Our cover designer Jessee Fish shares a few thoughts on her career and how sensitivity can propel creative work
Q: Did you always intend to work in advertising or branding design? What drew you to this work?
A: The short answer is no—I originally wanted to be a vet and a musician. Long answer is my first foray into design actually occurred in high school when I was on the yearbook team. It forced me to be super familiar with Adobe programs and it’s also the reason I applied to a bunch of journalism schools when I was looking at colleges. I ended up studying visual art at the University of Chicago instead. It was a very conceptual, theory-heavy program and I was mostly focusing on large-scale installations, sculptures and painting, so I’ve never actually had any formal [design] training.
By the time I graduated, I knew I wasn’t interested in pursuing a career in the contemporary art world and was better suited to design, which is something I had been pursuing on my own time outside of my coursework. I do feel very strongly about maintaining a kind of analog, organic touch in the digital work I do. As an artist and designer, it’s important to bridge those two worlds, and what draws me to digital design is that it’s perpetually shifting in response to culture in the same way art always has.
Q: When you receive a client brief for a new campaign, what are the key pieces of information you’re drawn to?
A: So much of this process is very emotional, for all parties involved. I frequently work with clients who have no idea how to verbalize exactly what they want, so a big part of my job is to be super sensitive to the overall feeling propelling the creative and where they’re coming from. I’ve compared the design process to therapy more than once—in that it’s cathartic but can also be agonizing—because it’s a very personal, extractive process that goes beyond colors and specs.
Q: Where have you felt pain when working with marketing teams? How have you overcome any differences in communication or focus?
A: The biggest struggles I’ve run into usually occur in one of two situations: There are too many stakeholders in any one project, or you’re dealing with someone’s immovable ego. If you’re reviewing the creative for a newsletter with a room of nine people, there’s a chance you’re going to get an unproductive amount of feedback and the rounds of review will be eternal. Having a thoughtful process and internal hierarchy is critical no matter how big your company is, as well as making sure that everyone feels heard.
Q: I see that you recently moved from working as a designer at an ad agency to working as art director of the brand Winc Wines—congrats! What are some of the changes you expect in this new role? Will you miss working for different brands?
A: Thank you! Two weeks in and it’s frankly been wonderful. My stint at the agency was an incredible learning experience that allowed me to create wonderful stuff for some huge brands, but I found myself missing the energy and control that comes with smaller startup-type brands and I decided to move in-house, which is a trend I’m seeing with a lot of brands and designers. I tend to always have a few freelance projects on the back-burner no matter where I am, just to keep things interesting, so I’m not too concerned about getting bored.
Q: Now that you’re in this new role, what are you focused on learning about the brand that will help in leading Winc’s art direction?
A: The nature of working with a company in-house is that you have a finger in every pie—instead of only being concerned with social, I have to touch base with the email folks, the web folks, the paid media team and the social media manager. It becomes an exercise in being aware of everyone’s different needs and making sure the creative feels cohesive despite the variety of platforms.
Q: You do some freelance work and personal projects in your own time. How has that impacted your professional work, be it creatively or time-wise?
A: It’s important for every creative to have some kind of side project that brings you joy. In the past, it’s been a money issue, and while I was in college I was picking up absolutely everything that came across my desk. As I got older and more experienced, I was able to get more selective and take on pro-bono work or freelance projects that just made me happy. I’m always on the “I should just quit and freelance out of a van and travel the country with my dog” fence, but for now I’m perfectly happy with that nine-to-five, queen-size bed, indoor plumbing life.
Sarah Steimer is a writer, editor, podcast producer, and yoga teacher living in Chicago. She has written for Marketing News, Chicago magazine, Culture magazine, the Pittsburgh Post- Gazette, and other outlets.