Laid-off designer wants to help you get a job

Amy Martin is one of the 150 newsroom employees laid off from the Los Angeles Times this week. But she’s putting a spin on that devastating news: She’s offering to help her job-seeking co-workers redesign their résumés.

Amy joined the Times in September as the Calendar design editor, and was at the Detroit Free Press for almost two years before that. She won an SND award of excellence for the redesign of the Sunday On Point section in 2006, and another in 2007 for a travel special section cover. Her print portfolio is impressive, and so is her freelance work.

Amy’s not sure what her next move will be. She’s taking some time to relearn Web design skills — she’s even planning to set up software training sessions in her home so others can learn. And she has enough personal projects lined up to keep her busy for awhile.

Amy took time Thursday to answer a few questions:

I love the idea of helping others redesign their résumés. How’d you come up with it? Have you had any takers?
People are definitely interested in the help. I’m getting e-mails from staffers around the country. Helping with résumé design seemed like the most direct way to help people who already have so much on their minds. Job hunting can be really intimidating — especially if you haven’t done it in years.

Have you found others (co-workers or otherwise) who are reaching out to try to help their peers? Have you come across any helpful advice or Web sites?
Unfortunately, I haven’t been at the Times long enough to really get to know many people outside of the Features department. I think that journalism attracts people who are community-driven by nature, so I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if there are similar efforts happening on other floors. I am trying to set up a software training — probably at my house on the East Side — with some of the other designers down here — and anyone is welcome. I’m going to show some people how to use Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign; another designer is really good with Dreamweaver and has a great handle on the CS3 features that I’m not as familiar with. So we’re trying to put that together.

As far as helpful websites: I’d definitely encourage people to start using networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. LinkedIn is certainly more geared to professional networking, but Facebook has a lot of offer just in terms of helping people to stay connected. Obviously a lot of people who just lost their jobs have been here for a long time, and have formed close friendships that they don’t want to lose; it can be really scary and painful to lose close contact with people you may consider family, and certainly isolation can be one of the more dangerous emotional side effects of unemployment. Facebook has really helped me keep in close touch with my friends from the Free Press, and to feel like I’m still part of that family, which has been such a constant source of support and love through all of the change that’s happened since I left there last September. So: check out Facebook. It’s not just for college kids.

There are a number of recruiters in the LA area who deal with designers, art directors and writers:
• Wolf Creative
• Creative Circle
• Aquent
• 24|seven Talent
• Artisan Creative
• Sapient

One of the first calls I made after getting the news was to my financial planner. Mine works for free, and I’d happily share her name with anyone who wants to email me. I went to art school because I don’t understand numbers, and she keeps me on track. She’s invaluable.

I actually haven’t heard that much advice yet; I think people here are still kind of shell-shocked. This kind of change is a constant for me. I’ve had no expectation of being a “lifer” since I got out of college in 1998. Los Angeles work culture is more fluid and project-based than perhaps any place else in the country, mostly because of the entertainment industry, and I’ve become accustomed to that kind of transience, so it’s not so scary. I do feel that this whole thing is very much the Times’ loss; the journalists who have been let go are all talented and passionate and hard-working, and I have no doubt that they’ll all be assets to whatever companies hire them next.

You have some amazing illustrations and pages. What was your job at the Times? What’s some of your favorite work from the last year or so? I love the 826 posters (like the one shown); do you do a lot of freelance work?
Thank you! I worked on the Calendar section. I don’t think I’ve actually posted any of the pages I’ve done for the Times on my portfolio sites. I should maybe get on that. Honestly my favorite work — besides the poster series you mention — was for the Detroit Free Press. That paper was a perfect match for my skills and for my energy. Steve Dorsey, the AME of presentation, was an incredible mentor to me, and Paul Anger, the Editor, was very good to me, and I felt like I had a strong voice at the paper. I’m really proud of the “Celebrate Michigan” cover. It was completely an expression of the homesickness I felt during the first eight years I lived in California. I had a great opportunity to redesign their Sunday Editorial section, and I got to work very closely with Steve Henderson, who was the Deputy Editorial Page Editor on the cover packages. We had a great — and probably rare, for newspapers? — collaboration, that involved pitching story and presentation ideas simultaneously. It think it’s much more common for editors to say, “Here’s the story, it’s written, make it pretty.” But Steve would come to me and say, “This horrible thing is happening with early childhood education programs, and this is what we’re thinking might help; hit me with some metaphors and analogies, and let’s figure it out together.” And so we could talk from the very beginning about the emotional component of the editorial, and I’d pitch him visual metaphors and ideas to communicate them using illustration or photography or type or whatever the most appropriate tools were, and he would approach writing the editorial with some of those concepts in mind. It was a really great marriage of content and delivery, which is what good design is all about. Especially with those kinds of pieces, your job as an art director is to make a reader care before he reads the first word. That was really the most exciting challenge about the Free Press: to catch the reader who might be flipping through the Sunday paper just to find Red Wings’ scores or a horoscope, and make him stop in his tracks and read an editorial about water quality or public transportation or failing schools — and care about it enough to actually get involved. And I think to do that you have to employ the same concepts that ad agencies use so well; you really have to sell the emotion and urgency of a story before you can tell it.

The Free Press was a great vehicle for me to do all the things I liked to do; the staff was just lean enough for them to enthusiastically take advantage of everybody’s skills, so I also got to take a lot of my own photos and do my own illustrations. I think also because they’ve been going through so much change, they were very open to new ideas. When they hired me, I’d never done newspaper design — only magazines — so they took a chance on me and gave me great challenges, like “Figure out 10 kinds of visual sidebars we can use,” or “We need a new interactive game for every day of the week. We want them to be funny and engaging and informative. Go.” I was a wreck when I left Detroit, not only because the I made such incredible friends, but also because I still had so many ideas for them. I still have ideas for Detroit.

I haven’t been able to do much freelance since I’ve been here, as the noncompete clause is so expansive. I’m excited to get that going again soon. The poster project for 826LA has been an incredible creative opportunity. The 826 people have a really cool aesthetic and are fabulous to work with. I really believe that some of the best work can come from volunteer projects. The posters just came off the presses and are available to buy at 826LA.org/store. All proceeds go directly to their tutoring programs. It’s a fantastic organization.

What are your plans after August? Are you looking to move to another newspaper/magazine?
I’m not sure exactly what’s next. I’ve been looking at a bunch of ad agencies, and I’m going to re-learn some of the interactive software I haven’t done much with since college — Dreamweaver and AfterEffects, mostly.

I do love journalism, and I’d like to stick with it, but I also think that agency experience will make me a better conceptual visual journalist. I still want to work for the New York Times. Every Sunday is like Christmas morning when I open the Book Review and Week in Review. They do such a great job with concept. There are also some regional titles I really like, New York magazine and Texas Monthly, especially. I really love nonprofit work, and I’m interested in learning more about firms that deal with social marketing.

I’ve got some personal projects I’m excited about: I want to do a series of illustrations about some of the great indie rock shows I’ve seen here. I don’t have any portraiture in my book, so that might be a good way to round out my portfolio. I promised my step-dad that I’d make him reusable packaging for his home brewery. And my roommate will skin me if I don’t set up a silkscreen studio in our sunroom like I promised when I moved in. Also, I live next to Griffith Park, so I expect there will be lots of soccer and hiking and swimming happening in the next month. I’ve wanted to coach t-ball forever, so hopefully I can do some of that. I’m not too worried. I feel very lucky.

What’s the best way for people to contact you if they need resume advice or redesigns?
Anyone is welcome to use my gmail address. I’m also on Facebook.

Related links

• Chrys Wu has details on what some other laid-off Times staffers are planning to do.
• LA Observed has a list of who was laid off.
• Tell Zell, a blog written by an anonymous Times staffer, also has a list of those who were laid off.

Do you know of someone who’s trying to make a difference? Let me know!