ve ever had. I visited Esquire, Print Magazine, Steve Heller at The New York Times Book Review, and I spent a whole week in and out of the art department at Rolling Stone. Everyone was wonderful. I came home a fortnight later determined that the magazine world was for me.

After I graduated, I moved to London. I had no contacts, I didn’t have a British school or university background, but I had to try to find work, and one good thing about magazines is they all listed names and phone numbers on the masthead. Derek at Rolling Stone had told me about how his career started at Radio Times, under the legendary art director David Driver, so I thought, ok, let’s try Radio Times.

I called the art department and told them I was a freelance designer available for shift work, and they told me to come in a couple of days later with my portfolio to show the art director, Jenny Fleet. Of course, I had no magazine experience whatsoever at this point, and my portfolio was mostly self-generated illustration, not even college work, but I did have my design degree, and I talked passionately about magazines. RT had an illustrious tradition of commissioning illustration, which, again, I could talk passionately about. And, most importantly, Radio Times was a machine; they had hundreds of pages passing through the art department every week, so they always needed extra help. Jenny started me the following week.

In fact, I ended up freelancing there for two years. It was an invaluable experience in every way: not at all glamorous, but a fantastic practical education in the day-to-day world of publishing.

Early inspirations: (Clockwise) English illustrator Aubrey beardsley; roger dean’s album cover for “Tales from Topographic Oceans”, Irish stained-glass artist harry Clarke (Queens of Sheba, Meath and Connaught) and irish fantasy artist jim fitzpatrick

The list of roles that you’ve held in publishing is a mile long. What about magazines did (and perhaps do) you find particularly appealing?

I always used to say that print magazines are the most perfect form of communication. Unlike video or film, magazine pages stay still: you can take your time looking at them, and you can tear pages out and stick them up on your wall. Unlike books, magazines are—historically—designed to be disposable: you can toss them in the recycling when you’re done. Magazines usually feature a range of voices and perspectives: their subject matter changes as time goes by, and the best of them reflect developing ideas and changes in their audience’s world. Magazines don’t stand still, but any single edition is always a time capsule, capturing the zeitgeist and giving a more honest picture of society’s preoccupations than any history book. For creators like photographers, seeing your work reproduced BIG on the pages of a magazine like Vogue or T Magazine is far more gratifying than on a two-inch phone screen.

Nowadays many commercial magazines are struggling with print, as we are all too aware, but there is a continuous stream of new independent titles launching. And what I love about these is how much creative freedom they have and how passionate their editorial teams are.

You worked at successful magazines all over the world during the halcyon days. What was that like?

Fun but stressful! “Successful” has different implications in different parts of the world, especially when it comes to finances. I don’t think there’s been a time or place in my three-decade career, even in the 90s and early 2000s, when agreeing budgets and securing talent have been plain sailing. It’s always been a struggle, it’s just that once the struggle might have been, “Mario Testino can’t shoot our 10-page cover story because he’s already booked for British Vogue,” whereas now it might be “How do we shoot a 10-page cover story with a total budget of $1500?”

As an art director, much of the time you’re too busy thinking about how to get the next issue out, or how to resolve a problem in the team, stressing about the demands of your editor, or fighting with the advertising department, to spend much time thinking, ‘Hey, I’m art directing Vogue, isn’t this cool?!’ People often assume that working on glamorous titles means you live a glamorous life, but in my experience art directors are usually the last people stuck in the office on a Friday night, trying to get pages to production and waiting for final copy to turn up!

That said, working on different titles in different countries has always been what motivates and stimulates me, and the greatest thing is always the people: the excitement of new audiences and working with new creative teams—their reaction to what you’re doing, and what they teach you while you’re doing it.

In GQ India, for instance, lots of our photographers worked on Bollywood productions, and the people featured in the magazine were Bollywood stars. British House & Garden taught me about shooting interiors, which is totally different to fashion or portraiture, and introduced me to a whole other type of audience. Art directing Myself magazine in Munich meant discovering German photography — a huge and vibrant creative field, which you just wouldn’t be exposed to if you if you spent all your career in London or New York.

Another thing I enjoy is the sheer adventure of stepping into the unknown. Launching Vogue in Russia in 1998, in the run up to our inaugural issue the ruble collapsed, the government collapsed, and all our bank accounts were frozen. When we launched GQ in Thailand the Editor in Chief, a former political writer, was called in for questioning by the military junta. We launched Vogue Arabia with a Saudi princess in the Editor’s seat. The debut of Glamour Iceland coincided with a volcanic eruption, and when we launched Vogue in Greece the offices were fire-bombed by terrorists.

I’m not sure these count as “halcyon days” but they certainly were entertaining!

Hayes says she enjoys “the sheer adventure of stepping into the unknown.” Before Vogue Russia’s inaugural issue in 1998, “the ruble collapsed, the government collapsed, and all our bank accounts were frozen.” Credits: (Left to right) Photograph: Mario Testino / Photograph: Hedi Slimane.

In 2012, the September issue of American Vogue still clocked in at 916 pages. In 2023, eleven years later, the page count was down to 121. Times have obviously changed in a great many ways, both for magazines and of course for the people that make them. How have you had to adapt over the years and how has the evolution of this business affected your career choices?

Like most people, I think, a lot of my career choices were made for me—or perhaps I should say that offers were made which I felt I couldn’t refuse.

I’d been a magazine art director ten times (twice on Russian Vogue), and worked in the art world, as Art Director of Phillips contemporary art auction house, when, in 2012, I was offered the job of Art Director of New Markets and Brand Development for Condé Nast International. This meant I would no longer be working on a single title, or running my own art department, but it also meant I spent the next six years consulting on 14 launches around the world — and it was based in Paris. Definitely an offer I couldn’t refuse.

At the end of 2018 my favourite ex-boss had just joined the board of a luxury retail group and asked me to be their consulting art director, running a team of 17 designers in Moscow and St Petersburg, which was an exciting new challenge, so I said yes to that. Of course, Covid hit in 2020, so that ended, but I was already working on a freelance project as art director and co-author of The Fashion Yearbook, plus I was getting asked to do lecturing here and there. So it wasn’t really a conscious choice to step away from being a full-time magazine art director. It’s just that other things came along.

And I’m grateful for that. I know a lot of art directors who have had very successful careers in magazines, spending 20 years or more on major titles, who were made redundant as companies cut back and retrench. It’s extremely difficult for a lot of these people to adjust to the loss of status—and income.

How are the skills that you learned during your years in magazine publishing applicable to other roles and tasks set before you?  

Working with photographers and illustrators is, of course, something I still do for commercial clients, and for my students. I lead the Professional Practice module on the Photography BA course at Oxford Brookes University, so I’m teaching them about stuff like how to run a shoot, how to manage budgets, how to interact with clients including art directors and picture editors. I have a regular lecture called “Unsolicited Advice for Young Photographers” where I share random things I’ve learned over the years — everything from the importance of scouting a location before a shoot, to who’s in charge of ordering lunch, to how you can and cannot leverage connections — with real life horror stories about what happens when things go wrong.

And of course, for my work with The Fashion Yearbook my experience of international photography and publishing in newer and emerging markets is vital.

I think for everyone the broader skills you need to run an art department and successfully produce a magazine are invaluable in many other areas. Time and people management; the ability to negotiate, delegate and close a deal, as it were, these are always useful, no matter what you’re doing.

I find that years of experience in simply LOOKING at things — looking at Polaroids on a shoot, looking at layouts your team is working on, reading copy, analysing, and giving feedback, especially under pressure — is incredibly useful when it comes to student assessments (of which I have many nowadays).

One specific magazine skill I bring into my academic career is layout, good design practice and presentation, the art of visual storytelling. In other words, I give a good slide deck! But seriously, an awful lot of academic presentations are dull, dry, or flat-out ugly. I try to make a point of delivering lectures that look great and are fun. There’s no reason why a lecture can’t be cool, exciting and memorable as well as informative.

In the six and a half years that Hayes spent as art director for condé nast international, she helped launch 14 magazine titles, including “Vogue Thailand”, the german women’s magazine “Myself” and “Glamour” iceland among many others. Credits: (starting top left, cLockwise) Vogue CS, photograph: Branislav Simoncik, creative direction: Jan Kralicek / Vogue Arabia, photograph: Inez & Vinoodh, art direction: Loretta De Goede / GQ Middle East, photograph: Peggy Sirota, art direction: Loretta De Goede / Vogue Thailand, photograph: Hans Feurer / Vogue Ukraine, photograph: Chad Pitman / Vogue Hong Kong, photograph: Nick Knight / Glamour Iceland, photograph: Silja Magg / Condé Nast Traveller Middle East, Photograph: Martin Westlake, art direction: Sabina Parkinson.

Tell us about your work days and/or projects now.

As a freelance now running my own business, and after years of travel and long days in far flung offices, I’ve been trying to manage things so I can spend a LITTLE less time working. I try to take an afternoon off to see an exhibition or visit a museum at least every week or two, but I have that freelance thing of never wanting to say no in case you never get another offer!

The list of projects I’m working on at any given time varies nicely. I currently have commercial clients for whom I work on branding and brand identity, commissioning photography and video. Finding talent around the world is a key part of my skill set these days, and recently I’ve been working on video shoots in India and eastern Europe. I design and art direct books with Legacy Creates, a boutique South African media group, and we’re currently engaged on a private commission for a musician in Capetown. Plus I’m still on the masthead of Vogue Hong Kong as their Design Director at Large. They celebrate their fifth anniversary in 2024, and I’m very proud of the team there. Having worked on layouts for the launch issue, it feels really special to be still involved.

The other big part of my work these days is in education. I feel very lucky to be spending so much time with students these days, as they give me a totally different, and constantly changing, perspective — it really balances the “historical” side of my career. At Condé Nast College of Fashion and Design in London I lead a Multi-Media Production module, which is part of the “Creative Direction for Fashion Media Masters”/MA course. And at Oxford Brookes University I head up the “Professional Practice for Photography” module for undergrads. Both terms start in January, so the beginning of the year is pretty hectic. With my background in industry rather than academia, what I teach is very much based on the real world, not just theory, and I firmly believe it has to be as contemporary as possible. So, for instance, this term there’s quite a lot of classroom discussion about AI. With the photography students, topics around ethics get more pressing every year.

I also lead a module on “Media Branding and Business Development”, which exercises a different part of my brain, and deliver an annual lecture called “Legacy Media in a Digital World” at Leeds University, which I’ve been doing for coming up on eight years. Every year that slide deck changes because every year the media business changes, it’s really fascinating to track.

One of your many interesting roles is being a teacher to a new generation of visual artists. Do you have students whose goal it is to work at a magazine or to create their own? If so, what do you tell them and what is the nature of the jobs waiting for them out there?  

Lots of my students want to work at or start magazines, and I tell all of them the first thing you have to do is BUY magazines. If you don’t support the industry, how do you expect it to support you?

Then, I say, it’s all about research. Look at magazines — and books, and films, and exhibitions — and train your eye. Find out who’s doing what, learn people’s names and make contacts. Making contacts in our social media dominated world is SO much easier than it was when I was starting out, but you still have to make the effort.

As for the jobs that are out there, again, they need to do the research. My Multi-Media Production module introduces students to a range of subjects, including experiential design, working with photography, typography, film and moving image, VR and AR, etc — fashion and design is a wide field. A lot of my Creative Direction students start off thinking they can graduate and instantly get a job as “a Creative Director.” It doesn’t help when brands and companies are forever calling celebrities “Creative Directors”! I tell them that job titles tend to reflect salary and experience, and you need to start at the bottom, and you need skills: learn how to use Adobe InDesign, learn how photographers work and how you can work with them, learn how to behave in teams, assist a stylist, produce your own blog or newsletter, use your Instagram account for more than just beach selfies and party pics. Practice your craft.

The thing is, everything is changing super-fast. At one point the masthead of Vogue Scandinavia, for instance, included a Nature Expert, as well as a Gender Fluidity Expert, a Diversity and Inclusion Editor, and someone doing paternity cover. So, there’s a job for you out there, you just have to think very hard about what that job might be, and if you don’t find it, maybe you have to make it yourself.

Hayes has been art director and co-author of German publisher Callwey’s “the Fashion yearbook” since 2019.

How have students' prospects and expectations changed over the years? I was wondering about this because when I was in journalism school in the early aughts, it was never a topic that we might start our own magazine. Back then the goal was solely to work for one of the glossy behemoths in a major city.

I am still constantly surprised at how many students want work on magazines—and how many want to start their own magazine; despite the fact they rarely buy them. I did a workshop on exactly this topic last term (I started my own independent photography magazine, DayFour, back in 2002, which I published for ten years). A major project which I set allows students to set their own brief, and choose any platform, and no one ever seems to want to set up a website or devise a social media campaign: they all want to make books or magazines, or zines. I think there’s a romance about print, no matter what. And despite the dwindling number of places you can buy print magazines, the number of titles out there is honestly proliferating all the time.

In your LinkedIn bio it says that you’re always happy to discuss (…) “where this fascinating industry might be going next”. Where do you think it’s going next?

Well, I still believe in magazines as a concept, for all the reasons above, but whether the traditional publishing companies will survive or in what form, I don’t know. You can define a magazine as simply “a collection of ideas” but I also believe in the print aspect. I see so many amazing new titles all the time, and I know how passionately people feel about making magazines, so I think they’ll survive. Indie magazines often print on great paper, at a reduced frequency, at a higher cover price. Their content tends to be very focused. The traditional commercial model of lots of pages, lots of topics, lots of issues… I just don’t see the point of that now, and I think publishers feel the same, but they have trapped themselves in the monthly or weekly cycle. They are leveraging their brand names across different platforms and media, but there’s a limit to brand elasticity.

Follow Fiona on Instagram @theartdictator

(Re)Direction: Brenda Milis, From Magazines to Trend-Forecasting for Adobe

Brenda Milis in Adobe’s downtown NYC office

Welcome to (Re) Direction, an ongoing miniseries of 1:1 interviews that examines how all of the many skills we learn at magazines can be put to good use in other industries too! Our second installment is a conversation with Brenda Milis, who spent many years photo editing and directing for major magazine brands. For the past seven years, she has been Principal of Consumer and Creative Insights at Adobe, where her well trained eye helps her spot the latest visual trends and cultural shifts to share with other creatives, communicators and brands.

A few sample pages of the 2024 Adobe Creative Trends report. Brenda conducts extensive research year-round, focusing on emerging creative styles, consumer patterns, technology advancements, and stock buyer data to identify emerging visual styles and themes hitting mainstream commercial relevance.

Tell me a little bit about how your path originally took you to photo editing/photo direction for publications specifically. Was this a field you were always interested in?

Growing up, I was a huge fan of fashion magazines; their beautiful imagery and design inspired me for many years. The glamorous and aspirational representations of a big world with a whole range of lifestyles was entrancing to a kid growing up in a sleepy California beach town.

I didn’t think about working for a magazine until I was in Graduate School at the New School for Social Research in NYC. I had my BA in Art History from UC Berkeley and was in a Masters’ program for Media Studies with a focus on the construction of gender. A friend of mine landed an internship at Harper’s Bazaar and I was immediately so envious of her opportunity to work at a magazine that I decided to find an internship of my own! Happily, Jane Magazine brought me into their incredible photo department to intern with their Photo Director and that is how my career in photo editing and production began.

What about working for publications (on paper and online) did—and perhaps do—you find particularly appealing?

Well, I just love print publications—the sensorial combination of both the visual and the tactile—there’s really nothing like it for immersing yourself in the look, feel, and world of a magazine.

In terms of working for print media, there is a unique excitement and satisfaction in the ideation and production process: getting a lineup of articles for a new issue, collaborating with art and photo to decide the mood and look of the visuals you want to produce for each piece, choosing a photographer, videographer, (or illustrator), working closely with the artist to produce the shoot, get the images in, work on an edit that hits all the beats needed, and have that published as a magazine you can hold, read, share copies of. A truly beautiful and collaborative experience (with a whole lot of stress and headaches in making it all happen!). All this from someone who has worked in the digital realm for many years now!

You worked at several very different publications in different parts of the country, both in print and online. How did you experience your work and work environment at the time, and how did your work for print and digital media outlets differ?

Here’s a laundry list of where I’ve worked in media for the rainbow of flavors that was my media career from 2000-present:

Jane magazine (intern), Fitness magazine, Style.com/Condenet, Outside magazine (with you, Jana, in Santa Fe, NM!!), Men’s Health, Marie Claire, Time magazine, Bloomberg Pursuits and Bloomberg Markets magazines, Refinery29, Vox, WSJ magazine, Adobe

Brenda worked as the Deputy Photo Editor at Outside magazine (top and bottom Left) from 2003 until 2006. She was Director of Photography at Men’s Health magazine (right) back in NYC  from 2006-2011. These are samples of the work she produced with her respective teams. Credits (clockwise from top left): Jeff Lipsky, Mitchell Feinberg, Ture Lillegraven, Levi Brown, Frank Ockenfels 3; Robert Maxwell

My entry into online media began because of an opportunity to launch Condé Net’s site, “Style.com”, the site for both Vogue and W magazines. I mean, who wouldn’t want to dive into that territory for these incredible publications?

I worked there for a few years and then went back to print, needing a break from the frenetic pace of digital startup culture and NYC post 9-11. I was lucky enough to move between digital and print for some time and the work environments are completely different. With print publications—even weeklies—there is a rhythm in terms of getting the lineup for each issue, working on ideation, assignment, and production; there’s a structure and flow even though deadlines can be really tight, last-minute changes are often made, and stress definitely runs high.

In terms of working digitally—whether for media or producing imagery for tech—things are constantly changing. It’s really a roller coaster, and the phrase “we’re building the bridge as we cross it” is used so often because it’s actually true.

Now, because I’ve been lucky enough, hustled enough, and/or tend to follow both my head and my heart, my shifts between digital and print have led me to believe that as much as I truly love print media (and I feel strongly it’s rising again), after so many years following the regular schedule of print publications and gaining experience in the crazy unpredictability of online or digital-only work, I’ve come to prefer the latter as I love the experience of literally building the future. In addition, Adobe is a company that supports creatives and creativity so that’s a true win-win for me.

And what led you to then pivot away from working in media? Can you remember a single decisive moment, or was it a long slow-mo good-bye?

Oh, I absolutely remember the moment when I realized it was time to get out of media.

I was working at Vox to re-brand their style site “Racked.com.” They had virtually no budget. I had come to Vox from Refinery29 and R29 was quite savvy in being scrappy, but knowing where and when to budget real money for certain types of shoots.

It was early in the morning, and I was walking from the subway stop to the Vox office and thinking about how the media landscape continued to change so quickly (this was towards the end of 2016). I was thinking about how digital ad revenue really couldn’t sustain photo and video production; it couldn’t support the kind of quality that really excites and engages viewers. I realized the whole structure of online media just didn’t make sense. Too many stories were being posted online to be viewed or even found.

It just didn’t add up. The ambitions of online media didn’t make sense, particularly for those sites that were attached to print publications but were producing content that had nothing to do with what was being published in print. There was no overall brand-look, voice, or feel. I had even talked about this problem with a few HR leads at major publishing companies. They were pretty dismissive. It’s as if it made no sense to them to create a world out of their brand—one that was cohesive no matter where their content was shared. During that quick morning walk to work, I knew I had to start looking beyond media which made me very sad, yet grateful for the clarity as I’d been wondering how to continue to develop my career for some time.

What sorts of options did you consider, if any? Or was the path to your current job very clear?

Frankly, I didn’t know what to do or where to go. So I just leaned into LinkedIn and began reaching out to every creative I knew. After about 4 months while I continued to work, I landed at the nascent Adobe Stock, much to my delight.

Samples of work produced by Brenda and her team at Bloomberg Pursuits, a quarterly luxury magazine where she was the Director of Photography from 2012-2015. Credits (Clockwise from Left): Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari; Thomas Prior; Richard Burbridge; Tim Flach; Stefan Ruiz

What does your job entail now?

While I work specifically for Adobe Stock, as part of the Creative Cloud the imagery we produce and acquire provides visuals for all of the apps and Adobe Express.

My title is Principal of Consumer and Creative Insights: I lead research for Adobe Stock; identifying the kinds of imagery (whether photo, video, illustration, Generative AI images, and more) rising in commercial relevance and viewer engagement. In a nutshell, I’m a trend forecaster. I serve as a content strategist, providing thought leadership for both our customers and contributing artists to help them develop their work and evolve their brand in alignment with the styles, aesthetics, and themes rising in media presence and consumer appeal.

Because the world and visual landscape are changing at an incredibly fast pace, my role is to provide data and research to support Adobe’s own content acquisition and to support creatives in their own project planning. I really love it, frankly.

Are any skills that you learned during your years in publishing applicable to your current role?  

There are probably quite a few since we live in a visual culture and world. No matter what type of creative project that has a visual focus you work on, you are continuing to present in a style that audiences and viewers have learned to respond to. I think of visual messaging as a language. In fact, communicating in pictures and design feels just as much like my ‘native tongue’ as written and spoken language.

Everyone is marinating in visual culture, then as creative professionals and now as ‘content creators’. We learn how to work with visuals as language—we become more fluent than most. Those of us who want to be in this professionally over the course of our career continuously learn how to develop and evolve that language; i.e. stay up-to-date on how still and motion imagery and design are changing and why in order for our work to stay relevant and engaging—vs. becoming stale, dated, redundant and uninspired. Evolve, don’t get stuck in repeat. It’s important to have a lifelong learning mentality. We are living in a time where people always need to update their skills and pay attention to what the current standard expectation is. 

Okay now I’ll actually answer the question directly. These are the big elements or skills that transfer directly from my time in media to my current role:
My work in photo direction, editing, and production has always revolved around the question of how do I tell the story with imagery that will be true to the written word as well as engage and retain viewer attention. How do I visually tell the story that I’ve been given to illustrate (choose an artist to shoot it that fits and may be a bit surprising, exciting, inspiring and give someone whose work I love a chance to show their amazing talent); Or, if I’m working with stock and licensing, get ready to spend some hours finding the right imagery.

Also central is knowing how I can elevate and evolve the brand I work for (magazine, website, client). This has always been my headspace in every job; how can I improve the brand’s look and feel while staying loyal to its voice, audiences, etc? All while continuing to improve and evolve the brand, to keep it fresh, exciting, relevant, surprising and push it consistently into the future to grow its audience and stay up to date with a changing world and culture. This is how I got so darn interested in visual and creative trends and dove into them many years ago while being a photography director.

Going digital earlier than most, brenda was one of the founding photo editors of condé net’s “Style.com”. After years of working for print publications after, she re-entered digital media as executive photo director of Refinery29 (samples of that work are shown here). credits (Clockwise from top left): Brooke Nipar; Rockie Nolan, Mitchell Feinberg; Guy Aroch; Kiernan Monagham

What are some major achievements or favorite parts (maybe they are not the same) in this new line of work?

This line of work—being a creative and content strategist—doesn’t feel new to me anymore because I’ve been at Adobe for almost seven years, but it does feel very distinct from the work I did in media before coming to tech, yes.

First, I enjoy my work with Adobe customers because really, they are all creative professionals and I think the information I can bring to them—both generally and specifically to their own brand or company—gives them a very informed and fresh perspective from what they are hearing and seeing within their own company. And this helps them feel excited to move forward with their work. That’s a great feeling and fuels my own passion for what I do.

The second part of my role that is equally compelling is how my work has an impact on the ongoing evolution of Adobe Stock and Adobe content: By sharing my research and insights around cultural shifts that affect the kinds of visuals our customers are becoming more interested in, how content tastes and demand is evolving. My work helps drive the development of our stock offering as well as helps train the generative abilities of Firefly (Adobe’s Generative AI model) to meet the evolving visual needs of our customers.

If you could chart out your trajectory until retirement (if you believe in retirement), what are important stations and/or goals still ahead for you?

The irony isn’t lost on me that my forté is forecasting shifts and changes in the creative landscape yet seeing where my own professional future as a creative is extremely difficult. And that’s because I have a range of tried and true techniques and skills for the former but working across many years as a creative professional is very different from conducting objective research.

In addition, I have learned (begrudgingly) that I only have so much control over the specifics of my career. It’s important to note that while my professional history looks like a straight path from the outside, the lived experience has been an almost constant hustle and staying alert to opportunities for growth.

What I can do is list my consistent career priorities:

1. Look for work that feeds your passion and your heart: for me that’s working with imagery and other creatives. Working with corporate creatives for me is just like working with editorial creatives: we all want to make exciting, beautiful, work and we love collaborating with and supporting each other. That remains a constant delight and hope I never lose that thrill.

2. Be willing to work for free in the very beginning if necessary to get your foot in the door, understand that you are a beginner and that it takes time to develop your skill set and your career. After you have established yourself in the industry, make sure you get paid for your expertise. I have always known that I bring a lot of talent to my work because I have a very strong skill set via education and a wide variety of work, a ton of passion and loyalty, and I am willing to give whatever it takes to do a good job for my employers.

3. Always be willing to learn from everyone around you. That’s key, and I really love working in a multi-generational environment because each age group has a very different perspective, cultural experiences, and skills to offer. Also, if I stop learning I stop collaborating and that’s what keeps us excited about this work. I reckon really live by “get busy living or get busy dying” in both my professional and personal life. It’s probably why I love living in NYC so much—there’s always so much to take in, consider, and then share out to a range of internal teams at Adobe and customers in my own work.

How do you feel the media industry and the work entailed with it has changed over the years in the country you reside in?

The media industry in the U.S. is basically unrecognizable to me from where and when I began over 20 years ago. This is why I committed to creating an exit plan back in 2016. From my perspective, to produce high quality, compelling and exciting media coverage—both words and imagery—you need a strong budget, just like any major industry.

I was always a huge fan of ads in magazines because that paid the bills, that kept the lights on and for me. It also reflected the zeitgeist of the season and culture so ads were and remain great resources to stay in touch with what a wide range of industries are betting their audiences will respond to and create brand loyalty. I literally watch and study ads and commercials in print and on tv (yes, I stream platforms that run commercials on purpose and have subscriptions to sites that run commercials from around the world and use these in my work now) to track trends across multiple sectors. So yeah, I’m one of the only people who doesn’t groan when Amazon Prime and Hulu run ads.

I am seeing a growing interest in print publications now; particularly with Gen Z but also across all age groups because so many of us are tired of looking at screens all day. But in order for the business of print publications to really flourish once again and not stay in the ‘zine zone’, a real business strategy and budget needs to be built. People really long for more analog experience and we live in a time where more and more people are trying to balance digital and analog. It would be a perfect time to push print; particularly with Gen Z growing up and earning money.

People want to feed all their senses, not just their eyes. Hence the explosion of podcast popularity (close your eyes after a day on screen and listen) and IRL immersive experiences and events (think the Sphere in Las Vegas, the traveling immersive art exhibits like Van Gogh, the resurgence of raves, immersive music concerts and amusement parks, etc) because they are sensorially starved from digital lifestyles.

I’m interested to see where media goes from here. There’s so much talent and we’re back to a place where there’s a big appetite for content that isn’t so much fluff. I’m not proposing long-form journalism because I don’t think most people have the patience and focus for that since we’ve all been trained by social media. But I will venture to say that many young people are looking for alternatives to create a balance in their media diet.

Follow Brenda Milis on Instagram @bam11215

(Re)Direction: Michael Nolan, From Magazines to Design for Film & Television

(Left) Michael nolan in the office he shares with a colleague and fellow film-designer. On the wall behind him is work created for practice, as well as props created for movies. (Right) ebay is a great source for the sort of reference material seen here. / Photos: Judith Nolan

Welcome to (Re) Direction, an ongoing miniseries of 1:1 interviews that examines how all of the many skills we learn at magazines can be put to good use in other industries too! First up is Munich-based Michael Nolan, who spent the beginning of his career designing for various publications in Germany until he had a life-changing conversation. Now, his deep knowledge of typography, layouts and design history is a vital part of his new job as a designer for film and television.

“homework” michael created for the annie atkins workshop

Tell me a little bit about how your career path took you to magazines. Was this a field you were always interested in?

I studied communication design in Wiesbaden, Germany. For a long time, I didn’t quite know where I would end up after graduation because I was drawn to so many fields (illustration, photography, and print design). Towards the end of my studies I took part in an editorial design workshop put on by Petra Esveld, who was art director at the Dutch version of Elle Magazine. The workshop was great and at the time I thought that magazine design might be perfect for me because it combined my varied interests. 


After graduating, I worked full-time in magazines for several years, starting out as designer and working my way up to deputy art director. Later, I freelanced for digital and print outlets.

I never regretted my decision to go into magazines. I learned a ton and was able to try my hand at a lot of things, like doing illustrations and working on replica apps.

What about magazines did (and perhaps do) you find particularly appealing?

I've always enjoyed storytelling. At magazines, I was able to collaborate with journalists to figure out how to best to get a story across to the reader. What I particularly loved were the feature stories at GQ Germany; working conceptually on openers, being able to play around and having the time to be very detail-oriented.

Interestingly, I noticed that I was doing something back then that I now do a lot in my current job. Often, I was inspired by a shoot or headline to work in a historic graphic style. For example, an opener could look like a vintage champagne-bottle label, an airline ticket, or medication packaging from the 60s.

michael started his career as a magazine designer (above layouts created for gq Germany). his love for typography translated well to his new job.

What led you to pivot away from publication design and to graphic design for film? Can you remember a single decisive moment, or was it a long slow-mo good-bye?

I can actually pinpoint a decisive moment about five and a half years ago that finally led me away from editorial design to my new field of graphic design for movies. I was freelancing for a magazine and during my lunch break a colleague told me that she’d recently done some design work for a movie and really enjoyed it.

I had heard about this field in passing before but had never looked into it in any depth. After we had talked for a bit, I thought to myself that this job sounds incredibly versatile and interesting. And I'm a huge fan of movies and TV shows anyway.

Tell me about the thought process that led you to what it is that you currently do. Did you consider other options, or was it very clear where you wanted to go?

I had also been thinking about going into UI/UX design. After creating replica apps for magazines, I thought that might be an option. But when I found out about design for film, it completely pushed that plan to the sidelines.

While I was researching the job, what and whom you need to know, I kept coming across two names: MinaLima, the design studio that did the graphics for all the Harry Potter films, and Annie Atkins, who created the designs for Wes Anderson's "Grand Budapest Hotel," among many others.

When I saw what wonderful work could be done in this industry, I was hooked. Fortuitously, a few weeks later, Annie was offering a weekend workshop in her native Dublin called "Graphic Design for Filmmaking". The two-day workshop allowed me to get an overview of the job to see if I wanted to work in this field. Annie also gave us some hugely helpful practical instruction, like how to age paper, how to make a vintage passport from scratch and legal pitfalls to keep in mind, to mention just a few. The homework that rounds out the workshop allowed me to produce my first pieces for my film-graphics portfolio, complete with feedback from Annie.

When I told a friend about taking part in this workshop and my interest in working for films, she gave me a small job in a project she was working on: I designed two book covers for the first season of the German-Austrian thriller series “Pagan Peak”. After that she and I worked on a first small movie together (“Hannes”), then a Netflix movie (“Freaks”), and after that the second season of “Pagan Peak" where I now had lots to do.

In the early days, I still worked for publishers and did the film stuff on the side. But soon, more and more requests from increasingly bigger and more complex film productions came rolling in. Projects where I would be booked five days a week for several months.

About two years ago, a prop master whom I had already worked with asked me if I would like to do the graphics for a movie about the Claas Relotius scandal called “Tausend Zeilen”/“A Thousand Lines”. Retolius was a reporter for the German news magazine "Der Spiegel” who had fabricated large parts of his articles.

Graphics for set decoration created for the movie “Tausend Zeilen” (English title: “A thousand lines”).

The project was screaming my name because it was clear that there would be a lot of editorial design needed. An entire fake “Der Spiegel”—in the movie called "Chronik”—had to be developed with hundreds of pages of magazine content, including all of the ads. In general I found the project very exciting, of course, due to my publishing experience.

To take this on, I had to give up a bigger editorial job. This cemented my decision to focus exclusively on films. In fact, I haven't done anything else since.

Explain to us what your work currently entails. Did you have to acquire a whole new skill set? Or did some of the things you learned at magazines transfer to your new job? If so, which ones?

The range of tasks for a film graphic designer is very large. First and foremost, you create all of the graphic props needed for the set design. You could be working for contemporary or historical or science fiction movies. Overall, I take on a lot more varied tasks now than I did in editorial design. For example, image research, editing and artwork creation are often part of my job. I write many of the smaller texts and headlines myself. Additionally, research (especially for historical films) and coordination with the legal department are two major areas of responsibility.

A "script breakdown" is used to work out what exactly needs to be designed for the film. That can be posters hanging on the walls, store fronts, logos for companies featured in the film, book covers, record covers, drink labels, product packaging, newspapers, magazines, certificates, documents and even flooring. But also handmade stuff, like letters, sketches, children's drawings, and notebooks. Depending on your skill set you also do calligraphy, illustration or graphical user interfaces (spaceship navigation screens in science fiction movies and shows, for example).

Over the years I’ve created a range of interesting items including taxidermy drawings of forest animals, logos for secret societies (for two different productions), vintage puzzle packaging, lawyer faxes from the 80s, the shopfront of a peep show in Hamburg in the 80s, and children's drawings of a crime suspect, among many others.

taxidermy sketches, childrens’ drawings and leather diary (plus logo) designed for the tv show “Der Pass” (English Title: “Pagan Peak”). Michael created agatha Christie’s imaginary passport as a personal project.

My editorial experience helps me a lot. I’ve had to create many fake magazine covers and spreads as well as newspaper pages, tabloid magazine covers, brochures, flyers and other print products. A sense for composition and typography is incredibly helpful. An eye for good photography and illustration also helps, as I'm often responsible for image research.

In addition to skills gleaned from workshops and the web, I learn many things on the job. For example, messages in film have to be conveyed clearly and quickly because the amount of time they are seen on screen is often super short. For example that could mean that you have to make magazine covers very concise. Headlines a bit bigger than you would make them for a real magazine, no distracting details, etc.

With every film, you may be presented with a set of tasks that you as a designer have no experience with. Especially with historical films, you have research how things were produced back then and how you can imitate these characteristics quickly and cost-effectively with current printing and production techniques.

strip-joint graphics created for the amazon Prime Series “luden” (English title: “The Pimp”).

If you could chart out your trajectory until retirement (if you believe in retirement), what are important stations ahead for you?

I really enjoy my job and can well imagine continuing in this vein for many years to come. It's a definite plus that you can learn new skills with paid work. I also have the feeling that it's a good area in design to grow older with. You not only gain skills and experiences that come in handy again and again, but also a library of physical objects you’ve already created that you might be able to use for similar jobs.

On the other hand, the job of graphic designer for film can also be very stressful. You have long days, an insanely high workload, a lot of fires to put out because things were rewritten in the script, or requirements change and problems have to be solved.

And, unfortunately, this industry is not particularly family-friendly. As father to two kids, I do sometimes yearn for an office job with regular working hours, where you can completely switch off after work. I often also work weekends and late into the night.

Logo for “Brenninger's” bar in the movie “Hannes” / Photo: © STUDIOCANAL GMBH, LAILAPS FILMS GMBH

Do you miss magazines? If so, what about them? If not, why not?

Definitely. In film, everything always has to happen very quickly, and I often don't have time to really polish things and make them beautiful. You have to get it done and sometimes you have to cut corners; it may well be that it's only visible for two seconds and blurry in the background anyway. Magazines can be tweaked until every graphic element is just right. I even miss fine-tuning rags and kerning.

I also always liked the atmosphere in editorial offices, story meetings and working with editors–even the tug-of-war over character counts and image sizes! As far as designing goes, in film you're often more or less on your own. You tend not to have any interaction with other graphic designers, so I share an office with someone else—also a former magazine designer—in the same industry. That way we can also pool our skills and exchange ideas. 


logo created for a prop used in the movie “Hannes”

What would your advice be to young editorial designers looking to enter the film market? Is it advisable, for example, to pick up as broad a skill set as possible along the way? How would you go about acquiring such a skill set, do you have any tips?

If you want to do this, it’s not a bad idea to live in a city where many movie and TV productions are actually being made. It's not a job you can only exclusively do remotely. Often, people want you to work on site.

I think it also helps to have a broad range of interests, to be able to do a little bit of everything. Being able to draw and illustrate or do calligraphy helps in the profession is a definite plus (though not a requirement). For many jobs, it's also good to know how to do photo retouching, for example, to retouch an actor into an existing stock image.

In the United States, you need to have a demonstrable skill set to join one of the unions.

This is an up-and-coming area of design. Annie Atkins, for example, wrote a very a popular book about the topic that was published by Phaidon not too long ago, and she has a Domestika course coming out in six months. There are lots of workshops and talks happening now. If a trip to Ireland for a workshop is not an option, other film designers also offer guidance. Designer Leah Spencer assembled a great PDF with information for all designers who want to get their start designing for film and TV in the United States.

Follow Michael Nolan on Instagram to see more of his work @michael_nolan_graphic_props