I had the pleasure of visiting the offices of Vue Weekly last week and interviewing the very charming and talented Chelsea Boos.
Can you tell me a little bit about what you do as a Graphic Designer at Vue?
I mostly build advertising for clients that don’t have access to design services. So, they send us their information; their logo, text and images of whatever they would like to advertise and then we build an ad for them. When I’m finished my official work I can take on other projects. So for example, I organized an exhibition, Under Cover, of cover illustration art that we’ve had commissioned for the covers. We had an opening at the Artery and planned a reception and then a sale at the Royal Bison Art and Craft Fair. I’ve done some branding and design for a sales and marketing kit and right now I’m working on the website and planning for a film festival we’re going to do as part of the Sex Issue in the Fall.
It seems like a fair bit of the work you do falls outside of the printed weekly paper, why do you think that’s important?
I think it’s a good way to connect to the community, beyond the written word. It’s important to interact and get out there.
Do you see that work, like the film festival, as design work?
In a broad sense it could be considered design but I’m also interested in just building relationships in general.
What do you like to have around while you’re working?
Music is a big one, there’s always a lot of music coming into the office so we have no shortage of new music and sometimes very bad music playing at any given time and coffee, a lot of coffee. Good fair trade organic coffee is the best. Good people to work around, there are a lot of creative people at the office and that’s important.
How does your team work together?
Really well, I mean we are always joking around, telling stories and having impromptu brainstorming sessions. we have an open concept office and everyone is really at ease around each other so it’s really easy to come in and join a conversation and get an idea or bounce ideas off of each other.
I’ve been working more and more with the editors, for example the style photo shoot was an editorial project that I offered to help on so Brian (the Associate Managing Editor) and I ended up working closely together.
Do you notice a different between when you’re designing for print and designing for the web?
Like animation? (laughing) I love animation! Animated GIFS are the funnest. I mean, we have so many considerations with the paper that we use, newsprint is so hard to print on that you have to over compensate for everything but everything looks good on the web. you don’t have to worry about the colour, what colour it’s going to turn to when it gets printed or how dark it will be and if you’ll even be able to see their faces. On the web everything is just perfect.
Is there a culture around working for an independent weekly?
Definitely there is a culture around it. You feel like you’re always at the cusp of something and always have your ear on the ground for what’s new, what’s happening and looking at other cities to see what they’re doing. We have subscriptions to all the Canadian Weekly’s so we’re always looking for ideas and trying to copy them and improve on them. It’s about discovering things and being really open and excited about what’s happening in Edmonton.
Did the city change to you when you got this job?
Definitely. Yeah, I was sort of a recluse. (laughing) Well, not so much, I liked going to music shows and art shows and things but I became way more aware of what was going on all the time. Especially in the areas that I don’t go and partake in as much, I still know more about them then I did before.
What’s the schedule like for putting out the paper every week?
We don’t find out the outline of the paper until Monday and we print on Wednesday morning so we only have about 36 hours to put it together and print it. It’s a very short timeline but it gives us a lot of time in the rest of the week to work on other things like the events and special issues, and photographing shows for the website and just all the extra stuff.
Chelsea made this schedule for herself when she started
A workflow diagram Chelsea made for herself when she started
Planning the paper
Detail of the plan, Page 4.
Can you walk me through your work process?
We get a docket and it says what to do and has all the specs. I look at my email for all the picture and text and then I build the ad and send it back and usually there are a couple rounds of revisions. Once it’s approved I send it to Pete, the Art Director to be laid into the paper. Eventually all of the ads are done and we round them up and send them all at once. And then we check the PDF before we send it for print on Wednesday morning.
On the editorial side, which I’m not really a part of, the editors send in their stories and Pete lays them into the paper and then they get proofed in a similar way. So everything is getting proofed on both sides and then eventually it’s all approved and gets PDF’d and we check them and send them.
How do you deal with creative blocks?
I just keep pecking away at it. It’s more like the other way around where I’ll get a flash of inspiration and take advantage of it and the rest of the time I’m just building ads and pushing things out of the door.
How do you stay inspired at work?
I try to bring in a lot of magazines and books and actually surf the internet a lot for inspiration.
Where do you see yourself going from here as a designer?
Since I started working here I’ve become a lot more interested in web design and illustration. I’ve done a couple of covers since I started and those are fun. I’m not sure exactly, I think I’m just going to keep pushing the boundaries of what I know and trying to expand my base of knowledge around what I’m able to explore here.
Posted in Methods on July 20, 2010
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