To succeed in today’s newsroom, a page designer needs strong technical and design skills. But just as important are strong people skills. How well you listen, learn, collaborate, and share your knowledge can make or break your career. The quality of your creative relationships can determine whether you grow and advance at your newspaper or struggle and stagnate.
We learn more from the difficult people in our lives. Check below for five aggravating art directors and five difficult designers you may encounter. You’ll find some theories and tips for dealing with them.
Five aggravating art directors: Tips for designers
1. The vicarious designer
FAULT: Overbearing. Takes your page design and makes it his. Has a hard time appreciating others’ solutions. Takes the mouse out of your hand.
CAUSE: May be a rookie. May not see that his role is to help you do good work, not to do your work for you. May envy your assignments.
CURE: Be as active as he is in the relationship. Good-naturedly refuse to be taken over. Come to him with ideas. Show him several options for every page. And take the opportunity to learn all you can from this (probably technically skilled) art director.
2. The absentee parent
FAULT: Unavailable. Gives you next to no feedback.
CAUSE: May be overwhelmed, may feel too busy with her own work to guide yours. May not be getting much direction from her boss; may not see herself as your coach. May lack confidence to size up pages quickly and say something useful.
CURE: If you can’t flag her down, leave proofs for her. If you seek her feedback, you compliment her, building her confidence and your relationship. If all else fails, get feedback wherever you can.
3. Premature evaluator
FAULT: Overanxious. Happens by your screen when you are beginning a project and has a violent reaction. Horns in on your creative process.
CAUSE: May be getting heat from her bosses for pages. May feel stretched, not able to take time to cultivate designers.
CURE: Yield. If someone is inclined to be controlling, you make it worse if you resist; you strengthen her resolve to control you. Instead, hear her out and respect her fears. Negotiate the timing of her editing, telling her it takes a some creative noodling for you to have anything worth showing.
4. Demolition expert
FAULT: Insensitive. Orders sweeping changes to your pages on deadline.
CAUSE: May have high standards but be preoccupied with his own work. Not available to see your work till the last, inconvenient minute.
CURE: Interview him off deadline. Ask him to explain his design ideals and peeves. Talk through pages with him as early as possible. If you can’t get his attention, leave proofs, circling questionable elements. Note on proofs when you need to hear back, leaving time for changes.
5. The great sphinx
FAULT: Inscrutable. May have a great eye, great visual instincts but is not very articulate about design. Says “I don’t think that works” or “That just doesn’t do it for me” when she reviews your pages.
CAUSE: Strong right brain, where spatial skills like drawing and design reside. Sometimes so focused on visual judgments that she can’t fully access left brain, where analysis and communication originate.
CURE: Interview her. Show her tear sheets and annuals, asking questions till you begin to see pages through her eyes.
Five difficult designers: Tips for art directors
1. Stealth designer
FAULT: Likes to slip weird stuff in the paper when nobody’s looking. Bends style, revises pages after they’ve been edited.
CAUSE: Pride. Needs to put her mark on pages, hates giving up control. Feels inadequate asking for help. Flies solo even when it hurts her work.
CURE: Confront her if she makes unilateral changes; point out that it hurts the trust between you. Then, appeal to her pride. Tell her you’ll be her silent partner in greatness, slipping her software tips, and design books. And pair her with another designer on a big project, so she begins to see the benefits of creative collaboration.
2. The pushover
FAULT: Weak-willed. Lets coworkers blow deadlines and budgets, much to the detriment of his design work.
CAUSE: Fears confrontation. Doesn’t know how to stand up for himself (and for design principles) without being unpleasant.
CURE: Do postmortems of pages that suffered from his poor negotiation skills. Help him see how he could’ve managed competing interests. Arm him with specific phrases to use next time. Also: Ask yourself if you’ve laid the necessary groundwork in the newsroom for designers to say no to unreasonable demands. Do they know you will back them up?
3. Rebel without a cause
FAULT: Feels the need to fight everything. Dislikes style, dictates from on high, limits of any kind. Has a hard time collaborating, especially with the boss.
CAUSE: Hates authority.
CURE: Refuse to get involved in a power struggle. If she pushes you, do not push back. Simply and matter-of-factly ask for what you need from her in her work. Always talk design merits so you don’t seem authoritarian or capricious. Find things to like about her work or approach, to help change the dynamic between you.
4. The artiste
FAULT: Consistently places art above journalism. Sees a device in an annual and wants to use it at the earliest opportunity, whether or not it works with the story. Resists making changes for news. Doesn’t read the paper.
CAUSE: May not be confident in her ability to roll with news. May not appreciate the rhythms of good stories.
CURE: Inventory her skills; pair her for a time with somebody with poise on deadline. Also, light the fire of journalism beneath her. Involve her in animated story conferences. Ask her about stories in her section.
5. The great defender
FAULT: Can’t take criticism. Has a thousand defenses, a thousand reasons why something went wrong (none his fault).
CAUSE: Lacks confidence. Probably beats himself up; your criticism feels like overkill.
CURE: Talk with him. Often. And not just about work. Don’t limit your conversations to negative feedback. Pick his brain about design issues. Expand your partnership so he doesn’t hate to see you coming. Ask other managers who work with him to tell you when he overcomes a production hurdle, so you can give him credit for that.
