SYP LDN Career Cafe – Tips & Tricks for your first 5 years in Design

Posted on August 14, 2020 in London

Getting a foot through the publishing door can be tricky. Entry-level positions can be few and far between and knowing how to put yourself in the best stead to get your teeth into a role can be daunting. Thankfully, London’s #SYPCareerCafe series is deciphering all that confusion and asking publishing professionals at every level what we need to know to start our careers in… Design.
 
On the 6^th August 2020, chaired by SYP London’s very own Farzana Khan ( @fkhan381 ) who works as a Production Controller at @HachetteKids , we gathered around our Zoom screens to listen to all things book covers and backlists, author approval and audiobooks, freelancing, regional working and avoiding insensitive stereotyping.
 
We listened to the advice and experiences of Alex Kirby ( @Mister_Kirby ) who has over fifteen years’ experience in book cover design at Penguin RandomHouse, Faber & Faber and now as a Senior Book Designer for Yale University Press ( @YaleBooks ) alongside his own freelance projects.
 
Senior Designer at Faber & Faber ( @FaberBooks ) since 2018, Pete Adlington also gave us his insights into working in Design. Before working at Faber, Adlington had worked for Canongate Books in both London and Edinburgh, giving us some often-needed reassurance that you don’t always have to tackle the Tube and London rent to work in book publishing.
 
Ebyan Egal ( @EbyanEgal ) works as Studio Manager at @headlinepg , a commercial adult division of Hachette UK. Egal manages the design process, scheduling, budget management and freelances set projects to designers.
 
Madeleine Stuart ( @_madistuart ) works as a Design Assistant at Caterpillar Books. With a BA in Illustration and experience as both a freelance illustrator and a designer for a FinTech start-up, Stuart answered our questions regarding entry-level work in Design.
 
So, what were their top tips for working in Design?

• Research the publisher you’re applying to! Lots of publishers have a particular style or colours and fonts they like to use. Get familiar with their backlist. There’s no point turning up with beautiful book cover designs for Romance novels if you’re interviewing at a Crime publisher.
• You really don’t need to eat, sleep and breathe Adobe. Of course, an understanding of Photoshop and InDesign is more than useful but an entry level position wouldn’t expect you to have it all figured out just yet. Go easy on yourself. It’s more about your artistic eye and your passion than your tech skills.
• Create a banging portfolio. Whatever type of art or illustration or design you’ve done so far, they want to see. Gig posters for your favourite bands. Book covers. Movie posters. Anything. Get creative and show off what you can do!

 
We learnt how ‘Artistic Block’ is one of the biggest challenges faced by designers. Much like writers who, when we’re lost for words, have to lap the kitchen a few times, make thirty-five cups of tea and watch a Netflix episode, designers often find it’s a twisty road to a final design.
UK Publishing is becoming increasingly aware of the overuse of silhouette cover designs for books by or about women of colour. Our panel’s consensus seemed to be that the best way of avoiding this kind of stereotyping is pushing for wider diversity in the publishing industry.
UK Publishing needs to push for everyone to feel accurately represented in book design whether it’s on the cover, around the meeting table or – nowadays – on the Zoom call, our panel asserted. We need to be extra critical of how our decisions as publishers might be received in the real world and aim to amplify historically underrepresented voices.
Our panel pointed towards the historic whitewashing of art schools across the UK and how the barriers which have historically inhibited people of colour from having access to those spaces need to be eradicated to create a more inclusive industry.
While a lot of UK Publishing has fitted fairly well to remote working amid COVID-19, our panel agreed that for designers it is often much easier to work face-to-face with colleagues. Whether it involves sending large files back and forth on dodgy Wi-Fi or needing six emails to answer a tiny query, design departments seem keen to get back in the office after COVID.
 
Is there anything else you’ve like to ask about Design? Send your questions to @SYP_LDN with the #SYPCareerCafe and we’ll get back to you!
 
As ever, keep an eye on our socials for future #SYPCareerCafe events and don’t miss our August newsletter dropping into your inboxes soon!
 
Take care!