Deez Interviews: Meet the Adweek designer who's into media brand ads and getting formal training from both "Fame School" AND YouTube

Happy Friday, Deezers! For those new to the fam, we change things up a lil on Fridays and publish an interview with a ~young media professional~ on what shit’s really like out there. Feel free, as always, to send me recommendations on people to talk to!

This week’s interview is with Yuliya Kim, a designer at Adweek. She talks to us about designing for web/print/everything, how GIFs reliably spice everything up, and how formal training figures into being a creative today. Enjoy!

//

The interviewee: Yuliya Kim (follow her @yuleskim)

The gig: Graphic designer at Adweek

The hustle:

Since majority of our news depends on the work that other people do, it’s very much so a firefighter lifestyle. Some days are slow, leading me down some mysterious corners of the internet, while other days I am the “this is fine" dog meme surrounded by media flames. All in all, everything does end up just FINE.

Aside from daily requests, I also work on upcoming magazine issues, digital packages and other projects that may be in the works. We use our digital issues to fill in during our “dark weeks” (when we don’t have a print issue) which gets really fun for me, since I get to play an art director role.

I build the visual strategy with our reporters and editors to ultimately package the issue with a concrete look and feel, which includes all the opening art, data points, videos and all other social and supporting assets. There are also some days I have to photograph and shoot video or help out the social team with visuals. It’s a lot of different things, which is an awesome learning opportunity.

Does it take a different mindset to design for the web vs. print?

You’re absolutely right that designing for print and web are totally different. I briefly designed a couple pages for the magazine, and while that was fun, I also felt quite limited.

You are literally confined to just a page or two, so I didn’t have as much freedom with some of my artistic endeavors. However, having such structure is often a huge time saver and can give you that easy, breezy feeling of getting something cool done.

Designing for the web requires a weird balance of thinking outside the box and discipline. The web is just SO saturated, each piece is competing with that of so many other publications. So the task is, how do I make this stand out, how do I keep the readers and how do I make sure they leave having learned something? Once a reader picks up a physical magazine, there is already way more commitment (or, guilt) to keep and read the issue, whereas everything online seems (and perhaps, is) much more disposable.

Can you also talk to us about the process of designing and adapting art for different platforms on the web?

People who “Facebook” and people who tweet are typically… very different people. So yes, there is definitely strategy behind the way we push certain things out on Instagram as opposed to LinkedIn. Knowing what kind of audience lives on each platform and how they like to communicate is major to deciding what stays and changes about a post.

For example, the best way to lift a story for us or to give it second life is to use a GIF. So, if I know a story is visually compelling, I’ll prepare a couple and send it to social.

My favorite however, is packaging stories for Instagram stories. Since it’s the most visual platform, this is where I have the most fun. If a story is visually compelling, I rely heavily on those assets. If not, I try to use simple design but spruce it up with GIFS, animations and pair up with an editor for sharp copy.

You've had extensive formal training as a creative — you attended LaGuardia High School (AKA Timothée Chalamet’s school), got a journo degree, and are currently studying at the School of Visual Arts. How important do you think that kind of training is for creatives today?

I’ve been very privileged to have parents that though they (admittedly) don’t completely understand art (or what my job is) they have always been very supportive of my creative endeavors.

Laguardia High School, “the fame school,” is a highly competitive public school for which I had to start building a portfolio in 7th grade, pass an interview, and audition through a three part drawing test. Still, I would say, that J-School is what truly helped me become a designer and a good one. I learned to see strategy and purpose behind design.

So, I would say even if your background is in engineering, english, math, Harry Potter studies or WHATEVER, you can become a designer if you truly understand purpose. Become a good listener and approach design in a problem solving manner — you’re not just creating something pretty, remember that you are creating something with function.

As for formal training and continuing education, be selective about what kind of classes you choose. If you are completely fresh to design, pick less conceptual classes like “branding” and more technical classes that will focus on a specific program like Illustrator or After Effects.

If you are a disciplined being and/or are on a budget, I would highly recommend online classes like Udemy. If you can splurge a bit, or work for a company that can do that for you, definitely pick a place that will have qualified instructors. A semester of training could go a long way in your career. If those options are not available, YouTube is your friend. I’ve held jobs/freelance gigs solely from what I learned from YouTube (shhhhhh).

At Adweek, you're immersed in the world of storytelling from brands’ points of view. What do you think news media could stand to learn from the "other side”?

I think “advertising” sounds a bit dirty, and let’s be real, sometimes it’s a dark, dark place. BUT, I truly believe that in the right hands, advertising is a good power. And in the wake of fake news, I think we are finally starting to see a crossover between journalism and advertising.

NYT’s campaign on “The Truth” is a good example and CNN’s commercial “This is an Apple,” among many others from Vanity Fair and The Atlantic. It also goes to show that people responded well to these campaigns and most of the publications increased their subscription rates.

What is the best-designed ad you've seen recently?

This is a tough question to answer! There are SO many awesome ads that come out every year, so I’ll just bring up a couple that really stood out to me. P&G’s “My Black is Beautiful” campaign had a powerful 2 minute video about “the talk” that parents have to have with their children.

Every time I watch it, I get goosebumps. When the mother says “you’re not pretty for a black girl,” I automatically have flashbacks to when I craved words that could reassure me that I’m not just “[insert _____ here] for an asian girl.”

Droga5 came out with a brilliant campaign for Tourism Australia by posing as a very believable (but fake) Crocodile Dundee remake. Other than folks in the ad industry, I don’t think people necessarily seek out to watch commercials, so posing as a movie (something that people actually do want to watch) was a smart move. Of course, this dupe only worked because the quality was good, the ad was funny and hello, Margot Robbie and Chris Hemsworth? Yeah, people won’t be too upset about that.

Lastly, I always find Google’s “search” campaigns VERY effective. Here is one that they released for the shit year that 2017 was and a badass one for international women’s day, titled “Searching for Gender Equality.

//

That’s it for this week! Don’t forget to follow Yuliya on Twitter, and have a well-designed weekend!

Like Deez Links? Forward this to someone who knows if LaGuardia High School is what “Step Up” is based on.