During my third semester working with University Girl Magazine, I served as the sole Design Director. This was my first real experience in any sort of creative direction role. I led a team of 10 designers through a four-draft process, providing critiques and one-on-one feedback throughout. I also designed 11 spreads myself, including the covers and the “Hookups from Hell” spread, one of our most popular sections (shown below).
With the theme “Rule Breakers,” I knew I wanted to knock it out of the park and really push the boundaries of everything we had done before, design-wise. I encouraged the designers to play with type and image, exploring how they can break the boundaries of the typical “fun-colored header, design in the bottom left corner” format we have used in past issues.
This was a complicated leadership role to take on. Getting busy college students to treat me as someone whose advice they should trust was no easy task, but I am beyond proud of the ideas we came up with together and I learned so much about publication design, creative direction and leadership along the way.
