Clarion West seeks interim art director

Clarion West's current art director, Elizabeth Lawhead Bourne, is on leave of absence due to a family medical emergency, so we're looking for an interim art director beginning immediately, and continuing at least through the end of the year. The workload through December will be approximately 20 to 30 hours. The stipend is $500 - which is really only a token payment, of course.

Here's the job description as written by John D. Berry, type guru and the previous art director:

The art director manages the visual identity of Clarion West. Working with the Director of Communications, the Website Manager, and the editor of the Seventh Week newsletter, the art director makes sure that Clarion West presents a consistent, high-quality face to the world and to its own alumni and supporters.

The art director is responsible for designing and producing all printed materials for Clarion West, including flyers and brochures, programs and tickets for the annual reading series, and each issue of the Seventh Week. The one exception is press releases, but even these are printed on stationery the art director has designed. Everything that comes out of Clarion West should look consistent (though not always the same) and should maintain the same level of quality in typography and graphic design that we strive for in writing fiction.

The art director manages the design of the annual summer poster, as long as the Board authorizes one; the actual design and production of the poster, however, is usually done by an outside designer (for the past several years, Jacob McMurray).

The art director acts as a consultant on the appearance of Clarion West’s public website, reviewing design and graphical elements at the discretion of the Director of Communications and the Website Manager.

The amount of time that the job takes varies wildly, but the most time-intensive periods are in the run-up to the summer workshop, in the Fall when ads are due for next year’s workshop in several sf publications, and twice yearly when the newsletter is in production. Obviously, it’s more work and takes more time to create new designs rather than fitting each year’s new content into existing designs. Of course, trying out new design solutions is also part of the creative pleasure of doing this job.

I would estimate that I spend about 40 hours a year on Clarion West design and production – more the first year, when I was re-designing the newsletter format. (Admittedly, I came up with a design for the Seventh Week that takes more work to produce than a simpler, more straightforward design would have taken.) The tools I use for design and production are Adobe InDesign and some of the many professional-quality fonts that I have available. (Using OpenType Pro fonts with extra typographic features, in a program like InDesign that can recognize and make use of those features, is definitely the easiest way to handle production typography.)

Being Clarion West’s art director is an opportunity to create effective communications for a high-profile writers’ workshop. By definition, this is design that respects content. It’s worthwhile, and it’s fun to do.

Clarion West has been fortunate in its art directors; before John, Paulette Rousselle held the post. John and Paulette are both available to answer questions, but neither of them has the time to fill in for Elizabeth right now.

If you're interested, please drop a comment here and I'll get you in touch with Nisi Shawl, our communications director.

Thanks so much.