Design examples?

[Johnny Chase]

Hey all, just had a quick question regarding the sending of design examples. When you guys send them, do you usually just send front pages? Say the ad asks for four examples. I'm assuming I would just send my four best front-page works? Or do you send two fronts and two jumps?

I know it's a dumb question, it's just something that's new to me.

 

[flexmaster33]

I just send pdfs of the sports fronts

 

[Mark2010]

When I have them available, I send the whole section. Part of that is because I'm one of those guys who spends a lot of time and effort on the inside pages (including agate) and one of my strengths is making the section well-organized and flow from front to back.

 

[proudpittsburgher]

You send your four best. Sonetimes that is an inside page Of course a good mix is always best. I'm guessing the hiring manager wants to know that you are a well rounded designer. To me, I want to see how a designer worked through a problem so if you have a front where you can explain your thought process and how you worked to tell the story through your design/illustration work that's a plus as well.

 

[JRoyal]

Send your best pages, whether they are cover or inside pages. Do no feel compelled to include a jump page because you send a cover. I'm in a position now where I hire designers, and unless they did something awesome with the jump page, I don't care about it. I assume a designer who laid out an awesome cover can handle a jump page. And if not, I'll figure that out later in the process.

However, I'm also impressed if someone does something cool with inside pages, like game previews or such. If you can show a good hand at treating inside pages as well as front-page packages, it can only help you.

And Mark2010, you're wasting time sending the whole section. Maybe other papers are different, but I just want to see a handful of pages that wow me. Until recently, I did almost all sports, and unless you're doing something amazing with your agate, it isn't going to wow me. Maybe impress slightly, but it won't wow me. It's agate. I used to take a lot of time on agate, too, and I would NEVER have sent an agate page. Maybe if it's a job where you'll be doing both writing and design, they may look through it, but if I ask for 4-6 samples, I want 4-6 pages. I go through them the first time, and if they don't catch my attention, they go into the discard pile.

 

[SportsDesigner]

Send covers. Only send an inside page if it's, as mentioned, a special game preview box or non-traditional feature. Email PDFs and then mail printed out copies from Kinko's on nice letter-size or legal-size paper. Don't send actual newspaper pages - you're better off printing something nice and a bit smaller on white paper.